Hall and ohmic resistivities of sputtered GdFe and CoCr films were measured at room temperature in the wide range of the film composition. It was suggested that the Hall effect is connected with the side‐jump mechanism in both materials. Especially for ferrimagnetic GdFe films, the Hall effect was reasonably analyzed by assuming that the dominant contribution to the Hall effect is the Fe sublattice magnetic moment.


Ruttiman et al. Have proposed to use the wavelet transform for the detection and localization of activation patterns in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Their main idea was to apply a statistical test in the wavelet domain to detect the coefficients that are significantly different form zero. Here, we improve the original method in the case of non-stationary Gaussian noise by replacing the original z-test by a t-test that takes into account the variability of each wavelet coefficient separately. The application of a threshold that is proportional to the residual noise level. After the reconstruction by an inverse wavelet transform, further improves the localization of the activation pattern in the spatial domain.


The release in 2006 by the New Zealand Ministry of Education of a Draft national Curriculum set for release in November 2007 challenges schools and teachers to evolve their role to align with the priority to 'embed' enterprise values and methodologies. These values and methodologies will be expressed in curricula that school communities will develop locally in line with the new national Curriculum. This paper contextualises the place of 'enterprise' in the Draft New Zealand Curriculum of 2006 and considers some modifications in the final version released in November 2007. The possible impact of an emphasis on enterprise for teacher education is considered before evaluating 'enterprise' in reference to the occupational role of teachers, expressed here as their 'teacher professionality', following the work of Hoyle & John (1995). This paper extends the concept of 'professionality' to what is termed 'ethical teacher professionality'. It concludes by giving thought to how an enterprise focus in the New Zealand Curriculum challenges teacher education and the concept of ethical teacher professionality.


A sociological interview survey had been carried out in 1972 in a housing area in Kungalv municipality concerning the effect of the nearby motorway viaduct. A new survey was made in March 1975 in order to find the effect of noise reduction screens erected in 1974. It was found that there was a reduction of 22 percentage points in the number disturbed by motorway noise, that general comfort in the housing area was higher, that the effect of noise on health was regarded to be the same, and that it was almost exclusively heavy traffic which was a source of irritation. With regard to the effect of the screens, it was found that 59% considered that annoyance is less than a year ago, that 80% considered the screens reduced traffic noise, and that the residents had proposed lengthening of the screens to mask the noise from the joints on the viaduct. It is this noise which is regarded as the worst, since it is caused by large lorries which pass at irregular intervals, and the noise is therefore unexpected. /TRRL/


From the perspectives of both philosophical anthropology and humanistic theory of martial arts, the authors discuss the possible values and relevance of the traditional warrior pathways of eastern Asian martial arts to contemporary western society. They will also refer to other theoretical concepts of martial arts philosophy, especially the normative ethical practices usually associated with them. The pedagogical implications of the use of a variety of axiological traditional martial arts have been demonstrated time and time again in many countries around the world, but especially in those countries in eastern and south eastern Asia. The traditional pathways and ethical codes of martial arts (such as Japanese Bushido) are a universal cultural heritage full of potential from which


Previous explanations of the architectural style of the Sydney Technical College (1891) and Technological Museum (1892) have attributed their design to the emerging influence of the American Romanesque and the architecture of Henry Hobson Richardson. This paper argues differently: the designs by William E. Kemp, Architect to the New South Wales Department of Public Instruction, drew heavily upon ideas that had originated at the Sydney International Exhibition via the display of Alfred Waterhouse's drawings of the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, and upon other information conveyed by Professor Archibald Liversidge. The pair of polychrome brick and terracotta buildings broke from the classical sandstone traditions and incorporated Australian imagery. Their cultural significance and heritage value derives both from their break with tradition and from the tangle of social, political and economic issues that marked the fourteen-year period from their inception in1878, when the New South Wales Government voted 2,000 to establish a Technical or Workingman's College, to their completion in 1892.


Introduction: deficit disorder) neuro-behavioral activity, distressed Materials and Methods: A cohort study was conducted on 120 children aged 6 years. 60 children with low birth weight (less than 2500 g) as exposed group and 60 children with birth weight more than 3000 g as non-cohort Exposure to information collection was collected through a questionnaire distributed to families. At the end of the study, the relative frequency of hyperactivity and attention deficit disorders in low birth weight children was investigated Results: The relative frequency of composite ADHD in the exposed group was 26/7% and in the non-exposed group was 18/3% (P-value: 0/274). The mean ADHD of the compound type in the exposure group was 5/060 and in the non-exposed group was 3/400 (P value: 0/033). In this study, the relative frequency of composite ADHD in terms of sex, feeding during infancy and birth was considered. The results showed that the p value was not significantly different, but probably not due to the quantitative size of the sample. Conclusion: Relative frequency of composite ADHD in children with low birth weight was 26/7%, but this level was not statistically significant, ie, ADHD is not associated with low birth weight. But in terms of medicine, this relative frequency is almost 1/5 times higher than the non-exposed group. Abstract


Abstract For the past 20 years, researchers, teachers, and parents have learned much about how young children learn to write. In this article the author explores seven developmental stages through which most young children progress in writing: (1) they use processes similar to those they use to acquire oral language; (2) they engage in pseudowriting practices; (3) they learn basic principles for recording language in graphic form; (4) they use invented spellings; (5) they learn to compose in writing; (6) they learn to write in more than one mode; and (7) they learn to improve the quality of their writing by composing within social contexts. All educators need to be aware of these seven stages fora deeper appreciation of the learning processes young children use during the early stages of their writing development.


Similarities in binding cavities attract attention for the prediction and doptimization of ligand selectivity. Glinca and Klebe propose a clustering based on physicochemical properties of the binding site analyzed with Cavbase and conclude that their novel cavity-based method tells more than sequences.5 We agree that protein structures are key in understanding of ligand recognition. Still, we think that sequences can tell a lot, if the focus is shifted away from protein sequences toward substrate sequences. We show that an analysis of protease substrates, inherently containing valuable information about binding site characteristics, can be directly utilized to predict potential off-targets.

Selectivity is a central issue in drug design, as drugs frequently hit more than a single target.1 Therefore, molecular modeling aims at the prediction of polypharmacology with different approaches followed. Applied methods include ligand-based and structure-based methods as well as network analyses.2−4

Glinca and Klebe demonstrated recently that similarities in physicochemical characteristics of the binding cavity directly relate to overlapping substrate readout.5 By application to protease test sets they show that their cavity-based approach yields similar results as analysis of ligand data from ChEMBL,6 thereby outperforming a similarity analysis of protease sequences. Hence, they conclude, that "cavities tell more than sequences".

We definitely agree that structural information on the binding site is crucial in the rationalization of substrate recognition. Still, we think that sequence information can contribute significantly to an understanding of substrate specificity, when the focus is shifted from protease sequences toward substrate sequences.

A plethora of protease substrate sequences has been deposited in the MEROPS database in recent years.7 They are frequently depicted as sequence logos8 to visualize substrate preferences of proteases. Recently, we showed, how these sequence logos can be utilized to yield a quantitative metric for protease specificity.9 Thereby, we also showed that information on protein sequences only is insufficient to predict protease specificity.

Furthermore, similarities in protease substrate recognition can be directly deduced via analysis of sequence logos.10 We expect this approach to complement structure-based comparisons, as substrate sequences inherently contain information on binding site characteristics. Substrate peptides probe protease cavities via similar features as Cavbase11 by binding of hydrophobic and hydrophilic, positively and negatively charged, and aromatic amino acids.

We performed a substrate sequence-based similarity analysis of the serine protease test set of Glinca and Klebe. Substrate data was downloaded from MEROPS, normalized to the respective natural abundance of amino acids,12 and converted to vectors containing 20 amino acid probabilities at 8 substrate position P4 to P4′. After normalization, scalar products of these substrate vectors yield pairwise protease similarites ranging from 0 to 1.10

A comparison of all eleven serine proteases in the set yields a heat map depicting similarities in protease substrate recognition (see Figure Figure1).1). Furthermore, a hierarchical clustering based on complete-linkage yielding six clusters was performed as suggested by Glinca and Klebe.

Figure 1

Heatmap obtained for clustering of proteases based on similarities in peptide substrates. Deep blue color depicts maximum similarity, whereas red regions show dissimilarity in substrate recognition. Six resulting protease clusters are separated with horizontal ...

The resulting protease similarity map and clustering shows pronounced overlap with the cavity-based analysis of Glinca and Klebe. Thus, substrate sequence analysis shows similar discriminative power as an analysis of binding pockets. Urokinase-type (uPA) and tissue-type plasminogen activator (tPA) form a consistent cluster as in the study of Glinca and Klebe. Furhermore, our clustering nicely groups trypsin, thrombin, and factor Xa (FXa), known to show pronounced overlap in substrate recognition of small molecules.13

In conclusion we show that sequences can tell a lot on substrate recognition of proteases, if substrate sequences are considered. We are sure that peptide substrates comprise valuable information on protease recognition and propose their usage for the prediction of off-target effects, thereby complementing structure-based approaches.


A control system for a liquid infusion apparatus comprises a plurality of liquid infusion devices, each having a common connector of liquid infusion device side for an electric power supply line and a communication line, a plurality of racks stacked one another, each for receiving each of the liquid infusion devices, a plurality of common connectors of rack side, each mounted on each of the racks a base unit, and a connector provided on the base unit so as to connect an electric power supply line and a communication line to the connectors of lack side. Each of the common connectors of rack side is connected to each of the common connectors of liquid infusion device side, when each of the liquid infusion devices is inserted into each of the respective racks.


