The TRIUMF Main Tank Vacuum Control System was upgraded in 1984. The earlier system, which consisted of a collection of hardwired relay logic boxes housed in three standard instrumentation racks, was replaced with a compact and flexible microprocessor-based control system. The user interface, previously distributed over the three racks, was consolidated into a single hardwired control and mimic panel. Since 1984, the Main Tank Vacuum System has undergone a series of changes in configuration and vacuum pumping hardware with necessary changes being implemented in the control system logic. Corresponding changes to the user interface were sometimes difficult to implement and in time exhausted the spare input/output capacity which had been built in to the panel. The availability of inexpensive personal computers with adequate graphics capability and the ease of modifying, or adding to a programmable user interface precipitated the retirement of the hardwired panel and its replacement by a PC-based graphics user interface. System configuration, safety considerations, the hardware and the software implementation using the 'C' programming language are described. The evolution of the control system and its performance, both over the years and in adapting to the vacuum system changes, are discussed.<<ETX>>


Frequent and accurate measurement of intraocular pressure (IOP) is required in monitoring patients who are at high risk of developing glaucoma. We present a novel electronic-free, wireless, optomechanical implantable IOP microsensor. The microsensor has a total volume of less than 1mm3 and is integrated into a keratoprosthesis (KPro). We performed ex-vivo experiments by implanting the microsensor/KPro assembly into human eyebank globes for two weeks. Our microsensor had 2 mmHg accuracy and less than 1 mmHg zero-drift.


The invention relates to a weedicide combination for preventing and curing weeds in cornfield. The weedicide combination is made from cyanazine, tribenuron-methyl and corresponding accessory agent and/or filling, wherein, the weight proportion of the cyanazine and the tribenuron-methyl is 2:0.01 to 1; the sum of the weight of the cyanazine and the tribenuron-methyl takes 10 to 90 percent of the total weight of the combination. The cyanazine and the tribenuron-methyl are used together, which enlarges the weed control spectrum and can solves most single cotyledons weeds and double cotyledons weeds in the cornfield at present, such as cleavers, sun euphorbia, speedwell, polygonum convolvulus, wild oat, stiff grass, blue grass, amur foxtail, etc., and the weedicide combination of the invention is used before winter, which can effectively control the weeds of the cornfield for the whole growing period. The cyanazine and the tribenuron-methyl in the weedicide combination have synergized action after being combined and confected, which reduces dosage and cost and is safe for wheat and after crop.


The paper is based on Chinese industrial enterprises database, applying the method of translog cost function to measure the economies of scale in manufacturing during the period between 2000 to 2013. The result shows that the mean of scale economies (SCE) is between 0.993 and 0.996, which indicates slight diseconomies of scale. From the perspective of the SCE variation trend, before 2010, there was a decreasing trend year by year, and the variation remained stable after 2010. Considering manufacturing heterogeneity, the paper divides manufacturing into nine groups to measure economies of scale. The group measurement results show that mining industry and light industry have high economies of scale, but in a decreasing state, other sub-sectors show slight diseconomies of scale and in a stable state.


This work aims to expose the barriers which work against the satisfactory adoption and utilization of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) in Italy. Experts from six operating areas were involved where barriers associated with practical daily use of EHRs might arise. Experts disclosed different barriers in their operating areas: the low interoperability of healthcare system infrastructures in diagnostic services; the lack of systems able to represent complex processes characterized by uncertainties in hospital wards; the unsatisfactory information exchange between heterogeneous healthcare providers in territorial healthcare; the lack of models and guidelines for administration process management; the lack of Health Information engineers who are recognized as professionals in Italian hospitals; the lack of domain vocabularies and ontologies for conceptual integration in clinical communication. Our findings suggest how future solutions must be designed considering the environment of specific areas.


Abstract Throughout the years, there have been sustained and increasing calls for criminology to become more inclusive in its research and measurements with the purpose of improving our knowledge of crime and victimization. The current study examined articles published in the past five years in a mainstream criminological journal and a well-respected victimization journal to explore the inclusion and operationalization of gender and sex. Findings indicate that measures of gender and sex were included more in the diversity-focused victimization journal compared to the mainstream criminological journal. In both journals, however, conceptualizations and operationalizations of these constructs rarely fell outside of a binary measure, which suggests the measurement and inclusion of gender are still lacking, and oftentimes when we say we are measuring gender we are actually still measuring sex.


This paper proposes a globally exponentially stable (GES) observer for attitude estimation based on a single time-varying reference vector, in inertial coordinates, and corresponding vector, in body-fixed coordinates, in addition to angular velocity readings. The proposed solution is computationally efficient and, in spite of the fact that the observer does not evolve on the Special Orthogonal Group SO(3), an explicit solution on SO(3) is also provided, whose error is shown to converge exponentially fast to zero for all initial conditions. The distinct roles of the inertial and the corresponding body-fixed vectors on the observability of the system are also examined and simulation results are shown that illustrate the performance of the proposed attitude observer in the presence of low-grade sensor specifications.


Provided are a capacitor assembly for use in, and a method of assembling, a filtered feedthrough. The capacitor includes an insulative member fixedly attached to its bottom portion to inhibit high voltage arcing. The termination material present on the inner and outer diameters of the capacitor is absent from a portion of the capacitor proximate the bottom portion, e.g., at the insulative member.


Pseudomonas aeruginosa keratitis is a sight-threatening complication of contact lens wear. Ordinarily, the ocular surface is effective against microbial infiltration through a variety of mechanical, anatomical, and immunological defense mechanisms which protect the cornea. However, contact lens wear, ocular injury and/or surgery predispose individuals to bacterial keratitis. In the case of contact lens wear, the Gram-negative bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa is the most frequently isolated causative agent. As the number of antimicrobial compounds effective against P. aeruginosa decreases, due to of the acquisition and spread of antibiotic resistance, there is a growing need for novel therapeutic approaches corneal infection. The fact that P. aeruginosa can cross the corneal epithelium into the stroma to cause disease in contact lens wearers suggest a compromise in host defense. However, little is known of the mechanisms by which bacteria reach the stroma after adherence to corneal epithelial cells and how contact lenses increase the incidence of P. aeruginosa infection. Our broad theoretical model to explain the pathogenesis of contact lens related P. aeruginosa infection is that contact lens wear, because it provides a surface for biofilm formation, enables bacteria to persist at the ocular surface for long enough to adapt to defense factors that otherwise limit their ability to penetrate the corneal epithelium. Candidate corneal epithelial defense factors that might limit their ability to penetrate and which could also provide the driving force for bacterial adaptation include epithelial expressed antimicrobial peptides. Corneal epithelial cells are known to express a number of antimicrobial peptides capable of killing P. aeruginosa; including hBD 1-3 and cathelicidin LL-37, and it is known that exposure to antimicrobial peptides can induce differential gene expression in bacteria. In this dissertation, the hypothesis that was explored addressed only specific components of the broad theoretical model: That under normal circumstances, antimicrobial peptides expressed by the corneal epithelium limit P. aeruginosa translocation of the epithelium, but that prolonged exposure to corneal epithelia induces differential bacterial gene expression which enhances epithelial traversal.


Based on the Stokes coupling method for solving the two-dimensional exterior unsteady Navier-Stokes equations, the existence of the strong solution of the Stokes coupling equations is proven. And the regularity of the solution for the reduced Stokes coupling equations is discussed.


The aim of the research was to analyze the effect of the season and the breeding region on the content of selected minerals (Ca, Mg, Na and K) in the hair of dairy cows. The research material was made up of 114 polish Holstein-Friesians breed cows from three breeding centres in Poland: Kombinat Rolny Sp. z o. o. - Kietrz (the opolskie province), Hodowla Zarodowa Zwierząt Sp. z o.o. - Knyszyn (the podlaskie province) and Ośrodek Hodowli Zarodowej Sp. z o.o. - Osieciny (the kujawskopomorskie province). The cows were kept in freestanding cowsheds with den boxes. The animal nutrition involved the use of the TMR system, considering the division into nutrition groups. The hair was sampled in summer and in the period of winter and spring from the side of the body, right behind the coastal arch. Determination of Ca, Mg, Na and K was performed by means of atomic absorption spectrophotometry (AAS). The study revealed seasonal variations in the content of mineral elements in the hair of dry cows and a region-dependent differentiation. The highest content of the quantity elements in question was found in the hair of the cows from Osieciny. The mean concentration of Ca, Mg, Na and K in the hair of cows from Osieciny was statistically significantly higher than in the hair collected in winter from the animals from Knyszyn and Kietrz. The lowest values of the determined elements were noted in the hair of cows bred in Knyszyn. The investigation of the correlation between the amounts of the elements, based on an analysis of all samples of hair, revealed a positive correlation between Na and K cations, as well as between Mg and Ca cations.


In general, hydrological cycle in forested areas is a complicated phenomenon. In Himalaya the vegetative cover plays a vital role in determining several hydrological characters. For the experimental study of oak and pine forests hydrology, two representative basins are selected in the Central Himalaya. After evaluating the hydrological properties of oak and pine forests, it is decoded that both the vegetation types have different hydrological characteristics. However, with the destruction of vegetation and top soil, rainfall quickly runoff as stormflow instead of soaking into the soils.


