Two offices within the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) conduct covert tests at U.S. airports—Inspection and Security Operations. The Department of Homeland Security requires that agencies use risk information to make decisions, and TSA issues annual risk assessments of threats that its program offices should consult when making risk-based decisions, such as what covert tests to conduct. Of the two TSA offices that conduct covert tests, Inspection officials used TSA's risk assessment to guide their efforts. However, Security Operations officials relied largely on their professional judgment in making decisions about what scenarios to consider for covert testing. By not using a risk-informed approach, TSA has limited assurance that Security Operations is targeting the most likely threats.


Objective To observe the efficacy of medilac-vita(combined live bacillus subtilis and enterococcus faecium granule with multivitamins) combined with smecta(smectite powder) in the treatment of infantile diarrhea.Methods Both the two groups were given fluid replacement and anti-infective treatment.And the treatment group based on it took smecta on a empty stomach three times a day and took medilac-vita mixed with cool boiled water three times a day.The control group were given xiaoer xiexieting to take two times a day.The clinical efficacy of 2 groups were observed.Results The total effective rate of the treatment group was 90.0% higher than 68.0% of the control group,and the difference were statistically siginificant(P0.05).Conclusion Treating infantile diarrhea with medilac-vita combined smecta has good efficacy,so it is worth clinical popularizing and application.


We propose a digital I/Q transmitter architecture that avoids area, complexity, noise, distortion and linearity issues of the existing solutions by allocating separate time slots to the I and Q operations during which the respective digitally-controlled RF-switched resistors, realized as arrays of MOS switches, are active. This way, the operational orthogonality of the I and Q paths is maintained and the I/Q switch arrays can be simply connected together. An example silicon realization in 65 nm CMOS uses 25% duty cycle I/Q clocks.


Land-use and land-cover (LULC) mapping is one of the significant components in environmental monitoring. LULC mapping, necessary to manage the vital resource of land, has been achieved, in recent years, by segmenting remotely sensed images (RSIs). A standard paradigm for segmentation is UNet, and this paper proposes a novel asymmetric convolutional residualrecurrent UNet architecture, which utilizes the power of asymmetric convolutions as well as residual and recurrent techniques for mapping RSIs. The proposed methodology has a couple of additional advantages. First, asymmetric convolution operations strengthen the square kernels and enhance the semantic feature space. Further, a recurrent network assists in providing rich local contextual information with the help of residual inputs. The presented model is evaluated on the WHDLD dataset for LULC segmentation and is found to achieve an improvement of 1-2% in the mIoU score compared to state-of-the-art methods.


Rising pitch movements associated with pitch accents are frequently described in terms of alignment and scaling; for example, L+H* versus H* accents vary in these parameters. We examine how 12 American English nuclear tunes, created by combining three pitch accents {H*, L+H*, L*+H}, and four edge tone sequences {H-H%, H-L%, L-H%, L-L%}, are distinguished in an imitative speech production paradigm. Bottom-up clustering analyses of unlabeled time-series f0 identify a robust distinction between trajectories that rise throughout (rise-only) and those with rising-falling movements (rise-fall). Additional clustering distinctions between tunes with different pitch accents are observed only in the rise-only cluster, and further reflect variation in holistic nuclear tune shape. For rise-fall movements, further distinctions in clustering are best defined by ending f0, corresponding to a boundary tone distinction {H%, L%}. With only 4 distinct clusters emerging from the imitated tunes, it appears that some tune distinctions are lost. Nevertheless, modeling trajectories with ToBI labels using a GAMM, and testing alignment of f0 turning points, reveals small differences between tunes in f0 scaling and alignment, distinguishing ToBI labels that were grouped together in clustering. We discuss these results in terms of the hierarchy of distinctions they imply, and categories of tune shapes.


Abstract In March 1968, following a year of violent urban rebellions, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders concluded that the United States was "moving toward two societies, one Black, one White—separate and unequal." With a team of researchers, the 11-member Kerner Commission, named for its chairman Governor Otto Kerner of Illinois, had spent a year studying the causes of the "1967 riots" in 23 cities. Segregation and discrimination had long been part of American life, and the resulting poverty had created urban ghettos completely unknown to most Americans, the Kerner Report said. Though the commission's work had been comprehensive in examining causes, it would lay blame for national ignorance at the feet of the news media for their unbalanced coverage and hiring practices. This article focuses on media reactions to the report's publication, as well as media attention related to the present day 50th anniversary of the its release to assess its historical impact as well as its relevance today and tomorrow in light of political, social and other shifts. Among the issues that arose in the original reporting was the stance that President Lyndon B. Johnson took toward the findings by the commission he had appointed.


The USNRDL experimental shelter at Camp Parka. California. was occupied continually for a period of 2 weeks by 100 male volunteers. During this period. all aspects of the shelter environment were monitored as well as the actions and responses of the shelterees. Shelter facilities were tested, the effectiveness of a proposed shelter organization and procedures were evaluated, and the palatability and preparation procedures of several food rations were evaluated. This is a preliminary report made in advance of complete analysis of the data. (auth)


The general aim of this paper is to develop a methodological framework intending to understand the decision-making framework of Freight Forwarders (FFs) regarding arrival time-of-day at a seaport terminal to pick-up an import container. Container terminals are regarded as a key element of logistics chains since they are a link between sea and the hinterland transportation modes. Workload forecasting is essential when it comes to truck arrivals for the avoidance of bottlenecks and the smooth integration of container terminals in the supply chain. Up to now, only simulation models have been developed to predict the time-of-day arrival of trucks in terminals. This research proposes the development of a behavioral framework that incorporates the various factors affecting the time-of-day choice. In order to identify these factors a pilot study was conducted involving Greek FFs. The suggested methodology will require the estimation of a hybrid model system consisting of a discrete choice model and a latent variable model. The developments of such predictive tools are expected to enhance decision and policy making at a terminal, supply chain and national level.


List of Figures.Preface.1. Introduction.2. Beginnings and Evidence.3. Athletic Events.4. Combat and Equestrian Events.5. Zeus Country.6. Pindar and Immortality.7. Body, Mind, and Greek Athletics.8. Questions of Profit and Social Class.9. The Athletes.10. Women and Greek Athletics.11. Between the Greek and Roman Worlds.12. The Later Centuries of Olympia.13. The Origin and Authenticity of the Modern Olmpu Games.Appendix A: Chornology and Schedule of the Athletic Circuit.Appendix B: Technical Note on Discuss and Long Jump.Appendix C: Modern Issues: The Marathon and Torch Relay.Notes.Glossary.Bibliography.Index.


Biofouling is responsible for more than 45% of all membrane fouling associated problems and is highly relevant for the performance of Reverse Osmosis systems (RO). Biofouling has a tremendous negative impact on the quality and quantity of permeate water and is responsible for high operational and maintenance costs associated with such systems. Current strategies targeting biofilm control on membrane systems often include the overuse of disinfectants which most of the time fail to effectively prevent biofouling build-up, can lead to the formation of dangerous disinfection by-products and represents high amounts of discharged biocides.

The present work aims to study how millimetric (1-3 mm length) alumina particles, functionalized with a well-known quaternary ammonium compound biocide (benzalkonium chloride) and immobilized into a Particle Biocide Bed Reactor can effectively contribute to mitigate biofilm formation in membrane systems. For that, the functionalized particles were chemically characterized, and their antimicrobial activity was assessed in batch and recirculation assays and quantified in terms of Culturability and Propidium Iodide (PI) uptake. Special attention has been given to biocides’s (free and immobilized) mechanism of action and potential biocide release was evaluated by High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) measurements.

The preliminary experiments indicate that the immobilized biocide (equivalent biocide concentration of 3 g/L) has an antimicrobial activity against Pseudomonas fluorescens (initial concentration 108 CFU/mL) by reducing 4 logs after 30 min and 8 logs after 1 h. On the other hand, the control assays (functionalized particles in water with no bacteria), also shows a biocide release between 0.8 and 1% to the bulk water after 30 min, both in batch and in the Particle Bed Reactor with recirculation experiments. No significant biocide increase is observed in the bulk liquid studies for two weeks. Nonetheless, some changes in the functionalization approach are being made to improve the biocidal anchoring to the particle.


Recently, the existence of a candidate a-function for renormalisable theories in three dimensions was demonstrated for a general theory at leading order and for a scalar-fermion theory at next-to-leading order. Here we extend this work by constructing the a-function at next-to-leading order for an N=2 supersymmetric Chern-Simons theory. This increase in precision for the a-function necessitated the evaluation of the underlying renormalization-group functions at four loops.


Postoperative agitation (POA) although short-lived is potentially harmful to the patient and the recovery staff [1]. In the postoperative care unit, an agitated patient requires more nurses to control his abnormal movement and apply restrains that could result in bruises of his extremities. In the postoperative care unit, we noticed that agitated patients remove venous and arterial catheters, nasal packs, oxygen masks and endotracheal tubes leading to bleeding and hypoxia.


Code-division multiple-access-random access systems are considered. Specifically, the authors consider a generalised common receiver model with transmitter-based code assignment and study a class of random access algorithms known as blocked random access algorithms. It is assumed that the number of active users at the beginning of a collision resolution epoch is known. An appropriate state of the system and control variables that constitute a Markovian decision process (MDP) are identified aid it is shown that the problem of optimal collision resolution algorithm is equivalent to the first passage problem of this MDP. The optimal control actions specify the number of users to be enabled separately for each code. The algorithm is illustrated with numerical examples.