Hokoma et al. describes the dragon sign in ulcerative colitis, where there is a slightly tortuous, thick-walled sigmoid colon with hyperaemic mesenteric vessels. Hokoma et al. also coined the appearance of this radiological pattern as 'the reverse question mark sign'. The gold standard for assessing ulcerative colitis is colonoscopy. CT has a reported sensitivity of 74%. Loss of haustration, rigid bowel wall and bowel wall thickening are moderately correlated with the severity of ulcerative colitis. Imaging plays a greater role in assessing complications, such as strictures and perforation. Importantly, an abdominal x-ray is the standard first line investigation for diagnosing toxic megacolon. This is defined as the mid transverse colon having a diameter of greater than 5.5 cm.


The backpropagation learning algorithm has number of parameters such learning rate (η), momentum factor (α) and steepness parameter (λ). whose values are not known in advance, and must be determined by trail and error. The appropriate selection of these parameters have large effect on the convergence of the algorithm. Many techniques that adaptively adjust these parameters have been developed to increase speed of convergence. A class of algorithms which are developed recently uses learning automata (LA) for adjusting the parameters η, α, and λ based on the observation of random response of the neural networks. In earlier papers the effectiveness of LA based algorithms using problems such as encoding problem, symmetry problem, parity problem, XOR problem, etc., were examined. In this note we test the LA based methods on more realistic problems including classification of sonar signals, vowel recognition, printed farsi digit recognition, and printed farsi character recognition. It is demonstrated through simulation that LA based schemes comparing to other schemes such as SAB ,Super SAB, and ASBP method have higher performance. The result of simulations approves of the claim made in other articles that learning automata is a good tool for designing parameter adaptation methods for neural networks.


This article has shown an analysis of 165 cases of oro-antral communications which were treated in the Department of Oral Surgery at the Medical University in Gdansk from 1991 to 2000. All patients were treated surgically, modo Wassmund-Borusiewicz. The data were based on the analysis of the medical documents which gave information about the kind and quantity of complications which occurred postoperatively after 24 hours and 7 days respectively. After anamnesis, physical examination and x-rays which were done at least two and a half years after the operation we obtained the data for statistics. The analysis shows there are no connections between the time of the oro-antral communication and the operation as well as its late results. The Wassmund-Borusiewicz operation gives positive results after 7 days in 96,3% of cases. The most frequent late complication after the operation is the shallowness of the buccal vestibule which is a serious problem in prosthetics.


The Supreme Court of Illinois held that certain provisions of the Illinois Abortion Statute were unconstitutional in restricting the legal grounds for abortion and in failing to specify when an abortion could be legally performed under guidelines established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. The Illinois law was also faulted for attempting to prohibit the performance of abortions by either physicians or laypersons, regardless of qualification or medical necessity. In so ruling, the Illinois Supreme Court affirmed the previous action of the Circuit Court of Cook County.


A parametric analysis is performed for a wideband Archimedean spiral antenna in recognition of an emerging concept to integrate RFID along with several applications by using a single antenna. The a ...


NiTi is proposed to be a biomaterial suitable for bone replacements. Reactive synthesis, Self-Propagating High-Temperature Synthesis (SHS) of NiTi from Ni and Ti powder is a suitable method to prod ...


Aiming at the characteristic that traffic flow of different nodes influences each other in complex traffic network,this paper presents a novel short-term traffic flow forecasting method based on influence model.Based on the analysis of the difficulties of the traffic flow forecasting problem,this method introduces the theory of influence model to model.As the traffic flow of each node is considered as a hidden Markov process,the whole traffic network is composed of many interactive hidden Markov processes.This method uses the EM algorithm to learn parameters in the forecasting model.Experimental results show that the method not only has higher prediction accuracy,but also presents the interactive influence and dynamic evolution of the traffic flow of different nodes in traffic network.


This creative work is the production of the live and animated performance of The Empty City.

With a significant period of creative development and script work behind it, the team engaged in a range of innovative performance-making practices in order to realise the work onstage as a non-verbal live and animated theatre work.

This intermedial process was often led by music, and involved the creation and convergence of non-verbal action, virtual performers, performing objects and two simultaneous projections of animated images.

The production opened at the Brisbane Powerhouse on June 27 2013, with a subsequent tour to Perth's Awesome Festival in October 2013. Its technical achievements were noted in the critical responses.

"The story is told on a striking set of two huge screens, the front one transparent, upon which still and moving images are projected, and between which Oliver performs and occasional "real" objects are placed. The effect is startling, and creates a cartoon three dimensionality like those old Viewmaster slide shows.

The live action… and soundscape sync perfectly with the projected imagery to complete a dense, intricately devised and technically brilliant whole."
(The West Australian 14.10.13)


Grain traders in 1995 may have wondered if they were about to relive the world food crisis of the early 1970s. Prices for wheat, rice, and maize shot up during the year, grain stocks continued a three-year fall, fertilizer prices increased, and food aid dropped to slightly more than half of what it was in 1992. Average wheat prices in 1995 were 18 percent higher than prices in 1994, and 26 percent higher than in 1993 (Figure 1).


We build upon recent advances on the distributional aspect of Stein's method to propose a novel and flexible technique for computing Stein operators for random variables that can be written as products of independent random variables. We show that our results are valid for a wide class of distributions including normal, beta, variance-gamma, generalized gamma and many more. Our operators are $k$th degree differential operators with polynomial coefficients; they are easy to obtain even when the target density bears no explicit handle. We apply our toolkit to derive a new formula for the density of the product of $k$ independent symmetric variance-gamma distributed random variables, and to study the asymptotic behaviour of the $K$-distribution under different regimes; this has implications in the analysis of radar signal data.


Bacaltchuk J, Trefiglio RP, Oliveira IR, Hay P, Lima MS, Mari JJ. Combination of antidepressants and psychological treatments for bulimia nervosa: a systematic review.


When realizing carrier frequency offset estimation at low signal-to-noise ratios, a typical feed-forward synchronization unit solely relies on known pilot symbols. The importance of the position of these pilot symbols within the burst has been elaborated on in the literature. In this paper, we discuss the importance of the pilot symbol constellation for iterative code-aided synchronization. Furthermore, we investigate the transmission order of data symbols for a turbo coded system with code-aided synchronization.


Standard linear diversity combining techniques are not effective in combating fading in the presence of non-Gaussian noise. An adaptive spatial diversity receiver is developed for wireless communication channels with slow, flat fading and additive non-Gaussian noise. The noise is modeled as a mixture of Gaussian distributions, and the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm is used to derive estimates for the model parameters. The parameter estimates are used in a generalized likelihood ratio test to reproduce the transmitted signals. The new receiver is shown to be relatively insensitive to errors in the parameter estimates as well as to errors in modeling the actual noise distribution.


Naxos Music Library World. [Hong Kong; Franklin, Tennessee]: Naxos Digital Services, 2016-. http://www.naxosmusiclibrary.com/world (Accessed 29 July 2016). [Requires: To use Naxos's legacy Flash player: an Internet connection, a Web browser, and Adobe Flash Player; to use Naxos's HTML5 player with a PC: Windows XP, 7, or 8 and Firefox 21.0+, Chrome 31.0, or Internet Explorer 9.0+; to use the HTML5 player with a Macintosh: OS X 10.6+ and Firefox 21.0+, Chrome 31.0, or Safari 5+. Institutional annual subscription rates range from $925 for 5 simultaneous users to $4800 for unlimited users.]Early in 2016, Naxos Music Library (NML) launched its World database, a collection of sound recordings representing different music cultures around the globe. The newest of Naxos's audio databases, NML-World joins the company's more established classical and jazz libraries. According to the 2016 price list, the annual rate for 5 simultaneous users of NMLWorld is $925 ($185 per user). Cost per user decreases with more seats, with a maximum of $4800 per year for unlimited users. Pricing can also vary for an institution subscribing as part of a consortium.InterfaceThe NML-World interface has the same layout and features of Naxos's other streaming music databases. Naxos's search interface and results lists are, in my opinion, the best of the subscription-based streaming audio databases available for institutions. Most pages have an agreeably uncluttered look. The keyword search box displays prominently on the upper right of every page within the database. Search results display concisely at the album level, with no duplicate or false hits, alongside corresponding catalog numbers and cover art thumbnails (which can be hidden by selecting the List view).Clicking on a search result opens a page showing the individual track listing for the selected album. Tracks are listed under headings for their respective composers, but traditional songs each get the heading "traditional," which is unhelpful given the high number of such songs in the field of world music and the importance of the performer in this repertoire. Viewing an album of traditional music performed by various artists, for example, one cannot ascertain the performer of each song until one clicks the Track Details button, which then displays performer names with instruments. This information, though, is occasionally erroneous, as in the album Classic Celtic Music, which lists all performers, including singers and pipers, as playing the fiddle. Tracks are often grouped into subsections under headings such as 'Disc 1' and 'Disc 2' when the groupings actually reflect the different sides of an LP. Album pages include links to PDFs, when available, of accompanying booklets and larger cover art reproductions. The booklet links occasionally lead to an error message and failure to open the file.The user must click the box next to each track intended for listening, or click Select All. Clicking Play Selections then opens the HTML5 media player in a new, smaller window, allowing the user to continue exploring the database while the music plays in AAC format. The HTML5 player will occasionally hang up when using Firefox in a Windows environment, a problem easily remedied by clicking the Use Old Player button which opens Naxos's legacy Flash player. The HTML5 player works more consistently using a Google Chrome browser and in a Mac OS environment. According to the FAQ on the NML Web site, standard audio playback is at "near-CD quality," which in most cases was acceptable to my ears. For the purposes of this review, premium sound quality was not available but is an option at additional cost for subscribers with high-speed Internet. All of Naxos's audio databases are streamingonly, without download options.NML-World users can also browse by label, artist, and composer, as in Naxos's other audio databases, or additionally by cultural group or geographic area. The geographic area browse allows the user to drill down from the continent level or to select an area from a map of the world. …