Summary

An ion-pair reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method was developed for the analysis of sinigrin in Ethiopian mustard (Brassica carinata A. Braun) seed and seed fractions. Separation was compared on several RP-HPLC columns (Inertsil® ODS-4 C18 and ZORBAX® Eclipse XDB-C18) with an isocratic eluent containing 100% aqueous (aq.) tetramethylammonium bromide (10 mm, pH 5.0). Sinigrin retention was affected by HPLC variables including the type of ion-pair reagent, buffer strength and pH, acetonitrile concentration, column temperature and eluent flow rate. Partial validation demonstrated this optimised chromatographic condition to be linear, accurate and precise. Multistage extraction using 70% (v/v) aq. methanol was more efficient than 50% (v/v) aq. acetonitrile. In addition, the matrix effect and recovery rate as well as processing efficiency of the analytical protocol were determined. This method is suitable for high throughput analysis of sinigrin in Ethiopian mustard seed and seed fractions.


A new pressure-induced molecular ordering transition is reported in single-crystal samples of stage-2 ${\mathrm{SbCl}}_{5}$-intercalated graphite. The transition occurs abruptly at 3 kbar and may be the origin of unexplained electronic anomalies previously discovered in this pressure range.


Abstract : Our studies in the MRL mouse have shown that this mouse has unusual healing properties. This includes the closure of ear hole wounds which is not seen in any other mouse strain. This form of healing has many features that are similar to those seen in the regeneration of amphibian limbs. In amphibian models, it was shown that de-differentiation of mature cells contributes to the blastema and the growth of a new limb. It was of interest to determine if similar processes were at work in this mammalian model of regeneration. We explored several issues: 1) the ability of the regenerate environment to induce de-differentiation and re-differentiation of mature cells, 2) the ability of factors from the regenerate tissue to affect differentiation of cells in vitro, and 3) the induction of a blastema or events leading to blastema formation in a non-regenerating strain of mouse. Results in all of the experiments indicated that many of the same processes were in fact important in this mouse and its healing response.


Kolomoki is about six miles from the Chattahoochee River, in extreme southwestern Georgia. One of the larger southeastern sites, it covers approximately three hundred acres, including a rectangular truncated pyramidal temple mound 56 feet high, a plaza about 40 acres in extent, and 7 dome shaped mounds ranging in height from 4 to 20 feet. Three of the latter mounds have been excavated, two of which, D and E, were burial mounds and supplied parts of the data for this study (Sears, 1951b). The third excavated mound probably covered the site of a ceremonial structure and crematory area (Larsen, n.d.).


ABSTRACT A surface reconstruction framework based on support vector regression (SVR) to generate a three-dimensional (3D) model is proposed in this paper. It can reduce the noise in sampled data as well as repair the holes by handling the missing data during the acquisition phase. SVR is quite efficient for surface reconstruction using parameter tuning and selective data sampling. Automatic parameter tuning of SVR is proposed using two techniques: particle swarm optimization (PSO) and genetic algorithm (GA). Independent component analysis (ICA) is a feature-preserved non-uniform simplification method which is applied to simplify point set by optimal attribute selection. First, under-sample the data, remove the redundancy, reduce the features using ICA and construct the surface using SVR. Both theoretical analysis and experimental results show that the performance of the proposed method yields an average SVR error ≈ 3% on the publicly available datasets. For majority of standard datasets, PSO–SVR is found superior to GA–SVR in convergence speed. Details of the surface are also preserved well which makes it suitable for 3D surface reconstruction.


The success of the Protein Data Bank (PDB) is in large part due to the continuing interactions of the scientists who provide the data and those who use the data with the people who have created and maintained the PDB archive over the years. I will describe the impact of community on the current PDB as well as some new community building challenges in developing methods to archive integrative hybrid models. Finally, I will describe how we are addressing the even bigger challenge of communicating the value of structural data outside of the structural biology community.


Objective
To study the predictive value of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission computed tomography (PET) and PET/MRI coregistration in intractable epilepsy of children.

Methods
A retrospectively analysis was performed based on the surgery data at the Department of Children Epilepsy Center of Peking University First Hospital from September 2015 to March 2016.The clinical data, surgery and follow-up study data, interictal and ictal electroencephalogram, MRI, PET and PET/MRI coregistration data were collected.By comparison with the epileptogenic zone designed by pre-surgical workup, the accuracy of MRI, PET and PET/MRI coregistration in detecting lesion was assessed.In the patients who had no seizure during ≥1 year follow-up, their sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value of MRI, PET and PET/MRI coregistration were calculated.

Results
(1)A total of 62 patients underwent surgery, 30 boys and 32 girls.The average age on epilepsy onset was 2.50 years (2 days-11.70 years), and average age on surgery was 5.10 years old(0.75-15.60 years old). (2)Surgical treatment of 62 cases included the resection of the focal or lobar(32 cases, 51.6%), and the multilobar (16 cases, 25.8%). Hemispherotomy was done in 14 cases (22.6%). During ≥1 year follow-up, seizure outcome was Engel class Ⅰ in 57 cases (91.9%) out of the 62 patients, Engel class Ⅱ to Engel class Ⅳ in 1 case, 3 cases, and 1 case, respectively.(3) Referred to epileptogenic zone designed by presurgical workup, MRI represented 64.5%(40/62 cases) results with accordance, PET and PET/MRI coregistration was 72.5%(45/62 cases) and 85.5%(53/62 cases), respectively, and the difference was significant(χ2=7.25, P=0.03). (4) Based on the patients of Engel class Ⅰ, their sensitivity and specificity were 66.7%, 60.0% in MRI, 75.4%, 60.0% in PET %, and 85.9%, 80.0% in PET/MRI coregistration, respectively.(5)There were 11 " non-lesion" cases of all focal cortical dysplasia in pathology, and subtle structural abnormalities were de tected in 9 cases by reviewing MRI.

Conclusions
PET/MRI coregistration can improve lesion detection of intractable epilepsy in children.

Key words:
Intractable epilepsy; Magnetic resonance imaging; Positron emission computed tomography; Positron emission computed tomography/magnetic resonance imaging coregistration; Epileptogenic zone


The study is dedicated to the analysis of teaching writing in a foreign language.
Communicating ideas in a foreign language, i.e. Ukrainian, appears to be one of
the most complex activities incorporating all the speech skills: reading, speaking,
listening and writing. Discourse analysis of academic writing proves the necessity of
introducing samples of official papers writing into the language-teaching process at
the Beginner level.


In order to enhance grafting yield of maleic anhydride was graftedly chlorinated polypropylene.and optimize condition of experiment and component content,effects of maleic anhydride,BPO,reaction temperature and reaction time on the grafting yield of chlorinated polypropylene(CPP) grafted malefic anhydride were studied by the method of orthogonal experimental test.The results show that effects of BPO initiator on grafting yield are obvious and effects of reaction time on grafting yield are not dramatic.The extreme differences of four factors are that:the content of BPO,MAH,reaction temperature and time.


Presented here are computed rates for the thermal unimolecular decomposition of a variety of alkoxy radicals with four- and five-carbon length backbones. Three classes of molecules are examined: alkoxy radicals with saturated hydrocarbon backbones, those with alcohol functional groups, and those with carbonyl functional groups. The chosen species represent many of those found during the combustion of fossil fuels as well as bio-derived alternatives. Density functional theory calculations were benchmarked against higher level coupled cluster calculations and used to explore the potential energy surfaces of these systems. Transition state theory was used to calculate high-pressure limit rate coefficients of all radical intermediates in the regimes relevant to atmospheric chemistry and combustion. We show that the assumption that alkoxy radicals quickly decompose via β-scission to aldehydes and other radicals is not valid for some of the alkoxy radicals investigated in this work. We further illustrate how intra-H migrations in larger alkoxy radicals with carbonyl and alcohol functional groups can dominate unimolecular decomposition under combustion and atmospheric relevant conditions. Finally, we discuss why carbonyl groups can increase or decrease intra-H migration barriers depending on their location relative to the transferring H-atom.


The efficient and effective conservation and sustainable use of the world's plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA) depends on reliable and accessible information about the resource. An evolving international regulatory framework to access and share the benefits of these PGRFA includes the information dimension. This article traces the likely future developments of the "Global Information System" (GLIS) under the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations' International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture as a pointer to the decentralised network of databases and websites about PGRFA, incorporating Genesys, a global portal to information about PGRFA; the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN-Global); the US Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service National Plant Germplasm System as a document and management system; and DivSeek, the new tools and approaches for data exploration, mining and use. Some of the legal challenges, including intellectual property considerations, facing this GLIS are considered.


Lately, a number of remote laboratories for motion control has been developed worldwide as a valuable tool for teaching mechatronics students basic control strategies. However, there is a lack of remote laboratories that can be used in teaching advanced motion control. In this paper a remote laboratory for advanced motion control developed at the University of South Australia is described. The real time control algorithms, including H-infinity control, are successfully implemented in an FPGA environment. This paper also gives a detailed description of the graphical user interface developed for this laboratory, which enables effective remote experimentation.


This study examines and analyzes the revitalization that is managed in the study of the alignment of Regional Government and Sectoral SKPD policies, and analyzes the Revitalization of Agropolitan Areas from the point of view of the Gap between Traditional Area Patterns and Agropolitan Patterns in Kapuas Regency. This study uses a qualitative approach that emphasizes facts and field phenomena to reveal issues related to the implementation of real estate policies. The results of the research design a policy implementation model theory from Edward III, and can be implemented in the KAFE (Kapuas Agropolitan Food Estate) project, namely the revitalization of agropolitan policies in developing superior commodity-based agropolitan areas in developing regional economies in superior local rice agropolitan areas, Dadahub District, Kapuas Regency is a policy on agropolity land of 20,000 ha in stages of 10,000 Ha and continue until 2022; and development of the economic development of agropolitan districts, which is the goal of realizing modern agricultural areas as drivers of the rural economy that are able to prosper the community. Formulation of the pattern and structure of the agropolitan area according to its function because it accelerates economic growth as a center of growth so that it becomes a center of superior local rice. Four characteristics of the pattern and structure of agropolitan areas as centers of growth, especially the existence of internal relations of various types of activities, multiplier elements, the presence of geographical concentration, and the nature of encouraging the growth of the area behind it.