The use of reduction instead of thermal decomposition of catalyst precursor salts after freeze‐drying resulted in significant improvement of the anodic oxidation of impure . The electrode performance was at in containing , and over in containing . Catalysts prepared by thermal decomposition of freeze‐dried precursor salts had little activity for in a stream containing . The use of stripping and electron microscopic examination showed that a higher surface area and greater number of interfaces are responsible for the improved performance. ©2000 The Electrochemical Society


The palatalized articulation for the dental and alveolar sounds has been reported as a type of articulation errors in the cleft palate speech. In the present paper, articulatory tongue gestures for this particular type of error were observed by the use of dynamic palatograph and cineradiograph.The subjects were 9 postoperative cleft palate patients with this type of articulation error, 5 males and 4 females, ranging from 5 to 23 years old. Among the 9 subjects, 2 were observed by cineradiograph and 8 by dynamic palatograph.The result revealed the tongue gestures were characterized by the articulatory contact of the back of the tongue, instead of the tip or the blade, to the posterior end of the hard palate. The tongue-palate contact was clearly different from that for the normally palatalized /s/ which is represented as [∫] in Japanese. Sound spectrograms of the fricative sound produced by this abnormally palatalized articulation showed a marked decrease in the noise energy in the high frequency range as compared to the [s] or [∫] . The results supported the previous report where characteristic features of this articulation error were described mainly by auditory analysis and by limited visual observations from the mouth opening.Articulation training was administered to the patients in order to replace the faulty articulation by the correct gestures for the dental and alveolar sounds. The tongue-palate contact pattern which was nearly identical to that in normal subjects was observed when the patient reached the clinically acceptable goal.


Gate oxide electric fields are expected to increase to greater than 5 MV/cm as feature size approaches 0.1 micrometers in advanced integrated circuit (IC) technologies. Work by Johnston, et al. raised the concern that single event gate rupture (SEGR) may limit the scaling of advanced ICs for space applications. SEGR has also been observed in field programmable gate arrays, which rely on thin dielectrics for electrical programming at very high electric fields. The focus of this effort is to further explore the mechanisms for SEGR in thin gate oxides. The authors examine the characteristics of heavy ion induced breakdown and compare them to ion induced damage in thin gate oxides. Further, the authors study the impact of precursor damage in oxides on SEGR threshold. Finally, they compare thermal and nitrided oxides to see if SEGR is improved by incorporating nitrogen in the oxide.


This paper studies the trajectory optimization problem in a scenario where a single rotary-wing UAV acts as a relay of data payloads for downlink transmission requests generated randomly by two ground nodes (GNs) in a wireless network. The goal is to optimize the UAV trajectory in order to minimize the expected average communication delay to serve these random requests. It is shown that the problem can be cast as a semi-Markov decision process (SMDP), and the resulting minimization problem is solved via multi- chain policy iteration. The optimality of a two-scale optimization approach is proved: the optimal trajectory in the communication phase greedily minimizes the communication delay of the current request while moving between the current start position and a target end position (inner optimization); the end positions are selected to minimize the expected average long-term delay in the SMDP (outer optimization). Numerical simulations show that the expected average delay is minimized when the UAV moves towards the geometric center of the GNs during phases in which it is not actively servicing transmission requests, and demonstrate significant improvements over sensible heuristics. Finally, it is revealed that the optimal end positions of communication phases become increasingly independent of the data payload, for large data payload values.


The historical development of funding and administering roads in New Zealand is briefly described. As a result of the backlog of work following World War II, the need for improved administration and funding resulted in the establishment in 1954 of a central road fund with dedicated revenues provided by road users under the management of a national roads board. The board's original policies and subsequent emphasis on maintenance and extension of sealed surfaces are described. A system of state highways was created and progress was made in providing roads appropriate to the country's needs. An important aspect of the management structure has been the co-operation between the board and territorial local authorities formalised through a system of district roads councils. With changing economic conditions and changing requirements in the road network the board has also had to change its policies in recent years. Although funding arrangements have changed there has been no change in functions and responsibilities. The chief objective remains the same - to provide a roading system adequate for New Zealand's needs. (a) (TRRL)


Background: Engagement in therapeutic activity among stroke inpatients is advocated by many rehabilitation professionals. However, there is a lack of published evidence to indicate whether this is currently being achieved. Objective: To investigate the extent and types of 'rehabilitation' activities on a new neurological rehabilitation ward, and examine change in patients' behaviour related to the new environment and new initiatives. Design: Five one-week observation periods were conducted over two years, with a total of 67 patients being observed. A comparison was made with results of an earlier study of stroke patients' activities conducted at the same hospital. Results: Patients spent an average 43 min per day with therapists (9% of the working day) and this was only marginally supplemented by self-exercise (2% of the working day - approximately 10 min). However, the provision of a new rehabilitation environment was associated with a marked decrease in the time patients spent at their bedsides, and a decrease in time spent passively gazing or watching others. Conclusions: Overall there was some positive change in patients' behaviour. We suggest that structured guidance is required from the whole multidisciplinary team to stimulate more self-directed therapy practice and recreation.


Eggplant is an important vegetable that belongs to family Solanaceae. Fruits of eggplant are rich in phenolic acids. Chlorogenic acid makes up to 90 per cent of total phenolic acids present in the eggplants fruit flesh. Eggplant hydroxycinnamoyl CoA-quinate (SmHQT) is the central enzyme that modulates the last step of the chlorogenic acid pathway of eggplant. Here, we have analysed the sequence of eggplant SmHQT protein in eggplant. The sequence obtained from the NCBI was aligned using MUSCLE. After that, homology modelling was performed using MODELLER 9v15. Model with Dope Z-Score of −1.596 was selected and verified for viability under real conditions using several online tools. Also, the docking was performed with this model. Overall, this could be useful in developing eggplant varieties rich in phenolic acids especially chlorogenic acid.


The continuous improvement in energy efficiency of existing data centers would help reduce their environmental footprints. Greening of Data Centers could be attained using renewable energy sources or more energy efficient compute systems and effective cooling systems. A reliable cooling system is necessary to generate a persistent flow of cold air to cool servers that are subjected to increasing computational load demand. As a matter of fact, servers' dissipated heat effects a strain on the cooling systems and consequently, on electricity consumption. Generated heat in the data center is categorized into different granularity levels namely: server level, rack level, room level, and data center level. Several datasets are collected at ENEA Portici Data Center from CRESCO 6 cluster - a High-Performance Computing Cluster. The cooling and environmental aspects of the data center is also considered for data analysis. This research aims to conduct a rigorous exploratory data analysis on each dataset separately and collectively followed in various stages. This work presents descriptive and inferential analyses for feature selection and extraction process. Furthermore, a supervised Machine learning modelling and correlation estimation is performed on all the datasets to abstract relevant features. that would have an impact on energy efficiency in data centers.


To evaluate the results obtained with the laparoscopic appendectomy to qualify the safety and effective alternative. A retrospective study, in a trial of 64 obtained patients of the Hospital Angeles de las Lomas and of the Hospital Espanol de Mexico, from 1997 to June of the 2001 in a group of surgeons. Each patient underwent laparoscopic surgery, to the surgeon's approach. Results: The average of length of hospital stay was of 68.12 hours, the average of surgical time was of 66.96. there were lower complications as ileus in 6 (9.37%) patient, fever in 3 (4.68%), 3 higher complications as infection of the trocar place, (2 onfalitis), and 5 cases of conversion (7.28%), 2 for acute inflammatory process that worsted the mobilization of the appendix, 1 appendix laceration, 1 abscess and 1 peritonitis, 13 patients they were placed drainage (20.31%). Conclusions: The above-mentioned demonstrates that the technique is safe and effective that can be carried out in any patient, still in cases of perforated appendix or gangrenous, without more complications. These results are promising to begin a study prospective randomized trial.


Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the ever‐changing profession of the Health Information Specialists.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is a literary essay.Findings – Health Information Specialists/librarians need to adapt and change constantly, in order to keep up with all new developments.Practical implications – This paper should be of interest to anyone involved in academic health libraries.Originality/value – The paper offers a viewpoint on the current and possible future situation of Health Information Specialists, especially in South Africa.


Chronic low‐grade inflammation, or meta‐inflammation, which may occur in obese subjects, is related to the infiltration of macrophages into adipose tissue (AT) as adipocyte number and size increase. The increased count in fat cells is correlated with an increase in adipose tissue macrophages (ATMs). These ATMs can secrete pro‐inflammatory cytokines which can have effects on the surrounding adipocytes. Omega‐3 fatty acids (FAs) reduce inflammation through direct competition with omega‐6 FAs, the precursors of the inflammatory eicosanoids, as well as through changes in gene expression of inflammatory molecules. Less is known about the effects of omega FAs on pro‐inflammatory cytokine production by immune cells, such as macrophages. The objective of this research was to determine the effects of omega‐3 and omega‐6 FAs on the production of nitric oxide (NO), a signaling molecule secreted by activated macrophages which is involved in mediating inflammation and production of the pro‐inflammatory cytokine interleukin‐6 (IL‐6), in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)‐activated macrophages. RAW 264.7 (murine macrophages) were incubated with 100 μM of sodium salts of linoleic acid (LA; C18:2, omega‐6), arachidonic acid (ARA; C20:4, omega‐6), or eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA; C20:5, omega‐3) for 24 h. After pre‐incubation with FAs macrophages were stimulated with 0.01 μg/ml of LPS for 6 h. Conditioned media was collected for NO and IL‐6 quantification via Griess assay and ELISA, respectively. FA treatments were cytoprotective, resulting in higher percentages of live cells than both control and LPS‐treated cells (Trypan blue exclusion method; p<0.0001, two‐way ANOVA). LPS‐stimulated macrophages pre‐incubated with LA, ARA, or EPA produced less NO than LPS‐stimulated macrophages without FA pre‐incubation (p=0.0001, two‐way ANOVA). Pre‐incubation of macrophages with LA, ARA, or EPA decreased IL‐6 production in comparison to LPS‐stimulated macrophages, with omega‐6 FAs having a more pronounced effect than omega‐3 FAs (p<0.0001, two‐way ANOVA). In conclusion, both omega‐6 and ‐3 FAs decreased activation of murine macrophages and decreased production of the inflammatory molecules NO and IL‐6, with omega‐6 FAs having a more marked effect than omega‐3 FAs. The stronger anti‐inflammatory effect of omega‐6 FAs on murine macrophages, compared to omega‐3 FAs, warrants further investigation.