Hospital nutrition services was part of health services in hospitals carried out through the inpatients nutrition care, food and beverages management in hospitals, nutrition research and development and play a role in accelerating of patients healing and keep healthy body condition, implement food management hygiene sanitation accordance with the requirements set. The purpose of this research was to analyze hygiene sanitation of food management and E.coli bacteria examination on food at Nutrition Installation of Batu Bara General Hospital 2018. The method used in this research was descriptive survey with observational approach and laboratory test. Sampling was done in Nutrition Installation of Batu Bara General Hospital. Sanitation hygiene analysis used observation sheet, and E.coli bacteria analysis used the most probable number (MPN) method was conducted at Laboratorium Balai Teknik Kesehatan Lingkungan (BTKL) Medan. The research result show that the hygiene sanitation implementation of food and beverage management in Nutrition Installation of Batu Bara General Hospital was only 2 principles of sanitation hygiene that has fulfilled the requirement, namely in the food raw materials selection and food transportation, while there was 4 other principles not fulfilling the requirements. The result of laboratory found that all foods and beverages containing E.coli bacteria positively with value <1,1 1600/100 ml sample, its means not fulfill requirement according to standard quality value specified in Kepmenkes RI.1204/MENKES/SK/X/2004 on the hospital health requirements. It is suggested to the Batu Bara General Hospital management to monitor and evaluate the implementation of food and beverage hygiene sanitation management in Nutrition Installation of Batu Bara General Hospital in accordance with the requirements that have been determined and meet the health requirements.


The invention relates to a method for planting rice in alkalescent soil. The method comprises the following steps: keeping the PH value of a soil plough layer at 7.0-8.8 by utilizing a soil conditioner, causing the soil to be alkalescent, and then planting the rice in the alkalescent soil. Specifically, the method comprises the steps of sampling, testing soil formula, soaking seeds, raising rice seedlings, transplanting and managing in the field. According to the method, the rice pollution caused by the heavy metal in soil is eliminated, the yield and quality of the rice are increased, the harm caused by soil acidification is thoroughly eliminated and the method is fit for popularization and application in Chinese acidic soil planting area and heavy metal polluted area.


We cultured eight-cell mouse embryos to blastocyst stage, divided them into three groups according to the time of blastocoel formation, and transferred them separately into recipients. The proportion of live young from the fast-developing embryos was slightly high (49%) but not significantly different from those of other embryos (38% and 39%). However, the sex ratio of live young from the fast- and slow-developing embryos was significantly shifted toward the male (71%) and to the female (80%), respectively.


In one of his cases it never rose beyond 950 F., and in another it never rose above the normal. The patient with the very low temperature died and the other recovered. His experience of sclerema neonatorum was that it affected the trunk more than the extremities, and that if it affected the limbs it did not involve the hands or feet to the same extent; it was also more patchy than in the present case. Moreover, in that disease one could feel the thickened subcutaneous tissue, and it had not the same hidebound feel as in the present case. The feel of sclerema was likened by the house physician of the hospital to the feel of an unripe peach-one which was just beginning to ripen, into which the finger could be pressed slightly, but which did not pit. And there were not in this case the bluish patches usually seen in sclerema. The tongue was usually affected in sclerema. This child could suck fairly well, and the lips were unaffected. These were some of the points in favour of it being sclerodermia. The PRESIDENT agreed that it was an unusual case, and was not on all fours with the usual type of selereina. He regarded it as a sclerodermia, and possibly intermediate between selerema neonatorum and fibrous myositis. There was a peculiar hidebound condition of the skin, very different from that of ordinary selerema. He suggested it was possibly produced in a similar way, and that some of the cases of sclerema neonatorum were microbial or toxic in origin. Dr. LANGMEAD, in reply, said he agreed in regarding the case as like sclerodermia of adult type. He thought the difference between the first and second toe here was greater than usual.


The libary in higher school is playing an important role in teaching innovation with its rich book resources. The paper details into haw the libary serves music teaching innovation and lists some serving methods.


The novel polymer poly(5-methylenebenzotriazol-N-yl), denoted BTA-poly, was investigated for the protection of copper by electrochemical studies and weight loss measurements. The electrochemical measurements were compared to weight loss measurements and satisfactory results were obtained. Compared with benzotriazole, which is one of the best corrosion inhibitors for copper, BTA-poly achieves good protection under the same test conditions. Due to the rapid adsorption of BTA-poly onto copper, its corrosion-inhibition efficiency can be controlled by varying the concentration. The protecting effects of the polymers were studied in a sodium chloride solution using electrochemical measurements and an immersion test. The surface characteristics of the polymer-modified copper were analyzed via X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). These results show that BTA-poly can be easily adsorbed onto the copper surface via self-assembly to achieve excellent anticorrosion/antioxidation effects.


The objective of this work was to evaluate the effect of tractor wheeling with a light tractor on the root growth and soil properties of smooth brome in South Estonia. Field experiment was conducted on sandy loam Haplic Luvisol in 2007. Data were collected during September 2008 in both an uncompacted and compacted area. Because of the compaction, the precompression stress increased in the upper soil layer (0−10 cm) by 12.6% and 15.2% at a depth of 10−20 cm. Compaction had only a minor effect on the bulk density, values increased 4.7% in the upper soil layer and 1.8% in the deeper layer. Differences in the saturated hydraulic conductivity (k s ) were not significant; however, the decrease in the k s was 26.6% in the upper level and 12.5% in the deeper (10−20 cm) layer. At a depth of 0 to 30 cm compaction decreased the root length by 44.7% and the root mass by 60.5% compared with the uncompacted soil. Altogether, this study confirms the unfavourable effect of wheeling on grasslands even when the wheeling is performed with a light tractor on dry soil.


Abstract : This project considers attack and defense problems on networks with respect to WMD attacks. It provides novel optimization models and solutions for network vulnerability assessment and defense measurement in the face of cascading failures and dynamic attacks. The critical infrastructures considered are complex systems which consist of multiple dynamic independent networks interacting to each other. The attacks we considered are dynamic, that is, another attack may be launched during the recovery.


Recent progress in copper based commodity Gigabit Ethernet interconnects enables constructing clusters to achieve extremely high I/O bandwidth at low cost with mesh connections. However, the TCP/IP protocol stack cannot match the improved performance of Gigabit Ethernet networks especially in the case of multiple interconnects on a single host. In this paper, we evaluate and compare the performance characteristics of TCP/IP and M-VIA software that is an implementation of VIA.In particular, we focus on the performance of the software systems for a mesh communication architecture and demonstrate the feasibility of using multiple Gigabit Ethernet cards on one host to achieve aggregated bandwidth and latency that are not only better than what TCP provides but also compare favorably to some of the special purpose high-speed networks. In addition, implementation of a new M-VIA driver for one type of Gigabit Ethernet card will be discussed.


oronary is the single leading cause of death and a significant cause of morbidity among American women. 1 Risk factors for CHD in women are well documented. 2 Compelling data from epidemiological studies and randomized clinicaltrialsshowthatCHDislargelypreventable.AssessmentandmanagementofseveralriskfactorsforCHDarecost-effective. 3 45 years old 40% women 55 years old management 2


Since the publication of the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude [Cien anos de soledad] in 1967, which immediately made its author a worldwide celebrity, Gabriel Garcia Marquez has had to answer an infinite number of questions and repeatedly tell how his books were written. For several years the Colombian writer eagerly responded to requests for interviews, as he once explained, not only out of a sense of professional solidarity with his fellow journalists but out of respect for the readers. And it is true that Garcia Marquez's attitude toward his readers is one of respect and gratitude. He is among those creative figures for whom the drive for self-expression is inseparable from the need constantly to sense a flow of readers' perceptions in response, the living warmth of human sympathy.


