This research paper provides the basis of a future doctoral thesis
on the construction of foreign news. We aim to highlight similarities and differences in the online news coverage of the nationalist movments in Scotland and Catalonia in the Canadian Anglophone and Francophone press. Through a qualitative and quantitative content analysis of The Montreal Gazette, The National Post, The Globe and Mail, Le Devoir and La Presse, we attempt to show the frames used in the coverage of the political developments in both "stateless regions" from January 2011 to September 2014, when a referendum on the constitutional status of Scotland has been
agreed on. In parallel to the analysis of daily online newspapers, we will use semi-structured interviews of journalists from each news organization to obtain more in-depth knowledge of the factors influencing the construction of news. Lastly, we want to find out to the extent to which the coverage on the nationalist movements in Scotland and Catalonia serve to revive the debate on the independence question of Quebec


Uranium resources in Africa are more than 16% of the world's. Statistical analysis on essential data such as resources, scale, grade, deposit type and ore-forming age show that the conventional uranium resources concentrate on Namibia, Niger, Malawi and South Africa while unconventional resources as phosphorite type occurred mainly in Morocco. The main types of uranium deposits in Africa are intrusive type, sandstone type and quartz pebble conglomerate type.Precambrian is the main ore-forming epoch while Paleozoic and Mesozoic Era are less important ones.Namibia and Niger should be the target countries for uranium exploration resources for Chinese enterprise abroad.


Since the 90's oflast century, the agriculture industry has witnessednew development way of thinking, But seen from the whole, our country's agricultura management is in the beginning stage. With the socialism market economy system establishment. It's very urgent to quickly develop agriculture throughout the country. The author puts forward necessity and its great significances to quickly develop agriculture.


Status epilepticus (SE) remains a significant cause of morbidity and mortality and often is refractory to standard first‐line treatments. A rapid loss of synaptic inhibition and development of pharmacoresistance to benzodiazepines (BZDs) occurs early during SE, while NMDA and AMPA receptor antagonists remain effective treatments after BZDs have failed. Multimodal and subunit‐selective receptor trafficking within minutes to an hour of SE involves GABA‐A, NMDA, and AMPA receptors and contributes to shifts in the number and subunit composition of surface receptors with differential impacts on the physiology, pharmacology, and strength of GABAergic and glutamatergic currents at synaptic and extrasynaptic sites. During the first hour of SE, synaptic GABA‐A receptors containing γ2 subunits move to the cell interior while extrasynaptic GABA‐A receptors with δ subunits are preserved. Conversely, NMDA receptors containing N2B subunits are increased at synaptic and extrasynaptic sites, and homomeric GluA1 ("GluA2‐lacking") calcium permeant AMPA receptor surface expression also is increased. Molecular mechanisms, largely driven by NMDA receptor or calcium permeant AMPA receptor activation early during circuit hyperactivity, regulate subunit‐specific interactions with proteins involved with synaptic scaffolding, adaptin‐AP2/clathrin‐dependent endocytosis, endoplasmic reticulum (ER) retention, and endosomal recycling. Reviewed here is how SE‐induced shifts in receptor subunit composition and surface representation increase the excitatory to inhibitory imbalance that sustains seizures and fuels excitotoxicity contributing to chronic sequela such as "spontaneous recurrent seizures" (SRS). A role for early multimodal therapy is suggested both for treatment of SE and for prevention of long‐term comorbidities.


The paper deals with comparison study of serial and quasi-serial industrial robots used for machining operations. It proposes a new methodology for robot ranking, which is based on estimation of the end-effector resistance to cutting forces for several machining tasks, which are optimally located within the robot workspace. To cover wide range of applications, a set of isotropic, quasi-isotropic and extended benchmark tasks are considered. It is shown that regardless of the benchmark problem, seral manipulators are preferable for small and medium tasks while quasi-serial ones' better suit large-dimensional tasks. The proposed technique was applied for the comparison analysis of 10 industrial robots of both serial and quasi-serial architectures with similar working radius and payload of about 200 kg.


Learning difficulties was the inability of students to learn properly.
Learning difficulties affect their learning achievements. This happens on subjects
of class IX PIES that will do the final exam school, hence the need for the efforts
of the guru PAI in dealing with learning difficulties of students.
The aim in this study is to mendiskripsikan form of learning difficulties,
factors cause learning difficulties and efforts of religious teachers in dealing with
learning difficulties of students of class IX SMP N 3 Colomadu.
The methods used in this study i.e., qualitative approach to the type of
research i.e. research field. Data collection techniques used are observation,
interview and documentation. The data were analyzed using descriptive
qualitative data analysis, in the form of inductive facts to theories.
Results of the research there are academic related learning difficulties
read wrote the Quran, memorize verses of the Quran, tajwid and understand the
material about worship. And non academic i.e. difficulty in conveying what had
befallen him. Cause factor is divided into two internal factors, lack of motivation
and learning interest of students. External factors, lack of motivation of parents,
classroom atmosphere not conducive, the unavailability of appropriate textbooks.
The efforts made the teacher in accordance with the form of difficulty. Difficulty
writing Qur'aan read by arranging programs on every level. Difficulty of
memorizing provide motivation be reminding his task will be to memorize. The
difficulty of understanding the material and tajwid with explaining the material
back.