Imatinib is an effective tyrosine kinase inhibitor, used in the treatment of advanced or inoperable gastrointestinal stromal tumors. Despite its efficacy, resistance is often developed among a portion of patients. Resistance to imatinib can be divided into primary and secondary resistance, with the latter becoming the focus of many recent researches. Research on the mechanisms of secondary resistance may lead to the identification of novel therapeutic strategies.

Key words:
Gastrointestinal stromal tumours; Drug resistance, neoplasm


Photovoltaic (PV) module behavior is not linear in nature with respect to environmental conditions and hence exhibits nonlinear PV curves. There is only a single point in the nonlinear PV curve at which the power is maximum. Therefore, special methods have been proposed to track this maximum power point (MPP). This paper proposed an intelligent method for MPP tracking (MPPT) based on adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) controller. The proposed system consists of a PV module connected to a DC-DC isolated Cuk converter and load. A MATLAB/SIMULINK-based MPPT model is built to test the behavior of the proposed method. The proposed method is tested under different weather scenarios. Simulation results exhibit the successful tracking of the proposed method under all ambient conditions. Comparison of the tracking behavior of the proposed method with the perturb and observe method is also presented in the simulation results. In addition, a 220 W prototype with the help of dSPACE 1104 data acquisition system is built and tested under practical weather conditions on a sunny day as well as on a cloudy day. Experimental results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. These results exhibit satisfactory performance under different practical weather conditions.


Prior studies have demonstrated the utility of microRNA assays for predicting some cancer tissue origins, but these assays need to be further optimized for predicting the tissue origins of adenocarcinomas of the liver. We performed microRNA profiling on 195 frozen primary tumor samples using 14 types of tumors that were either adenocarcinomas or differentiated from adenocarcinomas. The 1-nearest neighbor method predicted tissue-of-origin in 33 samples of a test set, with an accuracy of 93.9% at feature selection p values ranging from 10−4 to 10−10. According to binary decision tree analyses, the overexpression of miR-30a and the underexpression of miR-200 family members (miR-200c and miR-141) differentiated intrahepatic cholangiocarcinomas from extrahepatic adenocarcinomas. When binary decision tree analyses were performed using the test set, the prediction accuracy was 84.8%. The overexpression of miR-30a and the reduced expressions of miR-200c, miR-141, and miR-425 could distinguish intrahepatic cholangiocarcinomas from liver metastases from the gastrointestinal tract.


Transition of fish farming from subsistence to sustainable semi commercial activity in Uganda Fish farming in Uganda has not been taken to semi commercial levels by small scale famers due to many challenges. They range from lack of fish seed, quality fish feeds, lack of market, poor infrastructure, unavailability of trained and experienced staff, poor extension methods and poor project planning and implementation. Many interventions have been done to rectify the situation but the gap still exists. You have to look at what farmers have, where they are in terms of development, what they can afford, their understanding level, their culture, their environment which will enable you to understand their needs. Dictating to farmers is wrong, instead you have to involve them through their experience, understanding level as they grab new ideas which will determine how they will adapt and develop them within their local setting. Paying particular attention to detail will develop industry by ensuring that intended goals are achieved. Sustainable development and transition of the industry will need appropriate technology which the farmers can afford economically. Sharing of information in a group is also a great pillar in building sustainable institution as they can improve their operations, brings bargaining power in product marketing as well as sharing costs. Thanks to the intervention of CIRAD project in Eastern Uganda in the year June 2010 to June 2011 entitled, "Research In action Partnership"' which unveiled the way to follow to bring profitability in the aquaculture sector.


The invention discloses an ultrasonic imaging detecting method of a mushroom type root part of blades of a steam turbine and a phased array energy transduction device. According to the invention, the ultrasonic phased array detecting method and the energy transduction device which are adopted are good in acoustic beam accessibility; ultrasonic emitting acoustic beams can be changed through wedge blocks, thus the acoustic beams can enter the mushroom type root part of the blades to cover all key detecting parts so as to compressively image and inspect a component with a complex geometric shape; the focus dimension, the depth of a focusing area and the directions of the acoustic beams can be optimally controlled under the condition that a probe is not moved or is moved slightly; and the detection speed, the scope, the resolution ratio, the signal-to-noise ratio and the sensitivity can be improved; and furthermore, the imaging is clear, and the reflection echo of a defect can be quickly and accurately positioned.


Introduction : Mass spectrometry approaches are very attractive to detect protein panels in a sensitive and high speed way. MS can be coupled to many proteomic separation techniques. However, controlling technological variability on these analytical chains is a critical point. Adequate information processing is mandatory for data analysis to take into account the complexity of the analysed mixture, to improve the measurement reliability and to make the technology user friendly. Therefore we develop a hierarchical parametric probabilistic model of the LC-MS analytical chain including the technological variability. We introduce a Bayesian reconstruction methodology to recover the protein biomarkers content in a robust way. We will focus on the digestion step since it brings a major contribution to technological variability. Method : In this communication, we introduce a hierarchical model of the LC-MS analytical chain. Such a chain is a cascade of molecular events depicted by a graph structure, each node being associated to a molecular state such as protein, peptide and ion and each branch to a molecular processing such as digestion, ionisation and LC-MS separation. This molecular graph defines a hierarchical mixture model. We extend the Bayesian statistical framework we have introduced previously [1] to this hierarchical description. As an example, we will consider the digestion step. We describe the digestion process on a pair of peptides within the targeted protein as a Bernoulli random process associated with a cleavage probability controlled by the digestion kinetic law.


In this paper, we propose a physics-based analytical model of novel InAlN/GaN High Electron Mobility Transistor (HEMT) by considering the quasi-triangular quantum well with minimal empirical parameters. The derived model is compared for different short and long gate length devices. The results are calibrated and verified with experimental data over a full range for gate and drain applied voltages. Significant improvement in ns, drain Current, and transconductance are observed for InAlN HEMT making it suitable for nanoscale and microwave analysis in circuit design. Therefore, the proposed model can deal directly with device/physical parameters, and it can be expressed by a very small number of model parameters.


Natural radiation is the major contributor to the external dose and varies depending on the radioactivity concentration of naturally occurring radionuclides and their decay products in soil and rocks. Exposure to a high dose to human beings leads to health problems. Assessment of natural radioactivity concentration levels in geological samples collected in selected areas of Makueni County was carried out using gamma ray spectroscopy technique. Spectrum decomposition method was used to decompose the measured gamma ray spectra into spectral components of separate radionuclides. The measured peak intensities were used to calculate the activity concentration of the radionuclides in the samples. The average concentrations of 238 U, 232 Th and 40 K measured in the soil samples collected in this study were 69 + 5 BqKg -1 ,53 + 3 BqKg -1 and 1098 + 69 BqKg -1 respectively while rocks were found to have concentrations of 139 + 6 BqKg -1 , 73 + 3 BqKg -1 , 1573 + 65BqKg -1 respectively. On average both rocks and soils were found to have activity concentrations of 104 + 5 BqKg -1 , 63 + 3 BqKg -1 , 1336 + 67 BqKg -1 for 238 U, 232 Th and 40 K respectively. These values are above the global average values. To measure radiation hazard to the public, absorbed dose rate in air at a height of 1m above the ground surface was estimated. Absorbed dose rate in rocks was 175 + 7 nGyh -1 while in soil it was found to be 110 + 7 nGyh -1 These values are higher than the world average of 60 nGyh -1 (UNSCEAR, 2002).The effective dose rate calculated for human exposure from the ionizing radiations of 238 U, 232 Th and 40 K in the soil samples collected were found to have 0.29 + 0.02 mSvy -1 while rocks registered 0.45 + 0.02 mSvy -1 These health hazard parameters were below the safe limit of 1.0 mSvy -1 (ICRP, 1991; UNSCEAR, 2002) and therefore do not indicate significant health hazard for the inhabitants of the selected area. The building materials from the study area are safe for use and I recommend that the government and other nongovernmental organizations use this study as a baseline study in radioactivity concentration levels of the area.


The electromagnetic transient program (EMTP) is a general-purpose program which can cover a broad spectrum of transient studies. The ATP version incorporates a powerful technique, known as data modularization, which can facilitate the program usage. The aim is to show that data modularization can be used for the development of a module package that permits the use of the EMTP for classroom instruction. A supporting subroutine, called database module, allows users to create component modules that will be stored as ordinary files and that can be inserted in an input file by means of an $INCLUDE statement. It is shown how this technique can be used to adapt EMTP/ATP for classroom instruction. Two module packages for the simulation of transients phenomena in power systems and power electronics, respectively, are presented. Since a fixed and simple structure is used for each data file and only a few rules about module formats are to be learned, the EMTP is a user-friendly program for students. >


The aim of this paper is the study of the relaxation limit of the 3-D bipolar hydrodynamic model for semiconductors. We prove the convergence for the weak solutions to the bipolar Euler–Poisson system towards the solutions to the bipolar drifthyphen;diffusion system, as the relaxation time tends to zero.