CLINICAL CHEMISTRY, Vol. 18, No. 12, 1972 1555 chromatographic procedures to unknown systems could give data that could easily be misinterpreted, if retention time was the only qualitative criterion to be applied. Conversely, since volatilecompounds and derivatives of non-amino acid substances can also be seen and measured by gas chromatography, the novice should be warned to approach new systems with caution. In the determination of free amino acids in body fluids after deproteinization it was stated that "clean-up on Dowex 50" was effected before derivative formation. This is very poor language for it only begs the question "Clean up of what?", and what effect has "clean up" on the final results. The sections on gas chromatography of peptides (Kolb) and mass spectrometry in peptide chemistry (Das and Lederer) are both good introductions to these methods as applied to sequence studies and protein chemistry. Here again, these reviews serve best as introduction to significant literature. Chapter 5 on molecular sieve chromatography of proteins provides a good review of the theory of the process and good discussion on the effect of each variable, e.g., bed length, particle diameter, flow rate, etc. It is worthwhile noting that in the mathematical formulation the symbolism of Giddings is used and that the theoretical approach is based on random walk theory. This approach appears to be the most fruitful to this difficult subject. Chapter 6 describes "technical details of thin-layer gel filtration and some application of the method as well as thin-layer gel filtration combined with electrophoresis and immunoprecipitation." Chapter 7 discusses the determination by microelectrophoretic technique of protein and protein synthesis in the 10 to 10 gram range. Chapter 8 is also concerned with electrophoretic separation in density-gradient columns, gels, and paper media employing the principle of electrofocusing. It brings the reader up to April 1969 on the literature of these important and powerful procedures. Chapter 9 discusses thern chemical modification of amino acid residues in their side or free and reactive groups, and the effect of such modification on the conformation and reactivity of the protein. The final chapter discusses methods for investigating complexes formed by several polypeptide chains that are not joined to one another by peptide linkages, the so-called quaternary structure, a term introduced by J. D. Bernal. The architecture of the book is therefore from the simple amino acids through peptides and proteins to protein complexes. Each chapter should prove a good introduction for clinical chemists who wish to know more


This study therefore, focused on food security among farming households in Ilorin South Local Government Area, Kwara State, Nigeria. Multistage sampling technique was used for this study. In the first stage, ADP zone C was purposively selected. The second stage was the random selection of one Local Government Area from the ADP zone. The third stage was random selection of three villages in the Local Government Area. The fourth stage was the random sampling of fifty (50) respondents in each of the villages. A total number of 150 questionnaire were administered to 150 household heads, out of which 149 respondents were successfully interviewed. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics and logit regression. Data were analyzed to determine the relationship between independent variables (age of household head, years of schooling of household head, household size, weight loss and farm size) and the dependent variable (food security status). The mean age of the household heads was 54 years. This shows that majority of the respondent were still within their productive age. The mean years of schooling was 5 years. This was an indication that an average household head in the study was primary school drop-out. About 78% of the respondents indicated that poor weather condition is the cause of food insecurity. Household with large farm size has propensity to be more food secured than their counterparts with small farm size. Therefore government should encourage farmers to graduate from subsistence agriculture to large scale commercial agriculture.


Purpose: to analyze and classify the main existing approaches to the study of the self-concept in philosophy. Methodology: theoretical analysis of the philosophical literature. Results: classification of types of self-concept in philosophy, description of the protective functions of each of them. Practical implications: an explanatory psychology, personality psychology, psychotechnics, counseling.


Retail forms an integral part of economics in almost every developed country in the world. Globalization and concentration tendencies, which actuate the process of rapid expansion of retail roughly in 1990s causes radical changes in its structure till nowadays. The thesis deals with the determinantion of these changes through analysis of situation and recent trends in retail market in EU. Through comparison between economic performance data and retail network capacity the analysis try to determine the extent of retail impact on general economic development on nationial and regional level.


The present invention provides a method and an apparatus for producing a polyimide film can be produced with good manufacturing a polyimide film comprising a uniform in-plane physical properties. After heating by infrared spectrophotometry self-supporting film of solvent content, based on the measurement result, to control the drying condition of the cast polyimide precursor, and a self-supporting film of a polyimide precursor solution from the die one or more conditions selected amount of extrusion.


Objective: Rat partial hepatectomy model is widely used in the study of hepatic disease. As the rapid development of research of liver protection drugs and stem cells therapy for liver injury, the model need to be improved. A rat model of acute hepatic failure with catheterization of portal venous branch was established. After a study of the way of cell transplantation was made in our trail, the new model was evaluated. Methods: Sixty F344 rats were randomly divided into 3 groups(n=20 in each group). The partial hepatectomy with 85% sizes were performed on the rats of the A and B groups. The same operations and catheterizations of portal venous branch were carried out on the rats of the C group. After the green fluorescent protein(GFP) gene was transferred into the FLSPCs, Every rats of the B group were transplanted into 4×l05cells through the portal veins during the operations. Every rats of the C group were transplanted into the same cells through the ducts. Control rats in the A group received medium of equal volumes. Mortality rates and hepatic functions such as ALT AST were measured after 72 hours. Meanwhile, hepatic pathology was studied. Data were analyzed using variance analysis and LSD-t. Results: Compared to control group the hepatic and coagulative functions gradually recovered in stem ce1ls transplant groups(B and C). The hepatic pathology significantly improved in stem ce1ls transplantation groups(B and C). The effects of treatments on the rats of B group are equal with those of C group. Conclusions: Stem cells transplantations through ducts of portal venous branch improved the hepatic functions and pathology in acute hepatic injury model of F344 rats as much as those through portal vein directly. The model has advantages in repeated operation, fewer traumas and less complication and can be treated whenever necessary.


Complex formation and copolymerization of 8-methyl-2-methylene-1,4,6,9-tetraoxaspiro[4.4]nonane with maleic anhydride were studied by UV, IR and 1 H NMR spectroscopy. In dioxane and chloroform solutions, these monomers form π-π complexes (via a it system of maleic anhydride and a π system of spiro-o-carbonate) (C=CH 2 )) and H complexes (via an H a proton of the spiro monomer and a carbonyl group of maleic anhydride (H a ...O=C)) with the equilibrium constants being 0.15 ± 0.054 and 0.16 ± 0.028 l/mol, respectively. The rate of copolymerization plotted versus the ratio of comonomers passes through a maximum at the content of maleic anhydride equal to 0.5 molar fractions, and the produced copolymers are characterized by the equimolar composition. Copolymers prepared at low conversions contain cyclic and linear units of maleic anhydride and of the spiro-monomer. The linear structure of maleic anhydride units in copolymers presumably results from reactions involving H-complexes.


This study conducted the research about the positive effects of Gynura Procumbens on preventing dermatitis and infectious diseases the contemporary people have. To do it, this study measured the concentration of NF-kB, the extract of Gynura Procumbens. In this regard, cytosol, the extract of Gynura Procumbens, and nucleus went through the separation process. The concentration of major NF-kB among various factors to control inflammation was measured with the use of HDF cell. Regarding RAW264.7 cell, the amounts of NO to play an important role in reacting the skin immune system as the media of neural transmission were analyzed. The outcome about the extracts of Gynura Procumbens injected show that it can be expected that as the NF-kB protein and mRNA band were reduced, Gynura Procumbens would have anti-inflammatory effects that could contribute to preventing dermatitis and diseases. In addition, the extracts of Gynura Procumbens have significantly reduced NO with their concentration increasing. In other words, Gynura Procumbens are considered to regulate dependently the production of NO in the concentration of extracts. Thus there is an expectation that the more intensive research would be conducted to heal dermatitis. And it is deemed that Gynura Procumbens would be used as materials for cosmetics as well as foods that the contemporary people can widely consume if a more careful research about anti-inflammatory effects would be sustained on a human bodies' clinical level.


The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced yesterday that it would give $60 million to the International Partnership for Microbicides a nonprofit organization dedicated to speeding the development and distribution of topical means of preventing H.I.V. transmission like foams or gels. The grant is the largest ever for microbicide research and development and together with previous support from the Rockefeller Foundation and Britain Denmark Ireland the Netherlands and Norway the partnership founded last year now has $100 million. (excerpt)


Vaccines are biological products and are susceptible to fluctuations in temperature. In many general practices vaccines are exposed to adverse temperatures.1 2 The aim of this study was to determine whether educating one staff member in each practice about correct vaccine storage conditions and nominating that staff member to monitor the refrigerator's temperature would improve vaccine storage in general practices.

A random sample of general practices in a metropolitan division of Western Australia and all general practices in a rural division were invited to participate in the study. Those that already monitored their refrigerators with a maximum-minimum thermometer or did not store vaccines were excluded.

Practices were randomised into control and intervention groups, and their vaccine refrigerators were monitored for 30 days with a computerised …


The African continent struggled for decades to eradicate colonialism and external forms of occupation. After the end of apartheid, it was seen that the struggle had been completed; however, it seems that the struggle still continues in the case of Western Sahara. The Western Saharan conflict is considered to be one of the forgotten conflicts in the world and the territory is listed as one of the non-self governing territories by the United Nations. It is considered as a conflict of liberation and for the right of self determination against an occupying country- Morocco. The conflict has seen the involvement of various regional and international actors such as Algeria, Spain, United States, EU and the UN all with their interests in the territory. This paper aims to analyze the role played by each actor and how their involvement in the conflict has impacted the conflict. The first section will provide a brief background to the conflict and the legal issues surrounding the conflict. The second part will focus on the regional dimensions in the conflict; the regional actors involved and how the conflict is impacting them. The third part will focus on the international arena and how their involvement has impacted the Sahrawi right of self determination. The final section will dwell on why the territory is important to the international arena.


Nonlinear propagation of a periodic sound beam in a dissipative fluid is considered using Fourier series expansion and numerical methods to solve the governing equation of motion in the parabolic approximation. The nearfield was considered in a previous paper [Aanonsen et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 75, 749–768 (1984)]. The analysis is now extended to the farfield. Numerical and asymptotic results are derived and used to explain the development of the fundamental and harmonic components from the nearfield into the farfield. A discussion is also given of some earlier models for the farfield of directional waves. Emphasis is put on the importance of imposing the proper matching conditions between the nearfield solution and the spherical solution in the farfield in order to obtain a good approximation. Propagation and saturation curves are calculated, as well as beam patterns for various harmonic components. The results are compared with available experimental observations. Nonlinear effects, although generated...