The authors carried out a series of experimental studies to research the changes of properties in mechanically activated water and suspensions. This article presents a part of the combined temperature and hydrogen exponent studies carried out at two different universities, using two separate approaches to mechanical dispersion. Study I used a planetary whisk mixer, whereas study II used a vibrating mechanical activator, which is a modern alternative to dispersion devices used at food production facilities. The research of the properties of mechanically activated water and liquid suspensions using these methods was conducted due to both the importance of these substances for all areas of the food production industry, and the modern development of technologies and techniques used at production facilities, as well as the lack of unity among the numerous research studies conducted by leading scientists specializing in the study of the properties of water, liquid suspensions and emulsions in resting and activated states. The results of the experimental studies conducted directed authors to conduct further research of mechanically activated suspensions during the filtration process.


The invention provides a network equipment data management system in multi-network-equipment environment. The system comprises a resource server (RS), wherein the RS is used for collecting data from network equipment supporting different network access protocols, storing the collected data and carrying out interaction with a resource application client to complete the management on the collected data. The network equipment data management system realizes the unified management on the network equipment data in the multi-network-equipment environment.


A case of isolated phrenic nerve palsy in a newborn infant following a difficult forceps delivery is described. Treatment was supportive and complete clinical and radiological recovery occurred between the tenth and eighteenth days of life.
 Phrenic nerve palsy should be considered in the differential diagnosis of respiratory distress in the newborn period, especially if there is a history of traumatic delivery or if a brachial palsy is present.


The paper presents a general structural mathematical property of the wavelet packets, which can be used in various industrial applications, such as the identification of signals, fault detection, harmonic detection, denoising and more in general oscillation detection. In particular, possible algorithms based on this mathematical property can find application and be implemented in wavelets-based outlier packages. Some of these algorithms are currently being integrated into the Inferential Model Platform of the Advanced Control and Simulation Solution Responsible Unit within ABB's Industry division.


Combined with practical construction example,project claim principle and operation steps are elaborated.The according to misunderstandings existed in claim management discussion is made.The author points out that construction drawing,technical specifications,contracts and other related documents which is signed by owner,supervisor and construction unit,should be well understood to ensure rationality and reliability in claim work so that more claim projects will be dealt with.


Foraging is made up of three steps: first, to search and encounter a suitable foraging patch; next prey has to be found, and finally the prey has to be caught and eaten. Behavioral responses to anthropogenic noise may lead to a disruption of vital activities within this process, such as area avoidance, or reduced abilities to locate or catch prey. Gaining insight into these behavioral effects starts with a thorough understanding of within- and between-individual variation in the baseline behavior of experimental conditions. In this study, we analyzed control trials for two captive harbor porpoises that were tested for spatial behavior in a set-up for experimental sound exposure. Data from trials without any experimental sound exposure were used to investigate relationships between the response variable - time spent away from the preferred area - and two other behavioral metrics: swimming speed and surfacing rate. The results show that these metrics can be used as independent measures, the first being corr...


OBJECTIVE
To determine the prevalence of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS), progression risk, and quality of life in students aged from 10 to 18 years.

PATIENTS AND METHOD
Cross-sectional descriptive study in students 10 - 18 years old from 5 communes in Santiago, Chile, between 2015-2016. Adam's Test was performed and the angle trunk rotation (ATR) at the thoracic, thoracolumbar, and lumbar levels were measured with a scoliometer. If ATR was ≥ 6°, anteroposterior and lateral radiological images of the spine were taken, and Cobb angle was measured. Scoliosis was confirmed if the Cobb angle was ≥ 10° plus vertebral rotation. Progression factor was calculated with Lonstein and Carlson formula. Quality of life was assessed through spinal deformities questionnaires and the trunk appearance perception scale.

RESULTS
1200 students were evaluated, 54.9% were female, and 8.17% had ATR ≥ 6°. We found mild scoliosis in 2.91%, moderate in 0.75% and severe in 0.17%. Total prevalence was 3.83% (CI 95%: 2.74 - 4.92). 82.61% of the cases had a late diagnosis, after their growth spurt. Of the patients with scoliosis, 21.74% had a progression risk ≥ 50%. Quality of life had a positive correlation with scoliosis severity, not statistically significant.

CONCLUSIONS
Prevalence of AIS was 3.83%. Most patients were diagnosed after their growth spurt with high progression risk. Quality of life showed a weak positive correlation with scoliosis severity.


Traffic prediction is a topic of increasing importance for research and applications in the domain of routing and navigation. Unfortunately, open data are rarely available for this purpose. To overcome this, the authors explored the possibility of using geo-tagged social media data (Twitter), land-use and land-cover point of interest data (from OpenStreetMap) and an adapted betweenness centrality measure as feature spaces to predict the traffic congestion of eleven world cities. The presented framework and workflow are termed as SocialMedia2Traffic. Traffic congestion was predicted at four tile spatial resolutions and compared with Uber Movement data. The overall precision of the forecast for highly traffic-congested regions was approximately 81%. Different data processing steps including ways to aggregate data points, different proxies and machine learning approaches were compared. The lack of a universal definition on a global scale to classify road segments by speed bins into different traffic congestion classes has been identified to be a major limitation of the transferability of the framework. Overall, SocialMedia2Traffic further improves the usability of the tested feature space for traffic prediction. A further benefit is the agnostic nature of the social media platform's approach.


Background: The free jejunal flap is rapidly evolving as a preferred method for restoration of upper digestive tract continuity following total laryngopharyngectomy. Our experience with the technique is reported. Material and methods: Twenty-two patients with hypopharyngeal cancer were included in the study period October 1996-December 2000. There were 20 males and two females with average age of 45 years. Total laryngopharyngectomy with neck dissection was carried out for all patients. Transfer of a jejunal segment to neck with microvascular technique was used for reconstruction. All patients received postoperative radiation therapy. Results: Average operation time was 5 hours with estimated blood loss of 800 cc. Ischemia time ranged between 40-130 minutes. Two cases (9%) died in the immediate postoperative period (reactionary hemorrhage and systemic sepsis following flap loss). Five patients developed complications (27%); flap loss in two patients and salivary fistula in three patients that closed on conservative treatment. Overall success rate was 88% (18/22). For successful cases, swallowing was resumed on post operative day 7. All patients tolerated radiation therapy well. Conclusion: Free jejunal flap is a dependable one stage procedure that will restore gastrointestinal continuity. The mucosal lined flap represents an excellent anatomic and physiologic replacement for the hypopharynx.


We discuss the numerical modelling of two phase flow in porous media (see [1]). We consider a one-dimensional problem describing flow of two incompressible and immiscible fluids through a porous medium where the non-wetting phase (oil) is displaced by the wetting fluid (water). The used model is based on Darcy's law and we consider either horizontal (neglecting the influence of gravity) or vertical flow. In case of horizontal flow, we compare our solution with analytical solution published in [2]. In case of gravity driven vertical flow, there is no known analytical solution and we propose our solution as a benchmark solution.Our numerical model is based on the modelling of interface separating zones where the water is present and where it is not. We semidiscretize the problem in space and obtain a mass preserving system of ODEs. We have moving grid points only on region where the water is present, and these move accordingly to the evolution of the interface. We can choose to have non-equidistant grid with more grid points in the neighbourhood of the interface. This guarantees very good approximation of sharp fronts during infiltration. Results obtained by our methods are compared with well-known result in [2] which was obtained by semi-analytical method and they are in perfect agreement.


Stabilization of zirconia by anion exchange (N for O) is a novel idea. A number of oxy-nitrides with flourite-related (cubic) structure have been reported to form at high temperatures (1100°C). We have used a TEM equipped with environmental cell and Gatan Imaging Filter (GIF) to study the nitridation behavior of zirconia. The in situ observations reveal the formation of a cubic structure at ≈800°C when the Zr(OH) 4×H 2 O precursor was heated in ≈2 torr of NH 3 . The presence of N in the lattice is confirmed by electron energyloss spectroscopy.