One of the partition of unity methods, the extended finite element method (XFEM), is applied to study the inclusion-crack interactions in an elastic medium. Both the inclusions and the crack are modelled within the XFEM framework. A structured quadrilateral mesh is used and the influence of crack length, the number of inclusions, and the geometry of the inclusions on the crack tip stress field are numerically studied. The interaction integral for non-homogeneous materials is used to compute the stress intensity factors ahead of the crack tip. The accuracy and flexibility of the XFEM is demonstrated by various numerical examples.


welfare rights organization during the 1960s, provide a short history of the American public welfare system, and comment on social planning models. It fulfills the first part of this promise with stories from the struggles of the Brooklyn Welfare Action Council to increase the power of women on welfare. The National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) confronted welfare bureaucracies with disruptive sitins and with low-income clients who were informed and militant


An embodiment of the utility model discloses a valve seat for a metal-seated ball valve with a sealing face of a lip-type elastic compensation structure. The ball valve comprises a valve body, a ball is arranged in the valve body, the valve seat is arranged at the connecting position of the valve body and the ball, and the sealing face of the valve seat is of an elastic lip-type compensation structure. The valve seat is of the lip-type elastic compensation structure and can compensate the size of the sealing face of the metal-seated ball valve, the size of the sealing face of the metal-seated ball valve can be compensated automatically, and minimum leakage even zero leakage of the metal-seated ball valve is achieved.


In this paper we consider special fuzzy implications as directional increasing functions and we introduce the notion of inversely special fuzzy implications as directional decreasing functions. We recall some results connected with special R-implications shown by Sainio et al. [A characterization of fuzzy implications generated by generalized quantifiers, Fuzzy Sets and Systems 159, 2008, pp. 491-499] and we present several new results connected with inversely special R-implications. Also, we discuss this new property for other families of fuzzy implications like (S,N)-implications, f-implications and gimplications.


The corner truncated rectangular microstrip antenna with inverted U-slot placed symmetrically at the center of the radiating patch is presented for triple band operation. The triple bands are tuned to lower and upper frequency sides by varying the horizontal and vertical arm width of inverted U-slot. The antenna is excited through simple microstripline feeding. The experimental and simulated results are in good agreement with each other. The proposed antenna may find applications in WLAN and WiMAX.


Nonconsensual condom removal refers to when someone preconditions sexual intercourse with the use of a condom, while the other person, during the intercourse, removes the condom without consent. Alexandra Brodsky, the author of the first, and only, article concerning nonconsensual condom removal, points out that women subjected to nonconsensual condom removal experienced some kind of violation. Nevertheless, they struggled to define the violation they had experienced. They also had difficulties identifying which, if any, legal remedies were available to them.

Nonconsensual condom removal is neither explicitly criminalized in Swedish penal law, nor subject to any Swedish criminal judgments. Moreover, except from Brodsky's article, there are no studies to be found on the area of nonconsensual condom removal. The objective of this thesis is to examine how nonconsensual condom removal can be understood regarding the provisions of molestation, sexual molestation and rape, by carrying out a judicial enquiry based on legal dogmatic method. Furthermore, this thesis aims at analyzing how the result from the judicial enquiry and nonconsensual condom removal as a phenomenon can be understood through the lens of feminist theories of sexual violence.

The thesis shows that preconditioned usage of condom during sexual intercourse could be an expression of sexual integrity and the right to sexual self-determination, both of which are interests of protection concerning the sexual offence legislation. In addition, the thesis shows that positioning nonconsensual condom removal within the confines of the existing provisions could be difficult, although there is some room for arguing it could constitute sexual molestation. Lastly, the thesis suggests that nonconsensual condom removal could be understood as an expression of patriarchal power and could be placed within a pattern of different forms of sexual violence that women are exposed to by men.


Optical burst switching (OBS) has been proposed for an effective optical switching technology of WDM networks in broadband Internets. OBS has the advantages, i.e. 1) the high usage rate of the bandwidth and 2) no necessity of optical buffer. However, OBS has the burst-contention problem in control packet phase, and faces to the reduction of the network performance. Recently, slotted OBS has been proposed. The basic performance of slotted OBS is superior to the original OBS. However, slotted OBS itself cannot overcome the burst-contention problem, either. In this paper, we will adapt BECN/CRN typed deflection routing to slotted OBS to obtain the large improvement of the optical network performance. We also present two new schemes for slotted OBS to improve the burst contention problem, i.e. a) enforced waiting control and b) scheduling.


The theoretical description of transport in a wide class of novel materials is based upon quantum-percolation and related random-resistor-network (RRN) models. We examine the localization properties of electronic states of diverse two-dimensional quantum-percolation models using exact diagonalization in combination with kernel-polynomial-expansion techniques. Employing the local-distribution approach, we determine the arithmetically and geometrically averaged densities of states in order to distinguish extended, current-carrying states from localized ones. To get further insight into the nature of eigenstates of RRN models, we analyze the probability distribution of the local density of states in the whole parameter and energy range. For a recently proposed RRN representation of graphene sheets, we discuss leakage effects.


Shear wave elasticity imaging has been difficult in inhomogeneous tissue, such as skin, where thin layers cause bias in shear wave speed estimates. Instead, we propose an FEM-based look-up table to estimate shear modulus at the on-axis location rather than at lateral locations. We estimate the time-to-peak on-axis displacement at each depth and use a look-up table to estimate shear modulus. We generated a stiffness look-up table using a 3D FEM model coupled to Field-II simulations. We simulated shear moduli of 1−13kPa using a CL15-7 transducer, 1.1cm axial push focus, 8.9MHz push frequency, push F/3, 10.4MHz tracking frequency, and plane wave tracking. The displacements were estimated using an advanced Bayesian displacement estimator. Here we test the on-axis stiffness estimates in homogeneous and layered polyvinyl-alcohol (PVA) phantoms. Before the phantoms were sliced into thin layers, we computed five independent shear wave speeds at the same depth that would be sliced and took the median. After slicing and layering the phantoms, we tested the on-axis method and compared it to shear wave speed-derived shear modulus estimates. The presliced homogeneous PVA phantoms had a mean shear modulus of 5.56+/−0.76kPa and 5.46+1.06kPa for the on-axis method and shear wave speed-derived moduli, respectively. The mean shear moduli for the on-axis method and shear wave speed-derived estimates in the thin layer were 5.92+/−1.15kPa and 6.50+/−0.3IkPa, respectively. The shear wave speed-derived estimates had a bias of −1.04kPa and the on-axis method had a bias of −0.46kPa. The on-axis method had a larger variance in shear modulus estimates, but a smaller bias than shear wave speed-derived estimates.


DEADLY CONSEQUENCES By Deborah Prothrow-Stith, M.D., and Michaele Weissman. Harper Perinnial, a Division of Harper Collins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022. 1991, 269 pp., $12.00 (U.S.); $16.00 (Canada). I didn't want to like this book. Deadly Consequences, the story of "how violence is destroying our teenage population and a plan to begin solving the problem," has a big, red handgun on the cover and the print is small. Books with big, red guns on the cover remind me of books or TV shows that commercially exploit violence in the name of public service. Shows with titles like "Violence in America: The Youth Behind the Gun" or "Scared Straight" make us frightened of kids--especially our neighbor's kids from the inner-city--and raise network ratings by sneaking yet a little more violence into prime time. Is it a coincidence that the very networks t-hat make it possible for us to view roughly 20,000 murders a year in the privacy of our homes are now rushing to put out documentaries on teen violence at the same time the U.S. Senate is beginning to investigate the effect on children of violence on TV? About Dr Prothrow-Stith I didn't need to worry. She is the former commissioner of public health for Massachusetts and is currently the assistant dean of the Harvard School of Public Health. She is on to the media--in fact she is on to most of us when it comes to our myths about violence in America and its effect upon our young. She lays into the media with quiet but devastating logic, but she also lays into those of us who think that changing the media is the simple answer or who think punishment is the simple answer or even who think banning guns is the simple answer. What she does--and very effectively--is lay into all of us who think that there is any one simple answer to violence. It takes a while and that is why the print is small. Dr. Prothrow-Stith is looking at violence prevention through the lens of public health. In so doing, she gives us a plan for national action to begin to work on the problem. It is not a simple plan. It involves multiple approaches. It is complicated. There may not be much political capital in it. And it just might work. In suggesting a multidisciplinary approach, Dr, Prothrow-Stith leads us carefully through data the way a public health statistician should. Treating homicide as a disease, she notes international rates for "killings-per-100,000" for men 15 through 24 years of age: 0.3 for Austria, 0.5 for Japan; 1.2 for England; 1.4 for Switzerland; 3.7 for Israel--and 21.9 for the United States. For young African American males in this age bracket, the rate is 85.6. She gives statistics on handgun deaths and ownership. Then, just when you think she is going to ask us to ban that big, red gun on the cover, she reminds us that guns in Switzerland and Israel are even more accessible than here, yet their rates of homicide are many times less than ours. We must go deeper for causes and solutions. …


Not as good as before accident. A little stiff. Practically as good as ever. Slight grating in joint at times. Walks as well asever. Much atrophy. Pain, hip to knee on walking and at night in the fracture. Pain in hip and from sole of foot up to hip. Leg íb swollen and weak. Pain In walking. Amputation of thigh below the hip for subsequently fractured leg. Some pain in hip. Not as good as before accident. Pain on going upstairs and on stooping.


In spite of the great advances in medical science, especially regarding the antimicrobial agents, infection remains an important cause of morbidity and mortality. Typhoid fever, which exterminated a major part of the European population in the eighteenth century, continues to be an entity that demands all of our attention so as to avoid its serious complications. The Salmonell sp. have the capacity to infect different organs and parts of the body, including the great vessels, where thy affect the intima layer and produce a condition that is called infectious aneurysm that is associated with a mortality rate around 50%. We report the case of an ulcerated bacterial aneurysm in a 62 year old male with previous symptomatology of Salmonella spp. infection and positive blood cultures for this microorganism. The patient underwent surgical treatment with resection of the aneurisma and a dacron silver coated prosthesis replacement and a patch of greater omentum. Clinical course was satisfactoiry.