Abstract : A discussion of the role of visual and probe measurements in turbulent structure research is given, stressing the constraining limitations of each and the interrelationships of the two methods. A selective history of the use of visual results is discussed in terms of the constraining limitations of the visual methods. Retrospective remarks are presented concerning the Stanford visual data on the inner portions of turbulent boundary layer structure. The final section discusses some general features of what is currently known about the structure of turbulent boundary layers, draws conclusions from this general knowledge, and poses questions that seem currently important in gaining further understanding. The paper stresses overall aspects of the structure problem at the expense of details in an attempt to gain perspective. (Author)


January 23, 2023 Type Package Title Stochastic Island Biogeography Theory Made Easy Version 0.2.9 Date 2023-01-23 Description Develops stochastic models based on the Theory of Island Biogeography (TIB) of MacArthur and Wilson (1967) <doi:10.1023/A:1016393430551> and extensions. It implements methods to estimate colonization and extinction rates (including environmental variables) given presence-absence data, simulates community assembly, and performs model selection. NeedsCompilation yes Depends R (>= 3.0.0), stats, utils License GPL-3 LazyData TRUE RoxygenNote 7.1.1 Suggests testthat, knitr, rmarkdown, rootSolve VignetteBuilder knitr Author Vicente Jimenez [aut, cre], David Alonso [aut] Maintainer Vicente Jimenez <firstname.lastname@example.com> Repository CRAN Date/Publication 2023-01-23 14:00:02 UTC


This work is about propagation Archiepiscopal Chateau of Kromeriz. First of all it is concentrate to a National heritage Institute as to a major actor in the role of its promoter. Investigate the forms and possibilities of propagation, which are used for Archiepiscopal Chateau of Kromeriz. It examines the various promotional tools and their financial intensity. Part of work is the questionnaire dealing with attendance of Archiepiscopal Chateau from town citizens and from neighbourhood The work also includes analysis of promotional materials, which are aimed to Archiepiscopal Chateau and creates their overview. Finally, the work is bringing new oportunities of propagation of Archiepiscopal Chateau of Kroměřiž.


The source impedance of the supply voltage of a dynamic voltage restorer (DVR) may change due to the change of power system grid configuration. Hence the resonance frequency of the DVR system will change and that results in harmonic resonance in the DVR. This paper presents a detailed study on possible resonance phenomena in a DVR protecting a load with power factor correction capacitor. The study reveals that the harmonic resonance cannot be reliably prevented with the existing open-loop control of the DVR due to the lack of damping and stability margin. It is proved that the closed-loop controller consisting inner current loop and outer voltage loop can dampen out possible harmonic resonance in the DVR system by properly selecting the gain parameters of the controller.


Guide on gender issues. Unfortunately, licensed resources are available to only World Bank and IMF staff with an institutional user ID and password.


These graduate studies are composed of one part of courses and one part of scientific research. This thesis is the result of my scientific research. I would like to thank Christian Callegari for his help to make a working RSVP-TE module for the network simulator NS-2, and Boning Feng for his guidance during the work with this thesis.


Rollover is one of the main accident forms for vehicles driving on mountain roads.A vehicle dynamic model on mountain roads is established according to mechanical analysis for the vehicle on slopes.Then,the relationship between vehicle rollover and stability is studied by the lateral load transfer ratio.Furthermore,the critical velocity and critical lateral acceleration for vehicle safety driving on mountain roads are obtained.Finally,the results are verified by an experiment,which shows that the vehicle stability can be improved by controlling the vehicle velocity and acceleration.


The Bologna Process is the newest of a chain of activities stimulated by supra-national actors since the 1950s to challenge national borders in higher education in Europe. Now, the ministers in charge of higher education of the individual European countries agreed to promote a similar cycle-structure of study programmes and programmes based on the strategic aim to enhance student mobility in two directions: to increase the attractiveness for students from other parts of the world to study – primarily for the whole study programme in European countries and to facilitate intra-European – primarily temporary – mobility. Studies aiming at establishing the results of this policy face various problems. Statistics move only gradually from "foreign" to "mobile" students, but remain insufficient with respect to temporary mobility. Individual European countries opt for so varied solutions that an overall overview is hardly feasible. Yet, some general trends are visible. First, Bologna contributed to increased inwards mobility of students from other parts of the world, but not to a more rapid increase of intra-European student mobility. Second, the event of outwards mobility during the course of study up to graduation has turned out to be more frequent than expected by many experts, but differences by country do not fade away. Third, the value of student mobility gradually declines as a consequence of gradual loss of exclusiveness.


Introduction 1. The Industrialisation of Animal Genetics 2. Breeding for Productivity 3. Productivity and Animal Health 4. Productivity and Welfare: Animal Behaviour 5. Companion Animal Breeding: Ideal Standards 6. Companion Animal Breeding: Welfare, Professionals and Owners 7. Sports Animals: Breeding Gladiators 8. Surpluses and Rejects 9. Traditional, Rare and Fancy Breeds 10. Pedigrees and Purity 11. Population Control: Pests, Aliens and Endangered Species 12. Laboratory Animal Breeding: Designed for Science 13. Eugenics, Commerce and Control in Human and Animal Reproduction Index


The enzyme system (culture filtrate) from Streptomyces sp. W19-1 formed gentiobiose from curdlan (β-1,3-glucan). The mechanism of the formation of gentiobiose was investigated in this study.Two kinds of enzymes, β-1,3-glucanase and β-glucosidase (transglucosidase), were isolated from the culture filtrate of the strain by hydroxylapatite column chromatography. The β-1,3-glucanase hydrolyzed curdlan to glucose and laminari-oligosaccharides, and the β-glucosidase formed gentiobiose by transglucosylation from the resultant laminari-oligosaccharides, especially laminaribiose. The two enzymes took part in the formation of gentiobiose from curdlan.


This article presents a technique of local image description. Descriptor is based on a histogram oriented gradients and an adaptive exploration domain (obtained by structure tensor or by Fourier analysis), in order to be affine invaria nt.


Individual Differences is a key research content of second language acquisition,the commonlyused review and empirical method in the relatively previous studies can not provide any consistent answer(s)to the question of the relationship between individual differences and second language acquisition achievements.Hence,quantitative meta-analysis is recommended to be a new research aspect in view of its applicability and workability for the research of the topic.


Youth indigenous activism, territorial struggles, decoloniality, Colombia April 9th 2012 was the day that, in the Sociology Department of the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, the thoughts and feelings of five young people started to grow into something bigger. As sons and daughters of the large Natagaimas and Coyaimas territories we came together to name our nascent group as Grupo Pijao. This group is a seed that we continue to sow and harvest today in our territories through different strategies.


Based on the Kirchhoff's law, an experimental apparatus was configured and fabricated to facilitate accurate emissivity and temperature measurements at medium-high temperature. The apparatus consists of four parts: the sample heating system, optical receiving system, signal amplifying and controlling system, and display system. In order to validate the experimental device, the temperature and emissivity of SUS 201 is measured between 823K and 1373K at 1.5µm. The estimated uncertainty of temperature measurement is better than 0.3%. An instrument for practical temperature measurement can be developed according to the measuring principle.


............................................................................................................................................................. i Acknowledgements..................................................................................................................................... iii Key to abbreviations used in thesis ...................................................................................................... iv Introduction......................................................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1. Workplace football in history: Arguments and interpretations ............................8 Chapter 2. Emergence of Australian football in nineteenth-century workplaces..............36 Chapter 3. Rise and decline of trades football .................................................................................59 Chapter 4. Industrialisation, unionisation and football ................................................................90 Chapter 5. Workplaces, workers and war ........................................................................................119 Chapter 6. Women's workplace football and war ........................................................................142 Chapter 7. Rise of industrial recreation ............................................................................................161 Chapter 8. Contested football ...............................................................................................................197 Chapter 9. Depression, unemployment and violence..................................................................228 Chapter 10. Revival then war ...............................................................................................................257 Chapter 11. Conclusion...........................................................................................................................277 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................285


Objective To optimize the preparation conditions of astragalus polysaccharide(APS) liposome.Methods APS liposome was prepared by membrane distribution-micromembrane extruding method.L9(34) orthogonal test was adopted to optimize the preparation conditions which was designed with three factors of lecithin to drug ratio,lecithin to cholesterol ratio,and ultrasonic time,and two indexes of encapsulation efficiency and drug-loading rate.The encapsulation efficiency of APS liposome was assayed by Protamine method,the shape and particle size were observed by transmission electron microscope.Results The optimized preparation conditions were as follows: the ratio of lecithin to drug was 10∶1,the ratio of lecithin to cholesterol was 8∶1,and ultrasonic time was 20 min.Conclusion The APS liposome prepared under the optimized conditions has following advantages: high encapsulation efficiency and drug-loading rate,uniform shape and particle size,and good reproduction quality.


Purpose: This research proposes a hybrid BCI that integrates Steady State Visual Evoked Potentials (SSVEP) and Event Related Potentials (P300) simultaneously. We included human facial structure into a visual stimulus to elicit stronger cortical responses in a hybrid SSVEP+P300 BCI. We also discussed the possibilities of triggering one potential with facial stimuli and another with non-facial stimuli. Methods: To elicit SSVEP and P300 responses, non-face and neutral-face stimulus paradigms are presented. We also tested the neutral-face and flicker paradigm, in which non-face stimuli would elicit SSVEP and neutral-face stimuli would elicit P300. Results: The results showed that the latter paradigm evoked more robust cortical potentials, leading to enhanced system accuracy and ITR. The neutral-face and flicker paradigm has an average accuracy of 91.62%, with an average system communication rate of 22.04 bits per second. Conclusions: The author talked about visual stimulus characteristics that might change the way that multiple brain potentials are activated simultaneously and how that affects the individual potentials.