This study investigates the impact of sell-off announcements on both divesting and acquiring firms. The findings indicate that both divesting and acquiring firms experience statistically significant wealth gains during sell-off announcements. For the matched sample, only divesting firms continue to have statistically significant wealth gains. Further analysis of the industry affiliation of divesting and acquiring firms indicates that there are differences in wealth gains with respect to industry affiliation. The cross-sectional regression results show that some motives reported in the Wall Street Journal are important in explaining the wealth gains to divested firms. There are direct relationships between wealth gains to divesting firms and motive announcements related to paying debt and increasing firm focus. Furthermore, wealth gains are higher for financially distressed firms and firms with higher bank loans when firms announce divestitures, supporting both bankruptcy avoidance and bank-monitoring arguments. Additionally, wealth gains are higher for firms with higher efficiency, as measured by total asset turnovers, and for firms with higher profitability.


first begin to eat solid food. It is possible that the high circulating glycosidase activities in the sera of pregnant and young rabbits are associated with the metabolism of oligosaccharides derived from maternal milk. Each tissue had its own specific pattern of development for N-acetylglucosaminidase during the first 35 days after birth. In liver N-acetylglucosaminidase activity was higher in newborn animals than in adults (P t0.005) and continued to rise until day 14 after birth; thereafter activities fell and adult values were seen in 28-day-old animals. In spleen and kidney (Figs. 2c and 2d) N-acetylglucosaminidase activity in newborn animals was lower than in adults (P = 0.0005). In kidney the pattern of development was biphasic, whereas in spleen N-acetylglucosaminidase activity rose steadily until adult activities were attained by 35 days. Electrophoresis showed that in kidney and liver all the adult forms were present in newborn animals. In the spleens of these rabbits no forms of the enzyme were detectable, but as enzyme activity increased with age the various forms appeared. In neonatal heart and brain N-acetylglucosaminidase activity was similar to that in the adult tissues (Figs. 2e and 2f). Brain enzyme activity increased until 14 days (0.005 >P>0.0025), after which time the mean activity did not vary statistically. Examination of cerebral tissue by electrophoresis showed that these increases were accompanied by the appearance of an electrophoretic form. Liver and hearts of neonatal rabbits had higher acid a-mannosidase activity than did the same tissues in mature animals (0.01 >P>0.005; 0.005 >P>0.0025 respectively). In spleen both acid and neutral forms had lower activities thanin adults (0.01 >P>0.005), although in no tissue were the changes in activity as marked as for N-acetylglucosaminidase. For young rabbits both enzyme forms in kidney and heart had similar activities, in contrast with the adult animals, where the neutral form had higher activity than the acid (P = 0.01 and 0.05 >P>0.025 respectively). These results show that in early life the changes in rabbit tissue N-acetylglucosaminidase activity are different from a-mannosidase and it may be that each glycosidase has a distinct pattern of development. By 5 weeks after birth, the earliest stage at which young laboratory rabbits are capable of existence independent from their mothers, adult activities and electrophoretic forms of the enzymes were established in all tissues studied except brain. In both spleen and brain changes in N-acetylglucosaminidase activity were accompanied by alterations in electrophoretic patterns. Perhaps these changes are associated with developmental processes in early life; in brain this may be myelination and in spleen it may be the change from a haemopoietic to haemolytic function. Carroll, M., Dance, N., Masson, P. K., Robinson, D. &Winchester, B. G. (1972) Biochem. Bio


The diffusion and the exponential divergence of neighbouring trajectories which characterize the stochastic magnetic field are reviewed. The effect of these properties on heat and current transport leads to an increase of the radial heat diffusivity and a reduction of the toroidal electric conductivity. The finite connection length to the wall in the perturbed layer determines the regular heat and particle deposition pattern.


Introduction: There is a need for a health-related quality of life questionnaire in COPD that fulfills the advantages of both, generic and disease-specific questionnaires. Objective: To finalize the development of a new, hybrid questionnaire (disease-specific items supplemented with items from the SF-36), the McGill COPD Quality of Life Questionnaire and to evaluate its psychometric properties (reliability, validity, responsiveness) in COPD subjects. [...]%%%%Introduction: Il y a necessite d'avoir acces a un questionnaire de qualite de vie qui pourrait offrir les avantages d'un questionnaire generique et ceux d'un questionnaire specifique a la MPOC. Objectif: Finaliser l'elaboration d'un nouveau questionnaire hybride le 'McGill COPD Quality of Life Questionnaire' (elements specifiques a la maladie complementes d'elements generiques issus du SF-36) et evaluer ses proprietes psychometriques (fiabilite, validite, reponse au changement) chez les sujets atteint d'une MPOC. [...]


This paper newly presents a push-pull parallel-combined CMOS power amplifier (PA) and its analysis of operation. The proposed class-E CMOS PA incorporates the push-pull parallel-combined power devices with the 1:1:2 (two single-turn primary windings and a two-turn secondary winding) step-up on-chip transformer. The PA is fully integrated in a standard 0.18-mum CMOS technology without any external balun or matching networks. The operation of the PA with a multi-turn on-chip transformer is substantially analyzed in order to optimize the device size and its structure. Experimental data demonstrates the output power of 2-watt and the power-added efficiency (PAE) of more than 30% with a 3.3-V of power supply at 1.8 GHz. This is the new demonstration of the compact fully integrated CMOS PA with 2-watt of output power with very stable operation at 1.8 GHz range.


Horizontal kinematic properties, such as vorticity, divergence, and lateral strain rate, are estimated from drifter clusters using three approaches. At submesoscale horizontal length scales O(1-10)-km, kinematic properties become as large as planetary vorticity ƒ, but are challenging to observe because they evolve on short O(hours-days) timescales. By simulating surface drifters in a model flow field, we quantify the sources of uncertainty in the kinematic property calculations due to the deformation of cluster shape. Uncertainties arise primarily due to (i) violation of the linear estimation methods and (ii) aliasing of unresolved scales. Systematic uncertainties (iii) due to GPS errors, are secondary but can become as large as (i) and (ii) when aspect ratios are small. Ideal cluster parameters (number of drifters, length scale, and aspect ratio) are determined and error functions due to cluster deformations are estimated empirically and theoretically. We apply the most robust method – a two-dimensional, linear least-squares fit – to the first few days of a drifter data set from the Bay of Bengal. Application of the length-scale and aspect-ratio criteria minimizes errors (i) and (ii), and reduces the number of clusters and so computational cost. The drifter-estimated kinematic properties map out a cyclonic mesoscale eddy with a surface, submesoscale fronts at its perimeter. Our analyses suggest methodological guidance for computing the two-dimensional kinematic properties in submesoscale flows, given the recently increasing quantity and quality of drifter observations, while also highlighting challenges and limitations.


The invention provides an electronic mail display method, apparatus and system. A client apparatus acquires attachment position information in a text of the electronic mail and stores it associated with an identifier of the electronic mail, in receiving the electronic mail with attachment file. Upon receiving an instruction for displaying the electronic mail from the user, the client apparatus arranges a graphic representing the attachment file of the electronic mail on a child screen that displays the reduced screen of a parent screen that displays the electronic mail based on the corresponding attachment position information, and displays the child screen together with the parent screen. The invention provides a technique for facilitating the management of an attachment file attached to an electronic mail.


Simplex atomizer is widely used in the liquid fuel combustion devices in aerospace and power generation industries. An experimental work was conducted, to study variation of SMD and droplet size distribution along axial and radial directions of the spray for different injection pressures. Malvern spray analyzer is used in the present investigation. Four different atomizer configurations of increasing atomizer constant (K) are examined using water and kerosene. Spray cone angle is measured for different configurations at different injection pressures (up to 30 bar) using image processing technique. In the case of atomizer with lower K, spray cone angle continuously increases with injection pressure. In the case of atomizer with higher K, initially spray cone angle increases significantly, but remains almost constant after 16 bar. Variation of SMD and droplet size distribution along axial direction of the spray is compared between water and kerosene spray. SMD variation along the axial direction of spray clearly shows the continuous brakup of droplets along axial direction of the spray. In the case of water spray, SMD rapidly decreases along the axial direction up to 30 mm from the orifice exit, and gradually decreases up to 120 mm. In the case of kerosene spray, SMD rapidly decreases along the axial direction up to 40 mm from the orifice exit, after that SMD fluctuates along the axial direction up to 100 mm from the orifice exit. This fluctuation is due to evaporation of smaller droplets (50 microns) of kerosene. Span also continuously fluctuates after 40 mm from the orifice exit in the case of kerosene spray. Variation of SMD and droplet size distribution along radial direction of the spray is compared for different injection pressure and configurations of simplex atomizer. Increase in injection pressure, increases the disruptive aerodynamic force, which reduces the radial peak value of SMD and widens the radial profile. With decrease in atomizer constant (K), swirl strength inside the swirl chamber increases, which in turn increases the spray cone angle. SMD variation along the radial direction of spray showed more uniform droplet diameter distribution for lower atomizer constant (K) configurations. Reducing the atomizer constant improves the atomization quality more effectively than increasing the injection pressure.Copyright © 2014 by ASME


The UK Department for Transport (DfT) spends over £100m per year on enforcing a variety of laws concerning driver and vehicle licensing, operating standards, vehicle component and type approval and driving standards. The revenue raised from these activities, including such items as license fees and fines, exceeds £140m p.a. The social cost resulting from offences under these laws has been estimated to exceed £500m p.a., largely as a result of accidents involving substandard vehicles or unqualified drivers. DfT's Driver and Vehicle Operations (DVO) Group is responsible for the administration and enforcement of these laws and it recently commissioned Halcrow to undertake research into the costs and benefits of 21 of its main enforcement activities. The research was particularly focussed on examining how the application of rigorous economic principles could prioritise investment in these various enforcement activities. The ultimate aim was to develop and test a methodology that would provide a firm basis for focussing the investment of enforcement resources in those activities which produced the highest economic returns. An established economic framework is described which incorporates both the social cost of enforcement and that of the damage resulting from offences. As well as accident costs, sources of social damage could include increased vehicle emissions, delays (e.g. due to broken down vehicles) and the wider impacts of other criminal offences which those who break some traffic offences are more than three times as likely to have committed. The framework also includes a behavioural model for forecasting levels of offending, based on perceived levels of the certainty and severity of sanctions. The results of case studies involving all 21 of the enforcement activities were examined. In each case, the costs and benefits of existing levels of compliance were calculated along with the cost-effectiveness ratio of current enforcement activities. In those cases were sufficient data was available, models were developed which allowed the economic impact to be assessed of varying the level of enforcement. The resultant forecast change in the level of offending provided both the economic and financial rationale for either increasing or decreasing the level of enforcement in each particular area. One of the key implications from the research is that penalties for many of the offences studied are too low - well below the optimal level. Focussing enforcement resources on particular activities and in some cases, increasing levels of enforcement, could bring about significant reductions in accidents as well as resulting in wider social and economic benefits. Furthermore, increased levels of enforcement can be both more effective and more efficient in reducing accidents than investment in expensive capital programmes. For the covering abstract see ITRD E145999


This thesis has taken a systemic research on Indian Paprika red from many aspects such as production, trade, product quality, taking a comparing analysis on Paprika red in India and China exploring out their merits and shorts.