Shaoyang is a large agricultural county, also the biggest province of raising pig, which has favorable conditions for building pig manure digesters. Shaoyang Comprehensive Agricultural Development Office vigorously promotes the pairing mode of "Pig - biogas - fruit," "pig - biogas - vegetables," "pig - biogas - Fish". Nearly 6 years, 78 million yuan were bundled to build 36,000 household biogas digesters and it is achieved the remarkable results of "four waste", "three increases", "three reduce" and "a cleansing". The farmers' food hygiene is improved and living environment is cleared. The sustainable development of rural economy and society are realized.


A robot design platform is built to integrate human resources and projects resources. It can achieve cooperative and parallel development. The platform includes project management, human resource management, requirement management and other modules. Framework proposed in this paper is that the foundation for the development platform.


Infectious diseases still remain the second leading cause of death worldwide, representing therefore a major public health challenge. My research focuses on evolutionary genetics and population dynamics of various pathogenic microorganisms: Human Immunodeficiency Virus-1 (HIV-1), Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae and Plasmodium parasites. Understanding these parameters is relevant to implement better prevention and control strategies. As examples of these challenges, I will discuss the ones we face in HIV-1 infection. Viral reservoirs in addition to HIV compartmentalization and rapid virus evolution represent a major obstacle in antiretroviral treatment. For this work, I will show that human follicular dendritic cells (FDCs) serve as a significant HIV reservoir and that virus diversity and compartmentalization in secondary lymphoid tissues may be greater than previously appreciated. I will also show that the outcome of HIV-1 evolution in a case of monozygotic twins was remarkably different, given the identical host genetic background and the identical source and timing of HIV-1 infection. Molecular Mechanisms for Poxvirus Host Range by Species-Specific Interactions with the Antiviral Protein Kinase PKR Stefan Rothenburg Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506, USA; firstname.lastname@example.com Poxviruses are widespread pathogens, which display extremely different host ranges and virulence. Like many other animal viruses, poxviruses enter host cells via binding to receptors that are found in many different species. However, successful replication of poxviruses depends on the effective manipulation of the cell's innate immune response. Some poxviral genes have been shown to confer host tropism in experimental settings and are thus called host range genes. K3L and E3L are two host range genes that have been well characterized in vaccinia virus. K3L was shown to be important for vaccinia virus infection of hamster but not human cells, whereas E3L was important for vaccinia virus replication in human but not in hamster cells. The molecular basis for this host range function was unknown. Both K3L and E3L proteins target the host antiviral protein kinase PKR. We demonstrate rapid evolution of PKR in vertebrates and that positive selection influenced the sensitivity of PKR to poxvirus inhibition. Moreover, PKR from different species varied greatly in their sensitivity to poxvirus inhibition, which provides a molecular explanation for the range gene function of poxvirus PKR inhibitors. The implication of our findings for the study of host-virus interactions will be discussed.


We propose a new dynamic transition analysis on the basis of a small open economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. Our proposed analysis differs from existing static and conventional dynamic analyses in that shifts from a fixed exchange rate regime to a basket peg or a floating regime are explicitly explored. We apply quantitative analysis, using data from the People's Republic of China and Thailand, and find that both economies would be better off shifting from a dollar peg to a basket peg or a floating regime over the long run. Furthermore, the longer the transition period, the greater the benefits of shifting to a basket peg regime from a dollar peg regime owing to limited volatility in interest rates. Regarding sudden shifts to a desired regime, the welfare gains are larger under a shift to a basket peg if the exchange rate fluctuates significantly.


Small-angle neutron scattering(SANS) is a routine technique used to study the microstructure of alloys,ceramics,polymers,colloids,and other materials which are often 1-1000 nm in diameter.In this review,the theory of SANS and its application in nanocomposites were presented.


The issues involved in assigning women to Navy ships are examined. The problems were selected from magazine articles, discussions with women on ships, and from seven years of sea duty. The problems discussed include fraternization and preferential treatment, pregnancy, frequent medical visits, physical strength limitations, charges of inadequate professional development, and socialization.


Abstract Electrochemical methods were used in a systematic investigation of the abilities of the homologous straight chain mono- and α,ω-dicarboxylates to inhibit corrosion of mild steel, copper, and aluminum in aerated, mildly saline, and near-neutral aqueous solutions. Performance of both compound types was shown to be critically dependent upon their chain length, the metal, and the number of carboxylate groups. For dicarboxylates, with the possible exception of mild steel, longer chain lengths were found advantageous. This was not true for monocarboxylates, which showed abrupt decreases in inhibitor ability outside the optimal range. The dramatic variations in inhibitor efficiencies probably resulted from competing reactions, such as adsorption and complexation at the metal (hydr/oxide) surface, solubility, and micelle formation.


This paper focuses on the representation of the tradesman in William Shakespeare's The merchant of Venice (1600), George Lillo's The London merchant and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's Nathan der Weise (1779). The background of the English comedy is the bustling Italian Renaissance scene, especially in Venice, where people of different countries, races, social positions and religious beliefs converge. The London merchant (1731), Lillo's bourgeois tragedy, refers in turn to the scenario of consolidation of English urban middle class institutions nearly a century and a half later. Lastly, the Jerusalem of the Crusades, with its religious wars involving Christians, Muslims and Jews, which forms the background of Nathan der Weise, provides the convenient historical and geographical distance for the representation of the racial and the religious conflicts of Lessing's contemporaneous Germany. The positive characterization and the leading role of the merchant in the three plays are evidence of the growing visibility of the mercantile bourgeoisie within contexts as distinct as the English Renaissance, England in the first and Germany in the last decades of the of the 18th century.


Background: Systematic physical activity has become an essential part of the guidelines for the prevention and treatment of low back pain (LBP). The aim of this study was to assess differences in trunk alignment parameters with regard to the level of physical activity in groups of individuals with and without LBP. Methods: 43 participants with LBP and 37 healthy persons were recruited. Participants were divided into two subgroups: (1) students with a moderate level of physical activity (MPA); (2) students with a high level of physical activity (HPA). An original questionnaire was used to assess the prevalence of LBP. The spinal posture was measured using the Formetric 4D rasterstereographic system. Results: There were no significant differences between groups for any of the parameters assessed: trunk imbalance, trunk inclination, trunk torsion, pelvic tilt, pelvic inclination, pelvic torsion, kyphotic angle and lordotic angle. Conclusions: There are no differences in trunk alignment parameters in the sagittal, frontal and transversal planes between physically active males with and without LBP. Therefore, it can be assumed that physical activity may reduce the risk of the deterioration of trunk alignment in males with LBP younger than 25 years.


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Let [Formula: see text] be a set of edges whose induced subgraph consists of vertex-disjoint paths in an [Formula: see text]-dimensional locally twisted cube [Formula: see text]. In this paper, we prove that if [Formula: see text] contains at most [Formula: see text] edges, then [Formula: see text] contains a Hamiltonian cycle passing through every edge of [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text]. [Formula: see text] has a Hamiltonian cycle passing through at most one prescribed edge.


A study was developed about corrosion and degradation of the mechanical properties in steel bars used in civil construction and a simplified model for the evolution of the damage in these bars was developed through the Continuum Damage Mechanics Theory. Steel bars specimens were confectioned and submitted to an accelerated corrosion test (Salt Spray) being displayed in this corrosion chamber for different intervals of time. After the corrosion test, the specimens were submitted to the mechanical test of traction with loading and unloading, getting the elasticity modulus for each unloading. Then, the concept of measure of damage through the variation of the Elasticity Modulus, introduced by LEMAITRE, was applied. The damage in function of the deformation for each specimen was obtained. Finally, with the analysis of the damage in the different specimen, the variable Damage in function of the mechanical loading and the corrosion was written.


The number of diabetic patients is increasing rapidly every year all around the world, and the worst fact is that these patients suffer from a wide range of physical conditions directly associated with long-term diabetes. Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) is a perfect example which affects the eyes of more than 50% of all diabetes patients to some degree. Starting from blurred vision, the effects of DR can extend to permanent blindness; and in most of the cases, victims fail to report any early symptoms. The traditional detection process of DR involves a trained clinician who takes enhanced pictures of the retina and looks for the presence of lesions and vascular abnormalities within them, which by description is a time-consuming and error-prone procedure. Alternatively, we can employ machine learning techniques that will automate the detection process as well as provide fast and more importantly, reliable results. Using a deep learning technique this paper determines the presence and severity of DR in diabetic individuals by analyzing the pictures of their retina. The CNN-based models are potent enough to carry out their tasks with accuracy up to 89.07%, even when the images are captured or provided in very low resolutions.


This study aims to analyze the market structure of the coastal shipping industry in Japan. Based on 153 observations using balanced panel data for the period 2000–2016, we estimate the market-wide cost function and total factor productivity (TFP) growth rate, and then provide some policy implications from the results. We also estimate the long-term total cost function and analyze the economies of scale and the TFP growth rate. The results indicate that the grouping policy is conducive to achieving economies of scale. Hence, we conclude that it is worth continuing the grouping policy for the benefits it provides in terms of management efficiency.


Basically the report says the Act is doing well, nothing needs to be done—yet—to change it, and constant vigilance is necessary. During 1965 a total of 163 animals "in immediate need of protection" were given import licences, and 86 import applications for such animals were turned down. All of the refused 86 were for anthropoid apes, but a further 84 ape applications were successfully among the year's 163 approved imports for the so-called List 1 animals. List 2 animals, which are not thought to be "in immediate need of protection," can at present have automatic licences issued by the Board of Trade. During the year a total of 373,133 such animals were given import permission, 90 per cent, of which were tortoises coming in at almost a thousand a day. Other big imports were 23,000 Old World monkeys, 6,000 New World monkeys, and 4,000 iguanas.