The 1997 Asian Economic Crisis has brought on a tremendous wave of retrenchment in many companies in Asia. We wonder, whether retrenchment is truly the cure for the Asian companies facing deteriorating financial performance during the crisis period. Thus our research primarily seeks to study the relationship between changes in the number of employees and companies' financial performance during the Asian Economic Crisis. To examine this relationship, an econometric analysis is conducted using data of companies listed in Asia week 1000. The results of this study indicate that in most cases, a change in the number of employees is not a significant explanatory factor for companies' financial performance. Hence, management should seriously consider all the costs of retrenchment before carrying out retrenchment.


Nonequilibrium Brownian dynamics simulations (NEBD) are used to model the dynamics of semiflexible macromolecules undergoing shear flow. The mathematical model utilizes a discretized version of the Kratky–Porod wormlike (or persistent) chain as the building block, generalized to include flow. The Fokker–Planck equation resulting from such an analysis is converted to a stochastic differential equation from which the simulation algorithm for the NEBD is obtained. Various conformational and rheological quantities are monitored, under both steady-state and transient conditions, with the primary independent variable being the flexibility parameter β, the bending constant of the chain. The model qualitatively describes many of the experimentally observed effects in such systems, most notably birefringence overshoots, cessation effects, and various steady-state effects. In addition, many of the qualitative rheological features of both rigid rod (or flexible) polymers are captured as β is made very large (or small). The advantage of the NEBD over an analytical treatment is its ability to incorporate (analytically intractable) effects such as hydrodynamic interactions and its (natural) ability to obtain transient information, a facet useful in comprehending the differing dynamics of rigid and less rigid macromolecules.Nonequilibrium Brownian dynamics simulations (NEBD) are used to model the dynamics of semiflexible macromolecules undergoing shear flow. The mathematical model utilizes a discretized version of the Kratky–Porod wormlike (or persistent) chain as the building block, generalized to include flow. The Fokker–Planck equation resulting from such an analysis is converted to a stochastic differential equation from which the simulation algorithm for the NEBD is obtained. Various conformational and rheological quantities are monitored, under both steady-state and transient conditions, with the primary independent variable being the flexibility parameter β, the bending constant of the chain. The model qualitatively describes many of the experimentally observed effects in such systems, most notably birefringence overshoots, cessation effects, and various steady-state effects. In addition, many of the qualitative rheological features of both rigid rod (or flexible) polymers are captured as β is made very large (or smal...


In order to have a "Green Olympic Game" in Beijing in 2008, the study on low-emission and zero-emission Electric Vehicles is necessary. On the requirements of vehicles used in Olympic gymnasium, several mathematic models were made by analyzing the principles of all the subsystems of Hybrid Electric Vehicle, and then on this basis, the models were made by using MATLAB/Simulink. The simulation analyzed two types of working conditions in which the vehicle was driven by electric power and hybrid power. The results show that the parameters and the control strategies are reasonable which can meet the requirements of vehicles used in Olympic gymnasium. Theoretic support and technical foundation for designing the vehicles used in Olympic gymnasium were proposed.


The property of the company, whateveritsform and nature, is of great importance becauseitis the guarantor of the continuity of itsactivityuntil the stage of itsbankruptcy and liquidation. Therefore, wefindthat the legislationdistinguishedhim a unique protection in order to preserve the financial information of the company not only to protect the company and the right of itsassociates, but also to protect the group of creditorshavingdealtwith the company of the abuses whichcouldbecommitted by thoseresponsible for management, includingofficers or managers, as the case maybe.


Considering some modified Newtonian potentials and the Hubble law in writing the total energy of a test mass located at the edge of a flat Friedmann–Robertson–Walker (FRW) universe, we obtain several modified Friedmann equations. Interestingly enough, our study shows that the employed potentials, while some of them have some successes in modeling the spiral galaxies rotation curves, may also address an accelerated universe. This fact indicates that dark energy and dark matter may have some common origins and aspects.


A multimedia system is developed for displaying 2 D velocity field by use of multimedia technique and Visual C ++ . Based on the calculated results of numerical modeling, the velocity field of Duliujian River is displayed. It can be seen that the system operates stablely, making vivid displays.


Congenital uterine anomalies or mullerian anomalies are prevalent in 0.4 to 10% of women in general and are often manifested by reproductive challenges like miscarriage, premature labor, premature rupture of membranes or malpresentation. Having a bilateral pregnancy in a bicornuate uterus is extremely rare, especially if it is a spontaneous conception.


【The purpose of this study was to describe the nature of nursing and life style of nurses. This study was conducted from march, 1994 to May, 1995. There are two kinds of data used in this research. To discern the nature of nursing and life style of nurses, 34 articles selected from nursing journals and text books, and the data which were collected by unstructured questionare with two main open ended questions were analyzed using Strauss and Corbin's method. The questions were "what is nature of nursing?" "When do you feel your professionl life worth?" 29 participants were nurses working at two university hospitals and two general hospitals in Seoul, understood the study purpose. The results were as follows : (1) The nursing is evolving phenomenon which is developed, and changed. (1) ${\lceil}$ encounter ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ trust ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ interrelationship ${\rfloor}$ have been identified as the causal condition of nursing phenomenon. (2) ${\lceil}$ concern ${\rfloor}$ has been identified as the central phenomenon of nursing. (3) ${\lceil}$ humanity ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ sincerity ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ nursing spirit ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ empathy ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ understanding ${\rfloor}$ have been identified as intervening condition and context of nursing phenomenon. (4) ${\lceil}$ helping behavior ${\rfloor}$ has been identified as action/strategy of nursing phenomenon. (5) ${\lceil}$ caring ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ observation ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ comfort ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ problem solving ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ co-ordination ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ education ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ stimulus ${\rfloor}$ have been as helping behavior. (6) ${\lceil}$ change ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ growth and development ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ to do by oneself ${\rfloor}$ have been as consequences of nursing phenomenon. (2) the nature of nursing have been classified into five properties ; ${\lceil}$ relational property ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ moral property ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ technological property ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ behavioral property ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ objective property ${\rfloor}$ (3) The life style of nurses is not considered as ${\lceil}$ to have ${\rfloor}$ living mode, but ${\lceil}$ to be ${\rfloor}$ living mode because the professional life of nurses is chracterized by ${\lceil}$ encounter ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ trust ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ humanity ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ understanding ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ concern ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ togetherness with human being ${\rfloor}$ ${\lceil}$ growth and development ${\rfloor}$ and others, which are properties of the nature of nursing, and are also considered as esential factors of real existence of professional nurse as a human being in nursing situation.】


Transmission characteristics of an end separation in two single-mode fibers and a Fabry-Perot resonator formed in the fiber are analyzed under Gaussian-beam approximation by using the method of planewave expansion. The interference effects between two fiber endfaces (or mirrors deposited on the fiber endface) and the angular divergence of the beam in the gap (or spacer) are incorporated in the present formulation. It is found that these transmission characteristics are strongly affected by the beam divergence even if the separation is several tens of micrometers and that the peak transmissivity of the Fabry-Perot resonator decreases as the reflectivity of mirrors increased. A simple improvement on the degradation of the peak transmissivity is also discussed.<<ETX>>


Objective: This studyexamined the caregiver burden, depressive symptoms, and mental-related quality of life of 226 caregivers of stroke patients, who had been hospitalized in 7 general hospitals located in Cheongju and Daejeon Metropolitan city. Methods: Data werecollected from August 5, 2014 to October 5, 2014 and a structured self-administered questionnaire was used. The resultswereanalyzed using a t-test, ANOVA for different comparisonsof themental related quality of life in the sociodemographic characteristics, care-related characteristics, health-related behavioral characteristics, caregiver burden, and depressive symptoms. Hierarchical multiple regression was conductedto determine the explanatory power of the independent variables on the dependent variables, with the variables showing significant differences in univariate analysis as independent variables. Results: According to the results of hierarchical multiple regression analysis, the relevant factors that influenced the mental-related quality of life were the relationship with a patient, burden by 'care', burden by sacrifice of 'personal life', and depressive symptoms. Conclusion: To enhance health-related quality of life, not only is a systematic complement on such factors needed, but the development and implementation of an intervention program to the caregiver burden and depressive symptoms isalso urgently required.


We have investigated the effect of hydrostatic pressure and magnetic field on the nonlinear electrical conduction in (TMTSF${)}_{2}$${\mathrm{PF}}_{6}$ at T=350 mK. The observed variations are described in terms of a tunneling expression, where the influence of pressure and of magnetic field can be separated. We establish the relation between the current density and the spin-density-wave order parameter and discuss the origin of possible tunneling barriers.


The Design Reference Architecture 5 (DRA 5) is the most recent concept developed by NASA to send humans to Mars in the 2030 time frame using Constellation Program elements. DRA 5 is optimized to meet a specific set of requirements that would provide for a robust exploration program to deliver a new six-person crew at each biennial Mars opportunity and provide for power and infrastructure to maintain a highly capable continuing human presence on Mars. This paper examines an alternate architecture that is scaled back from DRA 5 and might offer lower development cost, lower flight cost, and lower development risk. It is recognized that a mission set using this approach would not meet all the current Constellation Mars mission requirements; however, this 'austere' architecture may represent a minimum mission set that would be acceptable from a science and exploration standpoint. The austere approach is driven by a philosophy of minimizing high risk or high cost technology development and maximizing development and production commonality in order to achieve a program that could be sustained in a flat-funded budget environment. Key features that would enable a lower technology implementation are as follows: using a blunt-body entry vehicle having no deployable decelerators, utilizing aerobraking rather than aerocapture for placing the crewed element into low Mars orbit, avoiding the use of liquid hydrogen with its low temperature and large volume issues, using standard bipropellant propulsion for the landers and ascent vehicle, and using radioisotope surface power systems rather than a nuclear reactor or large area deployable solar arrays. Flat funding within the expected NASA budget for a sustained program could be facilitated by alternating cargo and crew launches for the biennial Mars opportunities. This would result in two assembled vehicles leaving Earth orbit for Mars per Mars opportunity. The first opportunity would send two cargo landers to the Mars surface to preposition a habitat, supplies, and exploration equipment. The next opportunity, two years later, would send to Mars orbit 1) a lander with a Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) and 2) a crewed Mars Transit Habitat with an Orion CEV for Earth return. The following opportunity, two years after the first crew, would go back to cargo-only launches. This alternation of cargo and crew opportunities results in a sustainable launch rate of six Ares V launches every two years. It is notable that four of the six launches per Mars opportunity are identical, build-to-print, Tran-Mars Injection stages. This type of production rate could lend itself well to a COTStype service provider, and would make it feasible to have a live spare in place in the event of a single launch failure.