The objective of this research was to find out the effect of starch concentration and storage time on quality of minimally processed snake fruit coated with edible coating. Method used in this research was completely randomized design (CRD) with 2 factors, namely the concentration of starch (P) : (2%, 3%, 4%, 5%, and 6%) and  storage time (L) : (2 days, 4 days, and 6 days). Parameters analyzed were weight loss, total acid, vitamin C content, total soluble solid, tanin content, total microorganism, organoleptic values of color, taste, flavor, and texture score. The results showed that the starch concentration  had highly significant effect on weight loss, total acid, vitamine C content, and total soluble solid. Storage time had highly significant effect on weight loss, total acid, vitamine C content, total soluble solid, tanin content, total microorganism, organoleptic values of color, taste, flavor and texture score. The interaction of two factors had highly significant effect on weight loss and total soluble solid and had significant effect on total acid and vitamine C content. The starch concentration of 5% with storage time 4 days could better protect the quality of minimally processed snake fruit. Keywords : edible coating, snake fruit, storage time, sweet potato starch


Which investments in real-time capabilities and
decision-support IT-infrastructures are appropriate?
In view of the recent in-memory systems this poses an
urgent question to companies in many industries.
Despite ample research on the causal relationship
between IS investments and business value, especially
the value quantification remains a difficult challenge.
This paper contributes a business value measurement
model that structures and assesses the internal
organizational benefits of real-time IT
infrastructures. A case study from the automotive
industry aims to validate the model.


The device has repair address comparators (100 1-100N) that compares an address with a stored repair address. A repair address comparison replica (700) delays a control signal for a preset time. A repair circuit controller (600) in response to the delayed control signal generates one of a repair address enable signal and a normal address enable signal based on a comparison of the address with the stored repair address.


The layered terrain in Valles Marineris provides information about its origin and the geologic history of this canyon system. Whether the terrain is sedimentary material deposited in a dry or lacustrine environment, or volcanic material related to the tectonics of the canyon is still controversial. However, recent studies of Gangis Layered Terrain suggests a cyclic sequence of deposition and erosion under episodic lacustrine conditions. The stratigraphic studies are extended to four other occurrences of layered terrains in Valles Marineris in an attempt to correlate and distinguish between depositional environments. The Juvantae Chasma, Hebes Chasma, Ophir and Candor Chasmata, Melas Chasma, and Gangis Layered Terrain were examined. Although there are broad similarities among the layered terrains, no two deposits are exactly alike. This suggests that there was no synchronized regional depositional processes to form all the layered deposits. However, the similar erosional style of the lower massive weakly bedded unit in Hebes, Gangis, and Ophir-Candor suggests it may have been deposited under similar circumstances.


This research aim to analyze the administration process of Academic Degree Equivalence (PGA) for Employees at the Research Center (RC) for Biotechnology, LIPI, 2017&2018. This research was carried out because there were complaints on the process of Civil Servant PGA Degrees at RC for Biotechnology-LIPI. The research method in this study was descriptive qualitative research methods, with data collection techniques by interview, observation, and study documentation. The results of the study concluded that there were several obstacles in the administration process of the PGA Degree: First of all, the problem is about coordination among many Institutions, including the Staff from the Research Center for Biotechnology LIPI, Bureau of Organization and HR in LIPI, National Civil Service Agency (BKN), and Universities where the civil servant pursue the studies. The smoothness of the process is also influenced by the PNSs own factors, for example the completeness of administrative requirements. To overcome the problems, new system such as digitalization/ePGA system is required in order to make the process more effective and efficient. Not only that, the digitalization system can break the long bureaucratic path and avoid political elements/interests in PGA process, and also it makes administration process of study permits and learning tasks more objective and equitable for all employees. Keywords—Academic Degree Equivalence (PGA); administration; settlement


Systems of excess electrons confined in cylindrical semiconductor quantum dots, i.e., artificial atoms of cylindrical symmetry, are studied by the unrestricted Hartree-Fock method. The confinement potential is assumed in the form of three-dimensional cylindrically symmetric potential well of finite depth. The calculations have been performed for artificial atoms with the number of electrons from 1 to 10. We have taken into account the external magnetic field applied parallel to the axis of the cylinder and studied the influence of quantum-dot geometry on the maximum number of confined electrons and the ground-state spinorbital configuration. The applicability of the quasi-two-dimensional model of quantum dots has been discussed and the magnetic-field behavior has been predicted for quantum cylinders of comparable diameter and height. We have applied the present model to a description of single-electron charging of self-assembled quantum dots and obtained a good agreement with capacitance-spectroscopy data.


With the continuous and exponential increase of the number of users and the size of their data, data deduplication becomes more and more a necessity for cloud storage providers. By storing a unique copy of duplicate data, cloud providers greatly reduce their storage and data transfer costs. The advantages of deduplication unfortunately come with a high cost in terms of new security and privacy challenges. We propose ClouDedup, a secure and efficient storage service which assures block-level deduplication and data confidentiality at the same time. Although based on convergent encryption, ClouDedup remains secure thanks to the definition of a component that implements an additional encryption operation and control mechanism.Furthermore, as the requirement for deduplication at block-level raises an issue with respect to key management, we suggest to include a new component in order to implement the key management for each block together with the actual deduplication operation.We show that the overhead introduced by these new components is minimal and does not impact the overall storage and computational costs. Keyword: Access control, big data, cloud computing, data deduplication, proxy re-encryption INTRODUCTION With the potentially infinite storage space offered by cloud providers, users tend to use as much space as they can and vendors constantly look for techniques aimed to minimize redundant data and maximize space savings. A technique which has been widely adopted is cross-user deduplication. The simple idea behind deduplication is to store duplicate data (either files or blocks) only once. Therefore, if a user wants to upload a file (block) which is already stored, the cloud provider will add the user to the owner list of that file (block). Deduplication has proved to achieve high space and cost savings and many cloud storage providers are currently adopting it. Deduplication can reduce storage needs by up to 90-95 percent for backup applications and up to 68 percent in standard file systems[5]. Along with low ownership costs and flexibility, users require the protection of their data and confidentiality guarantees through encryption.Unfortunately, deduplication and encryption are two conflicting technologies. While the aim of deduplication is to detect identical data segments and store them only once, the result of encryption is to make two identical data segments indistinguishable after being encrypted. This means that if data are encrypted by users in a standard way, the cloud storage provider cannot apply deduplication since two identical data segments will be different after encryption. On the other hand, if data are not encrypted by users, confidentiality cannot be guaranteed and data are not protected against curious cloud storage providers. A technique which has been proposed to meet these two conflicting requirements is convergent encryption whereby the encryption key is usually the result of the hash of the data segment.Although convergent encryption seems to be a good candidate to achieve confidentiality and deduplication at the same time, it unfortunately suffers from various well-known weaknesses including dictionary attacks: an attacker who is able to guess or predict a file can easily derive the potential encryption key and verify whether the file is already stored at the cloud storage provider or not. Vol-3 Issue-2 2017 IJARIIE-ISSN(O)-2395-4396 5056 www.ijariie.com 5903 Figure 1: System model Cloud computing offers a new way of Information Technology services by rearranging various resources (e.g., storage, computing) and providing them to users based on their demands. Cloud computing provides a big resource pool by linking network resources together.It has desirable properties, such as scalability, elasticity, fault tolerance, and pay-peruse.Thus, it has become a promising service platform. The most important and popular cloud service is data storage service. Cloud users upload personal or confidential data to the data center of a Cloud Service Provider (CSP) and allow it to maintain these data. Since intrusions and attacks towards sensitive data at CSP are not avoidable[6] , it is prudent to assume that CSP cannot be fully trusted by cloud users. Moreover, the loss of control over their own personal data leads to high data security risks, especially data privacy leakages[2]. Due to the rapid development of data mining and other analysis technologies, the privacy issue becomes serious[2]. Hence, a good practice is to only outsource encrypted data to the cloud in order to ensure data security and user privacy.But the same or different users may upload duplicated data in encrypted form to CSP, especially for scenarios where data are shared among many users. Although cloud storage space is huge, data duplication greatly wastes network resources, consumes a lot of energy,and complicates data management. The development of numerous services further makes it urgent to deploy efficient resource management mechanisms. Consequently, deduplication becomes critical for big data storage and processing in the cloud. Deduplication has proved to achieve highcost savings, e.g., reducing up to 90-95 percent storage needs for backup applications and up to 68 percent in standard file systems. Obviously, the savings, which can be passed back directly or indirectly to cloud users, are significant to the economics of cloud business. How to manage encrypted data storage with deduplication in an efficient way is a practical issue. However, current industrial deduplication solutions cannot handle encrypted data. Existing solutions for deduplication suffer from brute-force attacks[3][1] . They cannot flexibly support data access control and revocation at the same time[4] . Most existing solutions cannot ensure reliability, security and privacy with sound performance.In practice, it is hard to allow data holders to manage deduplication due to a number of reasons. First, data holders may not be always online or available for such a management,which could cause storage delay. Second, deduplication could become too complicated in terms of communications and computations to involve data holders into deduplication process.Third, it may intrude the privacy of data holders in the process of discovering duplicated data. Forth, a data holder may have no idea how to issue data access rights or deduplication keys to a user in some situations when it does not know other data holders due to data super-distribution. Therefore, CSP cannot cooperate with data holders on data storage deduplication in many situations. LITERATURE SURVEY 2.1 Zheng Yan[7], provided proxy re-encryption and ownership challenge to deduplicate encrypted data stored in cloud. The main advantage of these techniques is that users can share data even when they are offline. The main disadvantage of these techniques is that optimization of design is necessary so that CSP functions properly in deduplication management. Vol-3 Issue-2 2017 IJARIIE-ISSN(O)-2395-4396 5056 www.ijariie.com 5904 2.2 M. Bellare[1], provided DupLESS that provides secure deduplicated storage to resist brute-force attacks.In DupLESS, a group of affiliated clients (e.g., company employees) encrypt their data with the aid of a Key Server (KS) that is separate from a Storage Service (SS).The main advantage of these techniques is that brute force attacks are avoided and clients can encrypt their data with key server which is different from separate storage server. The main drawback of these technique is that flexibility to other data users can not be provided. 2.3 C. Y. Liu[3], a policy-based deduplication proxy scheme was proposed but it did not consider duplicated data management (e.g., deletion and owner management) and did not evaluate scheme performance. The main advantage of this technique is that it establishes trust relation among cloud storage components with policy-based deduplication. The main disadvantage of this technique is that data deletion and owner management is not considered by policy-based deduplication. 2.4 T. Y.Wu,[8] proposed Index Name Servers (INS) to manage not only file storage, data deduplication, optimized node selection, and server load balancing, but also file compression, chunk matching, real-time feedback control, IP information, and busy level index monitoring .The main advantage of this technique is that Index Name Servers algorithm help to reduce workloads of resources and improve the performance of system.INS also handles server load balancing.– The main disadvantage of this technique is that encrypted data cannot be deduplicated. 2.5 C. Fan[9], have provided the system based on the assumption that CSP knows the encryption key of data.Thus it cannot be used in the situation that the CSP cannot be fully trusted by the data holders or owners. The main advantage of these technique is that it support deduplication on plaintext and ciphertext. The main disadvantage of these technique is that it does not support encrypted data deduplication. EXISTING SYSTEM A technique which has been proposed to meet conflicting requirements is convergent encryption whereby the encryption key is usually the result of the hash of the data segment.Although convergent encryption seems to be a good candidate to achieve confidentiality and deduplication at the same time, it unfortunately suffers from various well-known weaknesses including dictionary attacks: an attacker who is able to guess or predict a file can easily derive the potential encryption key and verify whether the file is already stored at the cloud storage provider or not. In our project, we cope with the inherent security exposures of convergent encryption and propose ClouDedup, which preserves the combined advantages of deduplication and convergent encryption. The security of ClouDedup relies on its new architecture whereby in addition to the basic storage provider, a metadata manager and an additional server are def