To the Editor.— I agree with Howard W. Huntington, MD (241:1327, 1979), that "something needs to be done to increase the readability and informational content" of journals. His points are well taken concerning the increase in physical size of journals, such as Cancer , and the price of journals, such as Brain Research . However, he failed to mention that libraries as well as the health professional feel the crunch, because libraries are running out of both the room to house the volumes and the money to purchase the new journal titles that come out each year. In 1970, Index Medicus indexed more than 2,200 journals; in 1979, there are more than 2,500 journals being indexed. In other words, approximately 30 new titles are added each year. This means that libraries will probably order some of the new titles and must find space to shelve the added volumes. More important, the libraries


To investigate light flash produced during hypervelocity impact in the laboratory, we have conducted a series of experiments on a two-stage light gas gun at different impact velocities and the same impact angle. Light flash were acquired through optical fiber pyrometer measurement system during the whole physical process in hypervelocity impact, Experimental results showed that the maximum light flash intensity decreases with impact velocity increasing, and maximum light flash intensity should exist a critical impact velocity for polycarbonate projectile impacting natural dolomite plate, which may be between 2.52 km/s and 4.21 km/s at the wavelength of 550 nm–700 nm. In addition, the light flash intensity peak value was 0.4∼0.5 mW.cm−2.nm−1 in the experimental conditions in the paper.


PAGE BRITISH MEDICAL ASSOCIATION Annual Meeting, Melbourne, September, 1935: OFFICERS OF SCIENTIFIC SECTIONS .. ... ... ... 281 CURRENT NOTES: B.M.A. CHARITIES TRUST FUND: LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS ... 286 THE ASSOCIATION'S HANDBOOKS ... .288 INSURANCE MEDICAL SERVICE WEEK BY WEEK ... 289 CORRESPONDENCE: ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS AND THE CHIROPODISTS. ... 289 HOSPITAL OR HOME ? ... ... ... ... ... . ... ... 289 PAGE General Medical Council: DISCIPLINARY INQUIRIES .282 MEETINGS OF ,BERAN.CHES AND DIVISIONS .290 NAVAL AND MILITARY APPOINTMENTS ...... 290


Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients and their derivatives are commonly used as acoustic features for speaker recognition. Reducing the dimensionality of the feature set leads to more robust estimates of the model parameters, and speeds up the classification task, which is crucial for real-time speaker recognition applications running on low-resource devices. In this paper, a feature selection procedure based on genetic algorithms (GA) is compared to two well-known dimensionality reduction techniques based on linear transforms, namely Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). Evaluation is carried out for two speech databases, containing laboratory read speech and telephone spontaneous speech, and applying a state-ofthe-art speaker recognition system. Results with GAbased feature selection suggest that dynamic features are less discriminant than static ones, since the low-size optimal subsets found by the GA did not include dynamic features. GA-based feature selection outperformed PCA and LDA when dealing with clean speech, but not for telephone speech, probably due to some noise compensation implicit in linear transforms, which cannot be accomplished just by selecting a subset of features.


This article presents an example in which technical progress results in variations in the labor market. Around a switch point with a positive real Wicksell effect, a higher wage is associated with firms wanting to employer more labor per unit output of net product. Around a switch point with a reverse substitution of labor, firms in a particular industry want to hire more labor per unit output of gross product. Technical progress can bring about and take away circumstances favorable for workers wanting to press claims for higher wages.


ABSTRACT In No Use: Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security Policy, Thomas M. Nichols calls for a constructive rethinking about the history of nuclear weapons and the attitudes that have grown up around them. Despite dramatic reductions since the end of the Cold War, the United States still maintains a robust nuclear triad that far exceeds the needs of realistic deterrence in the twenty-first century. Nichols advocates a new strategy of minimum deterrence that includes deep unilateral reductions to the US nuclear arsenal, a no-first-use pledge, withdrawing US tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, and ending extended nuclear deterrence for allies. The weakest part of his argument eschews nuclear retaliation against small nuclear states that attack the United States, opting instead to use only conventional weapons to guarantee regime change. He admits this will entail enormous cost and sacrifice, but cites the "immorality" of retaliating against a smaller power with few targets worthy of nuclear weaponry, which totally ignores the massive underground facilities constructed to shield military facilities in many of these states. Despite this, Nichols's thoughtful approach to post-Cold War deterrence deserves thoughtful consideration.


Emitting type display element, the back surface side of the organic EL layer having a light emitting layer which changes the state between a light emitting state and the non-light emitting state, a retroreflective reflector is disposed. Retroreflective reflector is composed of a corner cube array, it reflects the incident light in the same direction as the incident direction. The unit structure of the corner cube array is samgakchu shape consisting of a right angle isosceles triangle of the three-sided, low angle (底角) near the right-angled isosceles triangle are subjected to light shielding processing. Accordingly, it is possible to prevent reflection on, high contrast, can provide a light emitting type display device using the high efficiency of light emission. Louver, a display panel, a reflective member, and a color filter layer, the light absorbing member


The Afterword includes an interview with Bruce Lincoln, in which he is asked to reflect on the current study of religion, methods of comparison, and the political implications of academic discourse. In addition to responding to specific points in these chapters, Lincoln also fleshes out what he thinks it would mean "to do better" in the critical study of religion amid the ongoing crises of higher education today. Perhaps most importantly, he reflects upon and clarifies what he means by "irreverence" in the study of religion; an irreverent approach, he concludes, entails a rejection of the sacred status that other people attribute to various things, but not of the people themselves.


ion pressures: agricultural water use / water sharing between countries Abstraction pressures: agricultural water use (Southern Europe) Morphological pressures: hydroelectric dams, irrigation channels Morphological pressures: hydroelectric dams, river alterations Widespread but moderate Diffuse pressures: agriculture (except in some basins in Central Asia, where the impact is severe) Other (point) pressures: industries discharging hazardous substances Limited but severe Other (diffuse, point) pressures: nonsewered population, mining and quarrying Other (point) pressures: mining and quarrying Limited and moderate Other (point) pressures: new industrial installations Other (diffuse, point) pressures: non-sewered population, municipal sewage treatment * In this generalization of river basins in the region; "widespread" means that the problem appears in many river basins, whereas "limited" indicates that only some basins are affected. The reason for such a clear distinction in further action needed is quite obvious: æ Over a period of some 15 years, countries in transition have suffered a decline in their economies, which came hand in hand with a breakdown of essential systems of water supply and wastewater treatment. These countries can substantially improve the status of their transboundary waters, if point pressures from municipal sewage treatment plants and discharges from old industrial installations were dealt with as priority tasks. This requires proper allocation of funds. æ In many countries with market economies, huge investments in point-source pollution control measures were made over two and more decades. This led to a substantial decrease of the pollution load from these sources hand in hand with an increase of the relative importance of the pollution load from non-point sources. Dealing with diffuse pressures (e.g. agriculture, urban land use) is therefore seen a priority task. Diffuse pressures from agriculture In Western and Central Europe, the legal framework to cut down pollution has been established many years ago (e.g. EU Directives; national legislation in the EU countries, Norway and Switzerland) and technical guidance to control water pollution by fertilizers and pesticides in agriculture is broadly available. However, given reports by EU countries located in the drainage basins of the Mediterranean Sea, the East Atlantic Ocean, the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, the impact of agriculture on the quality of water resources is most striking, also because the implementation of these pieces of legislation and recommendations seems to take more time than expected. Experience has also shown that command-and-control approaches need to be supplemented by voluntary measures and innovative financing schemes. Although currently classified as "widespread but moderate", diffuse pressures from agriculture in EECCA and SEE basins will increase in the future alongside the revival of economy; thus, the use of fertilizers and pesticides will be much higher than in the last decade, causing negative effects on transboundary waters. Apart from legal and regulatory measures, it is important to focus on education, training and advice to promote understanding of good agricultural practice and respect for existing legislation by various economic entities. Abstraction pressures Abstraction pressures within the national parts of the basins (in particular, water use by irrigated agriculture in EECCA, SEE and South-Western Europe) are among the most important water-quantity issues. In some basins,ion pressures Abstraction pressures within the national parts of the basins (in particular, water use by irrigated agriculture in EECCA, SEE and South-Western Europe) are among the most important water-quantity issues. In some basins, particularly in Central Asia, the predominant water use for agriculture has also led to such water-quality problems as salinization of soils and high mineral salt contents in water bodies. In a transboundary context, there are at least four areas of existing or potential conflicts over water. One area is the conflict between hydropower production and irrigational agriculture, which is particularly obvious in the basins of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya. Another area is the conflict between hydropower production and navigation, which became obvious in rivers shared by Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation, where new (private) operators are now managing reservoirs formerly managed under government responsibility. There is another conflict potential, namely the conflict between water use for economic activities and water for the maintenance of aquatic ecosystem. This conflict is particularly pronounced in the basin of the Ili River, shared by China and Kazakhstan. Also in other basins in EECCA and SEE, ecological requirements of the water bodies are rarely considered and win-win solutions to mitigate existing – and avoid future – conflicts over water resources are not yet drawn up. In many basins in the EECCA region, water allocation among riparian countries continues to be an issue, because disagreement still exists over use quotas for the upstream and downstream users belonging to different States, as it is the case for some rivers in the discharge area of the Caspian Sea. Chapter 4


In recent years, the perception in Flanders has been that teachers enjoy little or no esteem from the average citizen. On the basis of a representative sample of 982 Flemings between the ages of 18 and 71 years old, this article investigates whether or not this feeling is really present and what factors contribute to it. The following questions are dealt with in turn: what esteem does the public have for teachers, and how highly does it place their occupational status? The results of this survey show that the teacher enjoys a positive image among most Flemings and can count on a high degree of esteem. The general public realizes that teaching is a demanding occupation that has changed drastically in recent decades. In comparison with the 1970s, there is no drop in status for teachers, although the profession suffers from status inconsistency. The observation that personal experiences have a clear influence on esteem for teaching places a certain degree of responsibility on the teachers themselves. Indeed, they have this esteem largely in their own hands, and can improve it. Satisfaction with education, the well‐being of the pupils, the assumption of the role of child‐raiser, and the involvement and interest of parents—these are all aspects that the teacher can realize by the way in which he or she deals with pupils and their parents. Armed with the results of this study, they can also contribute to destroying the myth that society has no esteem for teachers.