Wastewater containing phenol and other phenolic compounds are commonly
generated from many chemical operations such as polymeric resin production, oil
refining, pesticides, pulp and paper manufacturing (B. Koumanova et al). Wastewater
that contains phenol has significant effects on the environment. Phenol can be toxic or
lethal to fish even at low concentration (5-25 mg/l) depending on the temperature. The
contaminated fish may be consumed by human accidently. Furthermore, phenol can
imparts objectionable tastes to drinking water, especially chlorinated water, even at very
low concentrations. Beside from that, phenols also known as an inhibitor of biological
reactions that will further affect efficiency of wastewater treatment plant (Daihabde et
al.).


Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is the well-established and iconic target for a variety of cancer types. The recent attractive molecular receptor identified is EGFR. Small molecule based drug discovery is the rapidly growing field wherein the design of therapeutics is the master approach till date. This study throws light on the series of azo derivatives from the one of our previous reports may evolve as the effective antiEGFR agent. We worked with successful insilico approaches like molecular docking and pharmacokinetic properties. As a result, we found all the six azo derivatives are exceedingly capable of acting as antagonist for EGFR, further more we document that as molecule with therapeutic value in bladder cancer.


ABSTRACT This paper attempts to describe Consultative Parties' (CPs) patterns of participation at the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings (ATCM) during the 1998–2011 period. The results of this work show that a subset of the original signatories of the Antarctic Treaty exert the greatest political influence on ATCMs, and can therefore be seen as the main 'propellers' of the ATCM system. Although the performance of some of the non-original signatories is becoming increasingly consistent, the system still offers the appearance of being rather asymmetric and endogamic. In addition, a number of factors that might explain the patterns of participation observed are presented and discussed, as a contribution that may allow for achieving a more comprehensive picture of how the work of the ATCMs unfolds through time. The article concludes by presenting likely directions towards which future research on behavioural aspects of Antarctic policy making can be orientated.


Survey research is a frequent method for disaster medical research submitted to Prehospital and Disaster Medicine. Surveys utilize questions to gather information from study subjects. By using survey methodology, an investigator can make determinations about the beliefs, attitudes, experiences, and expectations of a study population. The introduction of electronic survey platforms, such as SurveyMonkey (Palo Alto, California USA), has resulted in an upsurge of survey studies and polls. Unlike a census in which all members of a population are studied, the survey uses a fraction or sample of a study population to make conclusions. For a survey to be accurate, the individuals selected to participate in the survey must represent the entire study population in all ways that are relevant to the study objective. Surveys can be conducted one time as a cross-sectional study or repeated over time to form a longitudinal study. In addition to online formats for conducting survey research, an investigator can use telephone, mail, or direct interviews to present survey questions to participants. Survey questionnaires can be designed to generate data that allow for statistical analysis and inference. While survey research may be intrusive for individuals and can expose personal information, most human subjects or ethics committees consider this type of research exempt from need for detailed review as long the investigator presents proof that confidential personal information will be protected. Additionally, an investigator must assure that survey subjects participate voluntarily and without coercion. Because appropriately conducted surveys are voluntary, there is risk of lack-of-response by some of those selected as survey participants. Lack-of-response to survey questions leads to one of the major problems in survey research, that of nonresponse error. Survey research should be conducted using the same principles as other scientific methods with the strictest attention directed to limiting all possible bias. Bias, for purposes of this article, is error and interference within a study that leads to lack-of-validity of the survey outcome(s). For survey-based research, the risks for bias likely are higher than for other common research methods. Therefore, it is important that when considering survey research, the investigator design the research to minimize all forms of bias inherent with survey methodology. The primary forms of bias found with survey research include:


Cosmogenic controls on vanadium isotopes in lunar basalts S.S. HOPKINS*, J. PRYTULAK, J. BARLING, S.S. RUSSELL, B.J. COLES, A.N. HALLIDAY Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, OX1 3AN, UK (correspondence: email@example.com) Dept. of Earth Sciences, Durham University, DH1 3LE, UK Natural History Museum, London, SW7 5BD, UK Dept. of Earth Sciences & Engineering, Imperial College, SW7 2AZ, UK The Earth Institute, Columbia University, NY 10025, USA


Cooperative intrusion detection techniques for MANETs utilize ordinary computing hosts as network intrusion sensors. If compromised, these hosts may inject bogus data into the intrusion detection system to hide their activities or falsely accuse well-behaved nodes. Approaches to Byzantine fault tolerance involving voting are potentially applicable, but must address the fact that only nodes in particular topological locations at particular times are qualified to vote on whether an attack occurred. We examine these issues in the context of a prototype distributed detector for self-contained, in-band wormholes in OLSR networks. We propose an opportunistic voting algorithm and present test results from a 48-node testbed in which colluding attackers generate corroborating false accusations against pairs of innocent nodes. The results indicate that opportunistic voting can instantaneously suppress false accusations when the network topology and routes chosen by OLSR provide a sufficient number of nearby honest observers to outvote the attackers.


Since independence of India, one of the biggest challenges that the country has been facing is reduction in poverty. More than six decades have been passed out; poverty has been persisting in the country especially in rural India (the real India) popularly known as 'Bharat". India contributes a third of the global poor. China contributes 13 per cent of the global poor. In respect of poverty China is better off than India. Time to time different studies have been carried out to measure the magnitude of Indian poverty, but correct picture has not been emerged out. The present paper tries to analyze emerging trends in Indian poverty on the one hand and on the other hand to discuss different issues which are coming up in regard to taking measures in reducing poverty The paper further examines a comparison of India with China's poverty scenario. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n21p335


Preface vii Acknowledgments ix Some Key Terms xi Part I Introduction and Framing 1 1 The Digital Universe: A "Quick-Start" Introduction 3 2 Thinking About Moore's Law 14 3 Critical Perspectives 25 Part II Internet and Web History 41 4 Origins of the Internet 43 5 Internet Evolution 64 6 The Web 82 Part III Telecommunication and Media Convergence 103 7 Telecommunication and the "Flat" World 105 8 Digital Media Convergence 127 Part IV Internet Control, Cyberculture, and Dystopian Views 143 9 The Public and Private Internet 145 10 Censorship and Global Cyberculture 168 11 The Dark Side 186 Part V New Communication Technologies and the Future 205 12 Wired and Wireless Technologies 207 13 Virtual and Augmented Worlds 226 14 The Future of the Digital Universe 253 Index 270


Drawing on network analysis and informing the internationalization process of Japanese firms, this study introduces an ad hoc entry strategy, termed 'pre-clusterization'. Unlike conventional keiretsu firms, competitive suppliers in a well-integrated network can enter a new market and begin clustering in a location that the core firm targets before the full entry of the core firm. The process of pre-clusterization is illustrated using a case study of the Toyota Group in China. A number of testable propositions are presented. Findings reveal the importance of strategic collective actions when coping with intensive competition and uncertainty in emerging market contexts.


Compiling a parts list by selecting from a plurality of optional components arranged in groups, each group comprising a plurality of related components of which any number from a predetermined minimum to a predetermined maximum may be selected, the availability for selection of at least some of the components being dependent on those components already selected. The method may also be used to compile a list of clauses for inclusion in eg. an insurance contract.


A synthetic process for the formation of ZrxY1-xOy nanostructures is demonstrated by the reaction of yttrium nitrate hexahydrate with zirconium propoxide. The reactions are carried out at temperature 60°C and pressure 0.1 MPa. The energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy measurements confirm formation of ZrxY1-xOy nanostructures and the presence of carbonate and hydroxide species which are removed after high temperature anneals. It was found that the oxygen pressure during synthesis plays a determinant role on the structural properties of the nanostructure. This effect is further studied by atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements and scanning electron microscope (SEM), which showed the formation of an isotopically organized structure. X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurement reveals that these changes in the nanostructural efficiency are associated with structural and compositional changes among the substrate. The dielectric constant as measured by the capacitance–voltage (C–V) technique is estimated to be around 39.05. C–V measurements taken at 1 MHz show the maximum capacitance for the Zr0.05Y0.95Oy film. The leakage current densities were below 10-5 A/cm2 for the Zr0.05Y0.95Oy film.


A medullary carcinoma of the thyroid was preoperatively diagnosed on ultrasonically guided fine needle aspiration biopsies. After cytocentrifugation, the tumor cells displayed a dense cytoplasmic silver granulation with the Sevier-Munger technique when applied to air-dried or acetone-ethanol-fixed samples and an obvious calcitonin immunoreactivity after fixation in Bouin's fluid. These methods may prove useful in the identification of nonpalpable metastases and recurrences of medullary carcinomas of the thyroid, especially since the cytologic typing of medullary thyroid carcinoma cells may be difficult with routine stainings.