There exists a need for high temperature fracturing fluids as we expand exploration into deeper, lower permeability, and hotter formations. Fracturing fluid stability depends on two main bonds: the crosslinker to polymer bond and the monomer to monomer bond. To preserve the crosslinker to polymer bond, a proper crosslinker with a suitable delay additive is typically utilized. On the other hand, the monomer to monomer bond is challenging to protect since it's susceptible to a variety of factors with the main culprit being oxygen radical attacks. Consequently, the most common high temperature stabilizers used are oxygen scavengers such as sodium thiosulfate or sodium sulfite. Unfortunately, both additives create their own issues. Sodium thiosulfate is known to degrade at high temperature to generate H2S, while sulfites generate sulfates that end up causing inorganic scale precipitation or feeding sulfate reducing bacteria creating another source of H2S in the reservoir. Additionally, Sodium thiosulfate is a high pH additive which can cause formation damage through fines migration and precipitation of hydroxides.
 Vitamin C is renowned for its antioxidative and oxygen scavenging properties throughout many industries. It is commonly used as an extremely cheap supplement to boost the immune system and as a food preservative to increase shelf life. Moreover, it has an acidic pH and offers a chemical structure capable of delaying crosslinking reactions. For that reason, this work aims to study the influence of Vitamin C as a multifunctional additive in fracturing fluids.
 The tests mainly utilized the high-pressure/high-temperature (HPHT) rheometer. The performance of Vitamin C was assessed with a guar derivative at temperatures between 250-300°F for 1.5 hours. Moreover, zeta potential and coreflood were used to evaluate the formation damage tendencies of using this additive.
 The results showed that the use of Vitamin C was able to provide a pH reduction, crosslinking delay, and enhance the high temperature stability of fracturing fluids. Zeta potential and coreflood experiments showed that clays were more stable at lower pH conditions minimizing fines migration.
 Vitamin C is a cheap and readily manufactured environmentally friendly additive that offers solutions to the use of fracturing fluids at high temperatures. Utilizing it not only offers oxygen scavenging ability, but also replaces additives that lower pH and provides crosslinking delaying properties.


Real-time recognition of the 6DOF pose of textureless objects is a fundamental and challenging problem in robotics. We present a novel approach to perform real-time estimation of the viewpoint, scale, and translation of an object in RGB and RGB-D image captures. In this work, we use a 3D model to render example poses of a textureless object, and find the nearest match to the input image using a GPU implementation. To achieve invariance to illumination and appearance across an object, we transform images to the Laplacian of Gaussian space. To perform real-time matching, we introduce a novel reshaping of the template set and the image, and we restructure the traditional normalized cross-correlation operation to leverage the GPU for fast matrix-matrix multiplication. We provide further speed up of large-scale template matching by contributing a dimensionality reduction approach using principal component analysis, and a candidate elimination method. Our method achieves state-of-the-art performance as shown by qualitative results and quantitative comparisons to pre-existing methods.


Starting from the definition,connotation and features of knowledge management,this paper expounds the effective mechanism of implementing the knowledge management in library from hard mechanism and soft mechanism.


Trisomy 21 occurs in 1/700 live births and leads to phenotypes associated with Down syndrome (DS), including craniofacial dysmorphology and a small mandible. Ts65Dn mice are trisomic for approximately half the genes on human chromosome 21 and display DS-like craniofacial anomalies. Cells cultured from Ts65Dn and euploid 1 pharyngeal arch (PA1) and neural tube (NT) tissues were used to analyze the effects of genetic dysregulation on cell proliferation and migration. In vitro studies revealed a proliferation deficit in trisomic PA1 and migration deficits from trisomic NT originating at embryonic day 9.5 (E9.5). DYRK1A is a gene thought to be involved in DS craniofacial development and we hypothesized that dysregulation of Dyrk1a contributes to altered craniofacial development in Ts65Dn mice. We also hypothesized that Dyrk1a agonists could be used to ameliorate this phenotype. To test our hypotheses, we quantified expression of Dyrk1a using qPCR. At E9.5, Dyrk1a is upregulated in Ts65Dn as relative to euploid PA1. We also showed that cell proliferation and migration could be returned to near euploid levels with the green tea polyphenol epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) and harmine (known Dyrk1a inhibitors) in vitro. To further test our hypothesis, pregnant Ts65Dn and euploid mothers were treated with EGCG on E7 and E8 and E9.5 trisomic and euploid embryos were assessed for embryonic volume, PA1 volume, and NCC number. Preliminary evidence suggests in vivo treatment leads to an increase in embryonic volume, PA1 volume, and NCC number in both euploid and trisomic embryos. Trisomic EGCG-treated embryos had similar PA1 volumes and NCC numbers to euploid embryos treated with PBS. Gene expression analysis of EGCG-treated NCCs is currently underway to better understand the effects of EGCG in these studies. Our results provide information about the molecular basis of DS craniofacial abnormalities and may lead to evidenced-based therapeutic options.


For square contingency tables with the same ordinal row and column classifications, McCullagh (1977) gave the marginal cumulative logistic model, which is an extension of the marginal homogeneity (MH) model using the logit transform. The present paper proposes a different extension of the MH model using the complementary log-log transform. In addition, the present paper gives the theorem that the MH model is equivalent to the proposed model and the equality of row and column marginal means holding simultaneously. In data analysis, if the MH model fits the data poorly, the theorem may be useful for seeing the reason for the poor fit. As example, the occupational status data for British father-son pairs are analyzed.


This paper presents a method for a NC-Simulation based prediction of shape errors caused by thermal expansions in machining of complex workpieces. In the first part of the paper the basic approach of modeling a thermomechanical NC-Simulation for a faster and more precise process simulation is shown. Therefore, a fast dexel based material removal simulation including process models for calculation of localized heat flux and forces is linked to a FE model for simulation of thermal conduction in the workpiece. Interdependencies of thermal process and workpiece conditions are considered by a closed simulation loop. In the second part of the paper the modeling of each component is explained. To consider thermomechanical effects in material removal simulation the dexel based workpiece model is extended by additional information like temperature and deformation in every dexel. An inverse projection of the workpiece deformation on a triangulated tool model allows consideration this effect by deformation of the tool model. Thereby, a realistic shape of the workpiece can be simulated. In addition, the current cutting conditions like area of undeformed chip-thickness or contact length are changed. This results in diversified cutting forces and heat fluxes. For a realistic simulation of the thermal conduction the dimensions of the FE model have to be adapted by a time dependent virtual domain method. In the last part of the paper, results of the simulation are compared to measured data. The comparison shows that process temperatures in different workpiece areas are predicted accurately. © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of The International Scientific Committee of the 14th CIRP Conference on Modeling of Machining Operations" in the person of the Conference Chair Prof. Luca Settineri


Dementia in the new millennium. Epidemiology of dementia. Diagnosis and classification. Early detection of dementia. The role of the clinical psychologist in the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of patients with dementia. The role of the physician for the elderly in the assessment, diagnosis and treatment of patients with dementia. The general practitioner's perspective. The role of the nurse in the assessment, diagnosis and management of patients with dementia. Dementia: an occupational therapist's perspective. Social aspects of the assessment and treatment of dementia. Towards practical service delivery for younger people with dementia. Understanding behavioural change in dementia. Legal aspects of management. Spiritual aspects of dementia. Comprehensive and integrated mental health services for people with dementia. The role of service users and carers in helping to develop and improve services for people with dementia.