This paper gives insights on how Indian MNCs in the pharmaceutical sector are strategically looking at the promotion of their products in the changing global environment. Specifically the study focuses on the strategic used of media by the Indian MNCs to communicate their brand to the various stakeholders. The pharmaceutical industry looks at least 10 different media to promote their brand. This study identifies the strategic important media that is significant to the pharmaceutical MNCs in India. On this basis a focused study showed the strategy trend of communications used by the top MNC in India that enables formulation of effective marketing strategies by leading pharmaceutical MNCs in the Indian market.


The aim of the Bachelor work is an analysis of customers, which affects the company's position in the market. It is an important indicator in comparison with competitors and the company's ability to maintain a stable position in the market. This work contains a theore-tical part, which draws on literary sources. Deals with marketing, customer relationship management tools and managers for analysis which are the BCG matrix, product life cycle and a questionnaire for marketing research. The practical part begins with characteristic of Hanacka kyselka Company, Ltd. and their products. Then follows an analysis of customers who have subscribed to a regular mineral water. The last part is the evaluation and the re-sulting conclusions and recommendations for the company.


Agriculture plays a vital role of our national economy. Most of our culture traditions are linked with crop production. However concentration of farming communities decreasing Day by Day due to hardiness in crop management and post planting operation in crop field such as application of nutrients, plant protection majors, quality fruit production related operations & harvesting mechanisms etc. As far as runner vegetables cultivation is concern by traditional staking & less space in between the rows for movement & management and vertical runner vegetable farming with infectious and damage crop production decreases the efficiency of farm families. It was also observed that, due to limited space between plant to plant & row to row planting and staking by fire wood in runner vegetables or by farming without stalk, agriculture inputs cost such as plant protection equipment, irrigation, fertiliser, agricultural labourer competence & quantity of human Days for post planting operations, production of injurious fruits & vegetables increase. High agriculture input cost and low productivity of quality fruits & vegetables decreases benefit cost ratio (B:C ratio) & market demand which ultimately fails to meet expectations of consumer or purchaser about quality runner vegetables in concern to appearance, taste & presence of essential nutrients such as calorie 26c, carbohydrate 4.5 gm, protein 1.7 gm, fats 0.1 gm & Vitamin A 132 mg, Vitamin B 0.14 mg, Vitamin C 24 mg, lime 50mg & Iron 1.7mg (out of 100 gram fresh bean vegetables). Observance the problems in intelligence this experiment on "High Density Poly Ethylene Nylon Netting in Runner beans improves the quality & quantity of fruits under rain fed up land farming situation" has been carried out in hill zone of our State Odisha. Kandhamal is a District situated in Eastern Ghats agro climatic zone of the State Odisha, India. This Experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design (RBD) with six treatments (T) & five replications (R) at Kandhamal District of Odisha, India during the Year 2019-20 under the direction of Horticulture Scientist of Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Kandhamal at G. Udayagiri. The farming situation of the experimental site is rain fed up land situation and experiment was started during the month of June. The soil type of experimental site is laterite with rich source of organic matter due to presence of forest leaf bio mass with appreciable soil pH 6.5 and macro such as NPK nutrients is medium in nature. The agro ecological situation consists a rain fall from range of 1100 – 1300 mm & moderate in nature. The experiment was carried by adopting only organic nutrition to plant by using farm yard manure, vermi compost, bio logically prepared N, P2O5 & K2O. Plant protection materials such as Trichoderma @ 4ml./litre of water, Neem oil @ 5ml. / litre of water is used for crop management. The geographical elevation of the experimental site is 20 ̊08' 20.5" North & 84 ̊20'34.7" in East direction. Treatment such as T0 Horizontal spread above the soil of R. Bean plant with broadcasting of seeds, T1 Staking with fire wood in a spacing 0.5 m in line & 0.5m in rows, T2 SLTS by HDPE Nylon net with bamboo stump spacing 1.5m in line & 1m between rows, T3 SLTS by HDPE Nylon net with bamboo stump spacing 1.5m in line & 0.6m between rows, T4 SLTS by HDPE Nylon net with bamboo stump spacing 2m in line & 1m between rows & T5 SLTS by HDPE Nylon net with bamboo stump spacing 2m in line & 0.6m between rows has been taken with five replications. As far as yield of different treatment is concern T 3 that is SLTS by HDPE Nylon net with bamboo stump spacing 1.5m in line & 0.6m between rows has maximum yield with 165 quintal per hectare & by netting technology all most all treatments Yellow Vain Mosaic Virus (YVMV) was found resistant in comparison to vertical above the soil traditional farming & runner bean farming by fire wood stalking which is set up susceptible. Performance indicators such as gross cost, gross return, net return, BC ratio & % increase in income of the experiment analyse by actual figures collected from grass root label institutions such as farmer's field, market analysis. All six treatments data collected and mathematical analysis carried out and set up SLTS by HDPE Nylon net with bamboo stump spacing 1.5m in line & 0.6m between rows has highest economical returns and International Research Journal of Innovations in Engineering and Technology (IRJIET) ISSN (online): 2581-3048 Volume 4, Issue 7, pp 35-39, July-2020 https://doi.org/10.47001/IRJIET/2020.407006 © 2017-2020 IRJIET All Rights Reserved www.irjiet.com SJIF Impact Factor: 4.66 36 a net profit of Rs. 98,000/per hectare with a B:C ratio of 1.98. It is concluded that High Density Poly Ethylene Nylon Netting in Runner beans improve the quality & quantity of fruits and responses found utmost by treatment SLTS by HDPE Nylon net with bamboo stump spacing 1.5m in line & 0.6m between rows in concern to yield & economic parameter. Apart from that disease such as YVMV is very lesser % by nylon netting. Single Line Trellis System (SLTS) system by using HDPE Nylon Net reduces the stresses due to traditional stalking, crop management become smooth. Production increases, incidence of YVMV disease decrease and farm family income increases due to fetching better market price. Yield and plucking of fruits are appreciable and beneficiary want to multiply in massive scale. It is plan to conduct demonstration in all runner vegetable to doubling the farmer's income from vegetable garden.


Abstract Captan, a fungicide, was tested for mutagenicity and toxicity in adult males of Drosophila melanogaster. A potent mutagen, the alkylating agent Trenimon, was used as a positive control. Captan was applied to the flies in two different ways and in various solvents. Toxicity was estimated from the ratios of induced mortality and sterility of the treated males. Mutagenicity was determined from the frequencies of sex-linked recessive lethals in pre- and post-meiotic germ cell stages scored with the Basc method. Trenimon was found to be highly mutagenic at a non-toxic concentration. Captan, however, was not mutagenic either at low, non-toxic or at high, toxic concentrations. Even in combination with the solvent dimethyl sulfoxide Captan showed no mutagenicity. Captan is also not mutagenic in maize and mice as shown by various authors. In contrast to this, mutagenic activity of Captan has been demonstrated in the host-mediated assay, Neurospora, yeast, different tissue cultures and bacteria. To explain the discrepancy between our results and those found in other organisms we assume that, in Drosophila, Captan is inactivated before it reaches the germ cells.


A long-standing issue in connectionist research has concerned the manner in which the human brain contrives to bind values to variables, fillers to roles, and (sensory) features to features. This paper examines the comparative merits of two binding methods whose biological foundations have been empirically confirmed, namely, binding via synchronous firing and binding via conjunctive coding. Within the community of connectionist researchers, it is often asserted that synchronous binding is far more efficient, in terms of the number of neurons required, than conjunctive coding. Moreover, Singer (Neuron, 24, pp. 49–65, 1999) has argued that conjunctive coding is inadequate as a general method of binding, for several cognitively based reasons. This paper argues that the above-cited complaints against conjunctive binding are not decisive. It is further noted that synchronous firing is a surface phenomenon—one that requires an explanation in terms of underlying causes. A model is proposed herein that illustrates one way in which synchronous bindings could be engendered by a substratum that relies, ultimately, upon conjunctive binding nodes. It is demonstrated that such a substratum would require a feasibly small number of conjunctive neurons.


In search, exploration, and reconnaissance tasks performed with autonomous ground vehicles, an image classification capability is needed for specifically identifying targeted objects (relevant classes) and at the same time recognize when a candidate image does not belong to anyone of the relevant classes (irrelevant images). In this paper, we present an open-set low-shot classifier that uses, during its training, a modest number (less than 40) of labeled images for each relevant class, and unlabeled irrelevant images that are randomly selected at each epoch of the training process. The new classifier is capable of identifying images from the relevant classes, determining when a candidate image is irrelevant, and it can further recognize categories of irrelevant images that were not included in the training (unseen). The proposed low-shot classifier can be attached as a top layer to any pre-trained feature extractor when constructing a Convolutional Neural Network.