There are many references relating Islamic world in South Asia. It muchly focus on dinasty and its corelation with ecomic, social, religious and cultural aspects. The hypothesis is that historically, the early Islamic existence is began with attack, conquest and building Islamic Kingdom. South Asia covers; India, Pakistan, Sri Langka, Maladewa, Kashmir, with its demography comprised 300 million population with different languages and cultures. In the post colonialism, Islam has degraded due to political crises and the emerge of sufism sincritism.


Taking Huiguo,Gongyi of Henan province asexample,the paper analyzes the characteristic of the rural region through calculating the index of comparative labor productivity,the dual comparative coefficient,and dual contrast coefficient as its indicator.It also carries the futher analysis on the mechanism of the industrialization on the dual structure changing primitively.


The Kruger National Park is the largest protected area in South Africa. The park was opened to tourists in 1927 at a time when private automobiles were becoming a feature of South African cities. Since 1927 there has been a 67,879-fold increase in tourists until 2019. The current number of tourists is 1.8 million exceeds that of any other savannah, wildlife-based national park in Africa by at least four-fold and poses the danger of overtourism. The total number of tourists that can be accommodated by accommodation within the Kruger National Park is 7400, which is high for an African national park. The paper examines historic tourist trends and the regional concentration of tourist facilities within the park. Due to its accessibility, the southern region, which comprises 21.9% of the park, receives 73.9% of tourists and has 32.9% of the 2,562-kilometre road network and 49.8% of tourist beds. A survey of members of a social media group found that 90.9% believe the southern region is overdeveloped. Open Safari Vehicles (OSVs) could be part of an Alternative Transportation Programme (ATP) as they transport an average of 5.9 tourists, compared to an average of 2.4 tourists per private automobile. A survey was conducted on the same social media site to ascertain attitudes towards OSVs, which now account for 16.7% of the park's tourists.  A total of 1,320 responses were recorded and 29.24% believed that OSV drivers have no regard for other park users, while others regarded these vehicles as an important contribution to park conservation and management.


Taiwan is one of the fastest growing countries in the world; its growth has been characterized by such desirable features as good income distribution and poverty alleviation, while the country's development process has been positively influenced not only by its initial conditions but also by its choice of development strategy and policies. By comparison, the Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) region represents an example of development failure, which has been ascribed, in varying proportions, to such factors as its initial conditions, an unfavorable international environment, and questionable development strategies and policies. This juxtaposition of success and failure naturally gives rise to the question of whether SSA stands to gain by learning appropriate lessons from Taiwan on "best practice" strategies and policies for development. This is a question that has been asked in a growing list of studies, especially those relating the broad experience of Asia (or move specifically East Asia) to that of Africa (Winrock, 1991; Lindauer and Roemer, 1994; Thorbecke, 1994; Harrold et al., 1995). What this paper seeks to accomplish has a narrower focus than what has been attempted in the literature cited above, in the specific sense of limiting the comparison of the African experience to the particular case of Taiwan. But while the base against which comparison is being made is narrow, the region for which lessons are being sought contains a large number of countries that probably have as many differences as they have similarities. Thus, a recent study (World Bank, 1995:


The use of unmanned aerial vehicle base stations (UAV-BSs) as airborne base stations has recently gained great attention. In this paper, we model a network of UAV-BSs as a Poisson point process (PPP) operating at a certain altitude above the ground users. We adopt an air-to-ground (A2G) channel model that incorporates line-of-sight (LoS) and non-line-of-sight (NLoS) propagation. Thus, UAV-BSs can be decomposed into two independent inhomogeneous PPPs. Under the assumption that NLoS and LoS channels experience Rayleigh and Nakagami-m fading, respectively, we derive approximations for the coverage probability and average achievable rate, and show that these approximations match the simulations with negligible errors. Numerical simulations have shown that the coverage probability and average achievable rate decrease as the height of the UAV-BSs increases.


The electrical characteristics of the resistive switching memory with Pd nanocrystals (NCs) are investigated. The memories with Pd NCs embedded in different places of HfOx film are fabricated. Compared with all structures, the devices with Pd NCs embedded in the middle of HfOx film show best electrical characteristics. It is found that the electrical characteristics are closely related to the forming process, including set voltage and conductive current.


A new RLC high-pass filter circuit is considered, in which, due to the introduction of additional buffer amplifiers (voltage followers) and resistive voltage dividers, independent tuning of the pole Q-factor and the pole frequency by various resistance is realized at constant capacitance values of the frequency-setting capacitor and frequency-setting inductance. The article discusses the conclusion of modeling RLC high-pass filter in the Micro-Cap, which confirm its claimed properties. The basic mathematical equations for the transfer function of the RLC high-pass filter and the parameters of its frequency response are obtained. The equations obtained above make it possible to develop an algorithm for independent adjustment of the parameters of the proposed RLC filter. The RLC high-pass filter circuitry proposed by the authors is recommended for adaptive filtering of signals in radio engineering and measuring systems. Due to the appropriate parameters choice of passive and active circuit elements, it is possible to ensure the operation of the considered RLC high-pass filter both at low and at high frequencies.


The reconstruction of three-dimensional left ventricle from bi-plane angiocardiograms needs accurate detection of the ventricle contour in each image. The automatic contour detection in angiocardiograms remains to be a difficult problem. This paper presents a study of applying the maximum likelihood edge detector to provide a reliable set of edge pixels for ventricular contour tracing.


Abstract A number of aminobenzophenones have been synthesized by acylation of benzene and its derivatives with different 2‐,3‐,4‐aminobenzoic and 4‐aminophenylacetic acids in polyphosphoric acid via Friedel–Crafts reaction as compounds with expected antitumor activity.


A comprehensive review is given of methods to determine the stress intensity factor at crack tips using thermoelastic stress analysis. In order to obtain accurate results a number of areas of experimental procedure need to be considered and these are discussed in detail. The paper concludes with a discussion on the future potential of the use of thermoelasticity for the analysis of cracks.


We use a locally constant field approximation (LCFA) to study the one-loop Heisenberg-Euler effective action in a particular class of slowly varying inhomogeneous electric fields of Lorentzian shape with $0\leq d\leq 4$ inhomogeneous directions. We show that for these fields, the LCFA of the Heisenberg-Euler effective action can be represented in terms of a single parameter integral, with the constant field effective Lagrangian with rescaled argument as integration kernel. The imaginary part of the Heisenberg-Euler effective action contains information about the instability of the quantum vacuum towards the formation of a state with real electrons and positrons. Here, we in particular focus on the dependence of the instantaneous vacuum decay rate on the dimension $d$ of the field inhomogeneity. Specifically for weak fields, we find an overall parametric suppression of the effect with $(E_0/E_{\rm cr})^{d/2}$, where $E_0$ is the peak field strength of the inhomogeneity and $E_{\rm cr}$ the critical electric field strength.


The Jesuit missionaries played a leading role in the dissemination of plants, animals and foodways that followed the expansion of the Iberian empires during the early modern period. In this paper I examine the introduction of new foods and culinary material culture in the Pacific region through the case study of the Mariana Islands, an archipelago where the Society of Jesus established a mission in 1668. Drawing on memorials, reports, and letters written during the previous years of the Jesuit mission (1662-1668), I consider, first, the relevance given to the introduction of new foods for the colonization and evangelization of the Mariana Islands. Secondly, I analyze the type of cuisine that the Jesuits attempted to reproduce in the archipelago, paying special attention to the ingredients (plants and animals) and the material culture related to food preparation and food consumption. Written sources show that missionaries and their contemporaries considered essential to introduce European and American foods and culinary material culture to ensure the success of the Marianas mission, and reveal that the Spanish colonial experience in the Philippines shaped the transfer and naturalization of new animals and plants in the Marianas.


Township hospitals, which are an important link of the Chinese rural healthcare system, were affected by the successive socio-economic reforms since the 1980s. As a consequence, their utilization declined. From longitudinal data covering nine years (2000-2008) and 24 township hospitals randomly selected in Weifang prefecture (Shandong province, China), this article analyses the environmental and supply-side determinants of the volume of township hospitals curative activities, measured by the number of outpatient visits and that of discharged patients. The Hausman-Taylor and the Fixed-Effect Vector Decomposition estimators are used in order to cope with time-invariant variables. Results of the estimations are confronted and highlight similar outcomes. Findings show that the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme, introduced in 2003, has contributed to increase the activity of township hospitals, although financial barriers remain to the access to expensive medical services. The analyses underline also that referral practices between health facilities levels should be reinforced and that the size of the township hospitals needs to be adequate with environmental factors as they appear to be over-sized.


This paper presents an analysis of some novel approaches for visual information retrieval (VIR) system design which are based on extraction of wavelet coefficients and applying specific similarity metrics. Four families of wavelets and three techniques for computing similarity between queried and retrieved images have been tested using designed Image Retrieval by Neural Network and Wavelet Coefficients (RetNew) system. The best Symlet transform and similarity metrics based on Euclidian distance have been adopted in a proposed VIR system called Image Retrieval by Wavelet Coefficients (IRWC). Additionally, in order to evaluate a proposed approach and a novel designed system the recall and precision metrics used for analysis of the performance of VIR facilities have been applied on base of the standard COIL-100 image collection. The obtained results show the increment of retrieval efficiency up to 93% without additional increasing a processing time. Therefore a proposed approach may be considered as a good alternative for designing new VIR systems. The obtained results allow facilitating the development of new methods for solving this still open problem of efficient image retrieval.