A solid fuel unit which enables an ignition material to be easily ignited, prevents the hand from being covered with a combustion material or an ignition material, and allows a disposable wet tissue to clean the hand cleanly even after the solid fuel is used is provided. In a solid fuel unit comprising a combustion material and an ignition material packed as a unit packing, the solid fuel unit includes an ignition set comprising: a match for igniting the ignition material in the solid fuel unit; a disposable gloves for preventing the hand from being covered with powder of the combustion material and powder of the ignition material; and a disposable wet tissue for cleaning the hand cleanly after using the solid fuel unit. The ignition set comprises a tray in which the match, the disposable gloves and the disposable wet tissue are housed, and a synthetic resin film for sealing the match, the disposable gloves and the disposable wet tissue in the tray. The tray has respective housing grooves formed therein according to shapes of the match, the disposable gloves and the disposable wet tissue, and the match, the disposable gloves and the disposable wet tissue are housed in the respective housing grooves.


The inherent and growing complexity characterizing today's infrastructure systems has considerably increased their vulnerability to external disruptions. Recent world events have demonstrated how damage to one or more infrastructure components can result in disastrous political, social, and economic effects. This, in turn, has fostered the development of sophisticated quantitative methods that identify cost-effective ways of strengthening supply systems in the face of disruption. Stochastic and robust optimization can be used to tackle these strategic problems when uncertainty is present. The uncertainty dealt with in this article is related to the extent to which supply systems can be disrupted. More specifically, we propose and analyze different protection optimization models for minimizing the damage to a system resulting from the disruption of an uncertain number of system components. We compare a cost-based model and two original regret models that, to the best of our knowledge, represent the state of the art in the field of protection in location analysis. Also, we discuss how to build an operational envelope for the models considered, which can be used to identify the range of possible impacts associated with different protection strategies. The models are tested on a benchmark data set and on a new data set that was built using the Census 2001 data of the United Kingdom. We analyze and compare the protection plans generated by the models and provide some useful insights related to the robustness of the different modeling approaches.


In galloping of transmission lines, the twist of bundled conductors plays an important role. So the research of torsional stiffness of conductors-spacers for in-depth study of the galloping of the transmission lines is important.In addition to considering the impact of previous studies involving some of the torsional stiffness of bundled conductors factors (such as the torsional stiffness of sub conductor, the actual tension, etc.), but also the effects of sag and line height difference are considered. Finally a theoretical torsional stiffness of conductors-spacers formula is deduced. With the previous formula and the measured data on the different conductor types, different sub conductor spacing and different initial tension conditions, theresults of this formula are closer to the measured data.


Find out more about working for Remploy as a Public Relations (PR) Manager based from home covering Midlands and South England


Basing on the actual status of the middle plant factory,we instituted Q345qD bridge steel plate process control project, designed the chemical component.Also aimed to the actuality for the production process equipment,we set up the techniques about controlled rolling for recrystallization,uniform cooling of middle slab,controlled rolling of un-recrystallization,analyzed the effect which sampling temperature compared to the impact capability,and finished the regressive equation about the key process parameter and properties of ageing impact.We proceeded the analysis to the steel plate in mechanical capability and metallographic structure,which satisfied the user's requirement,improved the production capability of the bridge steel plate.


Argues for a child-centered approach to thinking about child cycling accidents. Helmets instill a false sense of safety in children and adults, while a profound change in the habits of adults is the only strategy that can protect children from accidents. Suggests steps for local analysis of the problem of cycling accidents. (MOK) Language: en


On the occurrence of Phoma nigrificans (P. Karst.) comb. nov. (teleomorph Didymella macropodii Petrak) on winterrape (Brassica napus L. var. oleifera Metzger)

With a screening for resistence of winterrape to Phoma lingam (teleomorph Leptosphaeria maculans), in various places in North Germany, another species of Phoma was repeatedly isolated from plants with blackleg symptoms. This Phoma species could easily be distinguished from P. lingam by its larger conidia and its lower optimal temperature. Comparative study with isolates in the Phoma-collection of the "Plantenziektenkundige Dienst" (Wageningen) showed that it, represents the anamorph of Didymella macropodii, an Eurasian Ascomycete occurring on different wild crucifers and originally described from Macropodium nivale in Siberia. The Phoma-anamorph of this fungus was first described in Finl, and from Armoracia rusticana as Sphaeronaema nigrificans. This binomial is now transferred to Phoma ("section Sclerophomella"). Inoculation of rape seedlings with Phoma nigrificans (Didymella macropodii) resulted, in dark discolorations and constrictions of the hypocotyls of the seedlings.


Currently, the Russian economy faces stalled GDP growth, along with decreases in both investments and oil prices. To compete in a vibrant knowledge economy and retain companies within its borders, Russia should attempt large-scale optimization of its domestic business climate for high-tech companies. We focus on three Russian regions: Moscow, the Republic of Tatarstan, and Tyumen Oblast, analyzing the investment climate and the development of the digital sector in each region. Stating the most crucial needs for technology companies to stay successful and competitive in each stage, we identify the most common roadblocks and the necessary steps for key actors that want to create a supportive ecosystem. For broad, comparative, empirical lessons, we utilize the case studies of Silicon Valley (US) and Shenzhen (China). To conclude, we build a threefold policy framework that examines the impact of innovation and partnered learning at the state, federal, and transnational level.


It is therefore becoming essential for Canadian oil producers to equip themselves with a sufficiently diversified pipeline infrastructure in order to bring partially landlocked western crude oil to new clients. The American energy market is made up of five regional markets. Up until now,


The effect of polymer latex and polypropylene fiber on mechanical properties of expanded perlite lightweight aggregate concrete was studied,as well as its micro-structure.The results showed that to a certain extent,polymer latex and polypropylene fiber can significantly improve compressive strength and bending strength of the perlite lightweight aggregate concrete,reduce the water absorption of concrete and enhance the impact resistance property.The Scanning Electron Microscope(SEM) revealed that after the intermixing with polymer latex,the polymers will gather in the capillary bore and come into a network.And the polymers will improve the structure of hardened cement paste and dense the interface.


In this study, with Estonia as an example, we established to which extent and how we can use a massive amount of mobile data of the cellular networks, which is referred to as Call detail record (CDR), to extract large-scale commuting patterns at different geographical levels. We constructed a model based on Hidden Markov Model for reconstructing and transforming the trajectories extracted from the CDR data. This step allowed us to perform origin-destination Matrix extraction among different geographical levels, which helped in depicting the commuting patterns. Besides, we introduced different techniques for analyzing the commuting at the urban level. Our results unveiled that there is great potential behind mobile data of the cellular networks after transforming it into meaningful mobility patterns that can easily be used for understanding urban dynamics, large-scale daily commuting and mobility. The aggressive development and growth of ubiquitous mobile sensing have generated valuable data that can be used with our approach for providing answers and solutions to the growing problems of transportation, urbanization and sustainability.


Nicotiana tabacum is rich with medicinal importance. The aim of the study is to isolate, purify and compare nicotine (3-[1-Methylpyrolidine2-yl] pyridine) from different brands of cigarettes. Isolation is carried out by liquid-liquid extraction using ether as solvent. Crude nicotine samples are further purified with SPE (solid phase extraction) method. Nicotine crystals are complexed with zinc chloride (ZnCl2). Fine and pure crystals of metal complexes are obtained with Nic-C and Nic-D. However, no complex formation is synthesized with Nic-A and Nic-B due to impurities in the sample which is confirmed by thin layer chromatography. Antibacterial activity of the samples is carried out against different strains of bacteria which showed positive results for Nic-C and Nic-D. The outcomes of the study reveal that Zinc-Nicotine complexes can be used as therapeutic agents and anti-sickness agents in sickle cell disease.


We propose a micro-suction cup array device with tactile sensing capabilities. The suction cup array device is equipped with a camera for capturing images of the contact surface. The camera reads the deformation of the suction cups. Image processing estimates the displacement of each suction cup contact surface, its direction, and the contact force distribution. A preliminary experimental device has been fabricated. The master shape of the micro cup was fabricated by 3D laser lithography and UV nanoimprinting processes. A hole in the suction cup was opened by the femtosecond laser beam. Kernelized Correlation Filter was applied to the acquired images and the movement of the contact surface of each suction cup could be estimated. Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) was used to estimate the pressing force. The correctness (accuracy) of the produced CNN model was 87%, which is a practical accuracy.


1. The Lucke tumor agent, an agent with the ability to enter and grow in cells of only one differentiated tissue of only one race of frogs, has been changed by incorporation either in cells of young salamanders or in regenerating cells of adult salamanders. The new agents show affinity when returned to frogs for both the original host tissue, renal epithelium, and for their new host tissue, skeletal tissue.

2. Transfer of the renal agent, or a part of it, to the iris was demonstrated during tumor transplantation between different geographical varieties of the same species.