This research investigated Thrutuk, a traditional art from Semarang. Thrutuk is an art that started from the habits of the ancient Semarang people which is small-talk then came up with the idea of doing theatrics with patrol equipment which is Kenthongan. This research aims to describe cultural values, symbol system, thrutuk performance pattern, then studied about relevance to the character of Semarang's people. This research used Clifford Geertz's symbolic interpretative theory that culture is a value system, knowledge system, and symbol system. This type of research is qualitative research using an ethnographic approach and supported by quantitative data. The data used were obtained through interviews with artists, cultural observers, the government, as well as data in the form of articles discussing Javanese culture, Semarangan art, and art as identity. Data collection methods in the form of interviews, discussion group forums, observations, literature, and supported by qualitative data in the form of questionnaires. The analysis was conducted by interpreting data of researches (observations, interviews, and secondary data) in the context of socio-cultural weaknesses concerning the value systems and patterned action systems of the community concerned. The report form used is a descriptive analysis report. The results of the research are: cultural values reflecting coastal culture; symbol system that characterizes coastal Javanese culture; truthuk performance pattern consists of two forms; simple form and traditional form. As well as relevance to the culture of the Semarang people.


A crucial factor in transforming a traditional Business Environment (BE) into an innovative and lean e-business/e-commerce architecture platform, is the role of the e-Business Transformation Manager (e-BTM) ; who should be assisted with an efficient framework that includes a central decision making module. A just-in-time framework can change the e-business/e-commerce architecture transformation project's outcomes. The e-BTM's role is crucial for the finalization of the implementation phase of the very complex e-business/e-commerce transformation project (e-BTP). During this phase the e-BTM's decisions can be made in a just-in-time manner. There is a need to govern (or control) the e-business and e-commerce transformation project. Unfortunately an adaptable decision making module for such e-projects is quasi non existent. A decision making environment can be also used in the e-commerce's production phase which comes after the finalization of the implementation phase of e-BTP. This research phase's focus is on the Architecture module of the Selection management, Architecture-modeling, Control-monitoring, Decision-making and Training management Framework (SmAmCmDmTmF ; for simplification reasons, in further text it will be referred to as the Environment) supports the e-BTP architecture activities. In this chapter the authors present a set of e-commerce managerial recommendations.


Since 1980s,the new neoclassical synthesis(NNS) model has been widely applied in the explanation of macro-economic problems with macro-basis.This paper reviews the overall research work of the NNS model and argues on its new expanding and enlightenment on the current macro-economics.The NNS model explains that price stability will continue to serve as a foundation of good monetary policies,and it is desirable from the perspective of household welfare maximizing;Which in actual operations,by pinpointing the expected future inflation,interest rate policy strengthens its leverage by boosting the credibility for price stability and thus promotes the current aggregate demand to the greatest extent possible;that the interpretation of cash-coming-first implies that if price decreases,output will increase,and thus we can conclude that expansionary fiscal policies will result in consequences of deflation in the system in which money is exogenous.The NNS model has some explanatory power for China's experience.


The natural redundancy in video data due to its spatio-temporal correlation of neighbouring pixels require highly complex encryption process to successfully cipher the data. Conventional encryption methods are based on lengthy keys and higher number of rounds which are inefficient for low powered, small battery operated devices. Motivated by the success of lightweight encryption methods specially designed for IoT environment, herein an efficient method for video encryption is proposed. The proposed technique is based on a recently proposed encryption algorithm named Secure IoT (SIT), which utilizes P and Q functions of the KHAZAD cipher to achieve high encryption at low computation cost. Extensive simulations are performed to evaluate the efficacy of the proposed method and results are compared with Secure Force (SF-64) cipher. Under all conditions the proposed method achieved significantly improved results.


A simple method for noncontact measuring acoustic emission generated during laser welding of steel X5CrNi18 9 and pure aluminium is presented. Laser beam quality is kept constant to insure that AE signal is just affected by the weld process. It will be shown that measuring in noncontact manner depends on formation of plasma, otherwise AE is generated due to backscattered laser radiation, which heat the fixture of the AE sensor.


A new electromagnetic metamaterial unit cell of multiband frequency selective surface (FSS) is proposed in this paper. The new unit cell consists of meander line on one side of a substrate. It is shown that the structure exhibits a negative reflection phase property and Strong reflection characteristic at 1.9GHz and 2.44GHz. A 6×8 array of these unit cells (FSS screen) is used as a superstrate at a distance λ/24(center frequency) over a multiband patch antenna. Gain improvement of 5 dBi at 1.9GHz and 4.1dBi at 2.44GHz respectively, as the patch antenna with FSS superstrate compared to the patch antenna without superstrate.


Bill committees play a crucial role in the scrutiny of government legislation, yet they have traditionally been overlooked by academics and journalists in favour of the more newsworthy aspects of parliamentary scrutiny on the floor of the House of Commons chamber or by investigative select committees. This lack of interest has perpetuated a series of myths about bill committee work. This article discusses the common depictions of bill committees before demonstrating why these are incorrect. It argues that these incorrect assumptions can damage our perception of the policy influencing power of Parliament and that bill committees deserve a kinder billing in the literature.


A community based interventional study on type 2 diabetes was undertaken among perimenopausal women in the urban slum community of Cheetah Camp, an urban slum community of Mumbai. Such an interventional study was never done before in an urban slum community of Mumbai. A total of 201 women were enrolled in the sample study population. The interventional measures in the form of a package consisting of, health education, nutritional education, yogic asanas&consistency in antidiabetic drugs were carried out for 12 months. Regular bimonthly follow up of urine&blood sugar levels were done. We found out the effect of interventions on urine&blood sugar levels. At the end of 12 months it was found that more than half, that is, 62.7% patients showed fasting blood sugar levels less than 100 mg/dl and 91.055% women had postprandial blood sugar levels < 180 mg/dl. We found absence of blood sugar in urine. These encouraging results definitely show the beneficial impact of interventions.


Background: Wellens' sign (WS) has been reported as a sign of critical proximal left anterior descending (PLAD) artery lesion with lumen narrowing greater than 90%. Wellens' ECG signs for critical PLAD lesion are characterized by two different electrocardiogram (ECG) patterns: 1) Deep T wave inversion in leads V2, V3 (approximately 76% of cases); and 2) Biphasic T wave in leads V2, V3 (approximately 24% of cases). The prevalence of the ECG feature of WS ranges from 14-18%. The prognostic significance of WS in detecting significant coronary artery lesion defined as a luminal narrowing of the coronary vessel by more than 70% has not been well studied. Our study's goal was to evaluate if WS is present in all patients with critical and significant PLAD lesions and is a sensitive or specific sign for critical and significant (>70% stenosis) PLAD lesions.

Methods: All patients that underwent percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) at an urban community hospital between January 2009 and December 2011 were included in the study. Log books from the cardiac catheterization laboratory were reviewed for all lesion types and corresponding demographics. The ECGs of patients with PLAD lesion were reviewed for T wave changes in precordial leads. Additionally, demographics such as age, gender and cardiovascular risk factors were recorded and analyzed. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data.

Results: A total of 431 patients underwent PCI [emergent PCI 152 (35.3%), elective PCI 279 (64.7%)]. A total of 78 patients (18.1%) from both groups were found to have PLAD lesion. Fifty eight patients were male and 20 patients were female. The average age was 63.7 years.

Critical PLAD lesion was present in 26 patients (33.3%) and 52 patients (66.7%) had PLAD lesion less than 90%. Of the 26 patients, 17 (65.4%) had WS. Wellens' sign for predicting a critical PLAD had a sensitivity of 65.4%, a specificity of 69.2%, a positive predictive value (PPV) of 51.5% and a negative predictive value (NPV) of 80% (p = 0.0069, two-tailed Fisher's exact test).

Of the 42 patients who had PLAD lesion greater than 70%, 21 patients (50%) had WS. Of the 36 patients who had PLAD lesion less than 70%, 11 patients (30.6%) had WS. Wellens' sign for predicting significant PLAD lesion in this cohort has a sensitivity of 50%, a specificity of 69.4%, a PPV of 65.6% and a NPV of 54.3% ( p = 0.1074).

Conclusion: Our results corroborated prior studies showing that WS predicts the presence of critical (90%) PLAD lesion. Unfortunately, the value of WS for detecting/predicting significant CAD in PLAD was weak. Our results indicated that we were not able to predict the presence of significant (70%) PLAD lesion using WS. However, in appropriate clinical settings such as Non-ST elevation MI (NSTEMI) or unstable angina, Wellens' sign may indicate the need for a more aggressive treatment strategy with patients proceeding to the cardiac catheterization suite sooner than later.


Governmental decision-making in metropolitan areas is gravitating towards more comprehensive, area-wide, policy-oriented organizations and creating new roles for engineers. The new Metropolitan Council has its roots in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul Sanitary District created in 1933. The Council represents an evaluation in geographic scope from two central cities to seven counties; and in method of representation from local elected officials to metropolitan district representatives. In authority, it combines regional planning with operating subordinate boards, the successors to independent metropolitan authorities. In the process, the role of the engineer has changed. He now participates as a member of a multidiscipline team in recommending regional development policy to the Metropolitan Council and continues more typical engineering roles with subordinate boards in the design, construction and operation of metropolitan public works. Similar changes, though less advanced, are occurring across the nation. The alternative of technology is not a professionally responsible approach.


OBJECTIVE To explore the relationship between Mycoplasma pneumoniae infections and bronchial asthma in the children so as to provide the reference information for clinical research.METHODS Totally 78 children with bronchial asthma with Mycoplasma pneumoniae antibodies tested positive(the observation group) and 50normal healthy children(the control group)were chosen as the research objects.The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA)was taken for the detection of the serum sIL-2Rand IL-4expression.The expression levels of sIL-2Rand IL-4were compared between the two groups.RESULTS The level of serum sIL-2R of the observation group was(483.5±42.6)ng/L,significantly higher than(207.7±19.3)ng/L of the control group;the level of serum IL-4of the observation group was(32.5±2.9)ng/L,significantly higher than(8.6 ±0.4)ng/L of the control group,the difference between the two group was statistically significant(P0.01).CONCLUSION Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection is closely related to the bronchial asthma,and the Mycoplasma pneumoniaeinfection may be one of the risk factors of the bronchial asthma.