3. Evidence suggesting that a tumor agent may combine with particles which are different in different regions within a tissue is presented. The degree of regional differentiation is so great that secondary tumors frequently appeared in the region bilaterally identical to the site of the primary tumor formation. It is suggested that the data indicate the possibility of the existence of particles which are different in the various tissues and with which the tumor agents can combine in a process similar to crossing-over of genes to produce new types of tumor agents with affinities for their tissues of origin.


Renewed interest in preoperative irradiation has provoked several questions not readily answered by clinical investigation. Some of these are: (a) Is there any justification for a small dose of preoperative irradiation? (b) How important is fractionation in preoperative irradiation? (c) How long is the optimum period of delay between irradiation and resection? The answer to the first question appears to be in the affirmative. The reports of Stearns, Deddish, Quan, and Berg (17, 19, 20) showing an almost threefold improvement in ten-year survival rates in Dukes' C carcinoma of the rectum with small doses of preoperative irradiation cannot be disregarded. Other clinical successes with small dose preoperative irradiation have been reported (3, 5, 18).Two of the present authors (9) employeda solid tumor model to demonstrate that "preoperative" irradiation, in relatively small doses, significantly reduces the transplantability of a C3H rhabdomyosarcomato a C3H mouse. Similar laboratory investigations by others...


Transiting planets are essential to study the structure and evolution of extra-solar planets. For that purpose, it is important to measure precisely the radius of these planets. Here we report new high-accuracy photometry of the transits of OGLE-TR-10 and OGLE-TR-56 with VLT/FORS1. One transit of each object was covered in Bessel V and R filters, and treated with the deconvolution-based photometry algorithm DECPHOT, to ensure accurate millimagnitude light curves. Together with earlier spectroscopic measurements, the data imply a radius of 1.22 +0.12 −0.07 RJ for OGLE-TR-10b and 1.30±0.05 RJ for OGLE- TR-56b. A re-analysis of the original OGLE photometry resolves an earlier discrepancy about the radius of OGLE-TR-10. The transit of OGLE-TR-56 is almost grazing, so that small systematics in the photometry can cause large changes in the derived radius. Our study confirms both planets as inflated hot Jupite rs, with large radii comparable to that of HD 209458b and at least two other recently discovered transiting gas giants.


piece exemplifies how, with close reading of the novels, valis combines detailed attention to non-literary texts and other aspects of culture from the period with insights from other literatures and other disciplines. She makes explicit this wide-ranging frame of reference in another piece, 'novel into Painting: transition in Spanish realism', arguing that 'if we are to place the Spanish novel of the period within a larger cultural and aesthetic framework than its own Hispanic contexts – and i very much believe we ought to – then we need not only to examine influences and role models, as we have in the past, but also to search for the underlying structures that govern and give life to an entire age' (276). valis's style in this collection ranges from the lively and even colloquial – various pieces open with a provocative question – to denser passages of considerable complexity and sophistication. Unfortunately, the style has suffered in some of the pieces translated from Spanish, leading to occasional patches of obscurity. the practical appeal of this collection lies in the convenience of having all these thought-provoking essays gathered in one place, especially since a few of them originally appeared in publications not widely available in the UK; the inclusion of an index enhances the volume's usefulness. Beyond that, this publication in effect celebrates noël valis's invaluable contribution to the field over more than two decades. KatHY BacOn Portsmouth


A collective investment in Slovakia has undergone a process of massive changes and became of an important institution in the place of financial brokers market. It is getting more of an interest to many more investors. In comparison with the past the group investment is a subject to defined rules and regulations and therefore is a transparent subject in the financial market. In my work I have been closely concentrating on the monetary and bond funds of the financial market in particular, their characteristics and analysis of the two basic parameters such as efficiency and risk. As a matter of fact the investors entrusts their financies to the subject who should take care of these in return so the outcome of this project should be in the appeal for the investors to appoint the right trustee based on the factors obtained in this work.


Provided is a cell separation filter comprising: a board-like base; a porous region that is disposed on the base and that has pores formed therein for separating, from a liquid sample, the cells to be separated; and a wall part that is formed integrally with the base and that encloses the porous region.


Emotions can precisely affect antecedents of behaviors such as attitudes, attributions and perceptions. Since an insensitive human being, an unmanned organization or an unorganized society cannot be imagined, the role of emotions in human life is quite evident. The emergence of the importance of emotions in human life has led to the emergence of emotional intelligence concept. General emphasis of studies in management, psychology and other disciplines is that emotional intelligence is a very critical concept in work and social life, and it needs to be improved. The previous research show that people who have high emotional intelligence are more successful, have higher performance and compatible and responsible personality traits. Although emotional intelligence and the attitudes of employees towards work and organization have been examined in many studies, it is necessary to repeat such studies in different samples and different cultures since they will contribute to scientific accumulation. For this reason, by depending on the emphasis in literature, in this study it is aimed to investigate the impact of emotional intelligence levels of employees on their job satisfaction and intention to leave. A quantitative research was designed to reach the study purpose. The required data were obtained via survey method by using convenience sampling. The sample of the study is composed of 146 participants who are active in working life. Findings revealed that emotional intelligence affected job satisfaction moderately and positively, while it affected intention to leave negatively. Findings also indicated that comparing to other dimensions, regulation of emotions was found to be more effective on employee attitudes. So, it seems to be critical to control nerves, be able to evaluate negativity and negative situations as ordinary and prevent sudden emotional changes.


This paper addresses judgments 115/2019 of October 16, and 128/2019 of November 11, issued by the Constitutional Court. These two judgments confirm the jurisprudence which establishes the power of the Chamber Bureaus to find parliamentary papers inadmissible that are "manifest and obviously" unconstitutional and the obligation to find those initiatives whose admission involves a manifest breach of the judgments of the Constitutional Court also inadmissible. The study includes the background of the judgments, their analysis and conclusions.


Wind is the carrier of pollutants and any other gaseous or particle matters in the atmosphere. Stable atmosphere with low wind provides favourable conditions for high contamination of pollutants in urban areas. The importance of mesoscale atmospheric flows in air pollution dispersion has been recognized in the past three decades and has been the focus of intensive research; both observational and numerical. Mesoscale or local scale circulations are more prominent when the synoptic pressure gradients are weak, allowing horizontal temperature contrasts to develop, which in turn lead to mesoscale pressure perturbations. Tehran, a city which is situated at the southern foothills of the Alborz Mountain chain has an average elevation of 1500m, and covers an area of 864 km. Alborz Mountains have a significant influence on the dynamics and thermodynamic modification of wind regime over the city. At the same time, the Urban Heat Island effect (UHI) can cause its own mesoscale flow, complicating an already complex local scale flow. The topography and the urban fabric can cause slope flows, mountain flows, and valley flows amongst many other factors. This paper focuses on the use of state-of-the-art atmospheric numerical model – The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) – in an ideal situation to study the characteristics of the mesoscale flow systems that prevail over Tehran when air quality is unfavourable. So average sound of Radiosonde at Mehrabad station, for almost all the fair days of cold seasons from 2005 to 2008 was selected as an ideal initial condition and boundary condition with 10 × 10 km spatial and 12-hour temporal resolution. The simulations were carried out for a 3-day period in December 2005 when an aircraft, due to low visibility caused by high concentration of air pollution, crashed 2 miles away from the end of runway into an inhabited area. Three simulations were prepared. For the first experiment, called control run, we used the default urban setting of Tehran. In the second simulation, urban properties of Tehran were removed completely from the land-use fed to the model to investigate the effect of urban area on thermally induced circulation in Tehran. This simulation was called NoURB simulation. To investigate the role of the roughness in the urban area, a 3 simulation was prepared. In this simulation, which was referred to as HiFric simulation, three urban categories were used; class 31 of USGS land use/land cover was used for "Low Intensity Residential", which included areas with a mixture of constructed materials and vegetation. These areas were most commonly included as single-family housing units in which the population densities were lower than those in high intensity residential areas. Class 32 of USGS represented "High Intensity Residential" which included highly developed areas where people resided in large numbers. Finally class 33 of USGS was used for "Commercial/Industrial/Transportation", which included infrastructures (e.g. roads, railroads, etc.) and all highly developed areas not classified as High Intensity Residential. The results indicated that urban areas near complex topography can increase transfer of material (pollution) and energy from boundary layer to the free atmosphere. Besides the ideal simulation, we investigated some observational aspects of the transition time by wind persistence charts. The results showed that we have a 2 to 3-hour lag time at the evening transition of northern and southern part of the city which could improve the pollution potential in this period. This fact may play an important role in Tehran megacity management.


Pancreatic disease of the tropics is an acquired inflammatory disorder of the pancreas of unknown etiology that occurs widely in East Africa.'"'' The disease characteristically affects young adult men. The clinical features ofthe disease, whic h reflect changes in both the endocrine and exocrine functions of the gland, include steatorrhea, upper abdominal pain, signs of diabetes mellitus (especially polyuria and polydipsia), and evidence of malnutrition. The disease is a common cause of the ma I absorption syndrome, which results in generalized edema, ascites, weakness, and malaise.'' Patients with chronic pancreatic disease usually show a favorable response to enzyme replacement therapy. Without treatment, however, the disease is fatal in 40% ofthe cases.••̂ •̂ Histologic examination ofthe pancreas in fatal cases demonstrates an extensive loss of the gland's lobular pattern and the presence of dilated ducts containing calculi,•* In Uganda, approximately a third of the patients with chronic pancreatic disease develop widespread cutaneous scaling, and a unique and occasionally dramatic pigment loss of the skin and hair, similar to that found in children with kwashiorkor.