Laforce, Serge, Marie‐Claude Simard, Robert Leconte, and François Brissette, 2011. Climate Change and Floodplain Delineation in Two Southern Quebec River Basins. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 47(4):785‐799. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752‐1688.2011.00560.x


Gaoming Wang1, Guangming Li 2, and Zongyao Rui3 1. Department of Geology, University of New Brunswick, P.O. Box 4400, Fredericton, NB E3B 5A3, Canada ¶ 2. Center for Mineral Resources, Chengdu Inst. of Geology & Mineral Resources, North Ren Min Road, Chengdu, Sichuan 610082, China ¶ 3. Institute of Mineral Resources, Baiwanzhuang Road 26, Beijing 100037, China


Hypertension is a kind of disease that arterial blood pressure is continuing high.This is chronic disease which always causes heart,brain,kidney and other vital organs' diseases.And according to traditional Chinese medicine,hypertension is dizziness in TCM,which is caused by the heat of excessive nervousness,worries and emotions;unbalance of Yin and Yang,abnormal movement of Qi,blood and meridians due to excessive working,drinking and greasy food.


This paper outlines the creation of the Wordnet Bahasa as a resource for the study of lexical semantics in the Malay language. It is created by combining information from several lexical resources: the French-English-Malay dictionary FEM, the KAmus Melayu- Inggeris KAMI, and wordnets for English, French and Chinese. Construction went through three steps: (i) automatic building of word candidates; (ii ) evaluation and selection of accept- able candidates from merging of lexicons; (iii) final hand ch eck of the 5,000 core synsets. Our Wordnet Bahasa is only in the first phase of building a full fledged wordNet and needs to be further expanded, however it is already large enough to be useful for sense tagging both Malay and Indonesian.


In receiving the medical treatment service like as the assisted reproductive technology for the pregnancy and the gamete donation, Informed Consent is the most important thing to protect the right to self determination as well as to manage the human gamete and embryo. To the appropriate informed consent, the Informed Consent Form and System should be prepared appropriately, In UK, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has offered all Informed Consent Form related to using the assisted reproductive technology officially. The UK HFEA forms are classified so much according to the right holder of the consent. And the contents of these forms are concreted so much according to the details to be obtained the consent as well as offered with the explanation of the details to be obtained. In Korea, some Informed Consent Forms related to using the assisted reproductive technology has offered by the law and some Informed Consent Forms has offered by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. But some necessary Informed Consent Forms has not offered by both of them. Also, these offered Informed Consent Forms is not appropriate to protect the right to self determination as well as to manage the human gamete and embryo because they are not enough to confirm so many details to be determined by the right holder of the consent. This article analyzes the UK HFEA Informed Consent Forms and System related to the assisted reproductive technology and compares them and KOREA Informed Consent Forms and System to seek the way to improve them.


In recent years, the number of energy-saving optoelectronic enterprises in Jilin Province has been increasing. Some LED lighting companies' products not only have a certain share in the domestic market, but also in foreign trade, the products of enterprises have also been recognized by foreign consumers. The LED enterprises in Jilin Province have mastered certain product production technologies. Moreover, some enterprises have built production lines of a certain scale, and the economic contribution of enterprises has gradually increased. However, LED enterprises still encounter difficulties and have some problems to be solved in the development of the international market competition.


Objective To explore depression status of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus(T2DM)and its related psychosocial factors and biological factors.Methods 333 cases of patients withT2DM were randomly selected in Beijing Hepingli Hospital from November 2010 to November 2011 as the research objects,and self-depression scores were mesured using the Zung self-rating depression scale(SDS),under the guidance of a physician.Results Among the 333 patients,the occurrence of depression was seen in 123 patients 36.9%),including 70 mild cases,46 moderate cases,and 7 severe cases.Multivariate unconditional logistic regression analysis showed that cultural level,number of complications,disease duration,fasting blood sugar level and urinary albumin level were risk factors for incidence of depression in T2DM patients,while diet intervention was a protective factor.Conclusion The incidence of depression in patients with T2DM is high,which is associated with a variety of social and psychological factors.Giving psychological guidance at an early stage,and making the patients treated in the best state of mind will help smoothen the indicators.


We have fabricated 5 nm ultra-thin NbN nanowires that form a dense and regular array in the linear channels of mesoporous SBA-15 silica substrates. Bulk NbN is a well-known classical superconductor with Tc of 16 K. We show that, by being incorporated into this nanostructure, the composite material exhibits typical quasi-one-dimensional characteristics. We compare the superconducting properties with those of superconducting Pb nanowires of the same dimensionality in identical configuration within the linear SBA-15 pores. While Pb nanowire arrays show a pronounced crossover from 1D superconductivity at high temperatures to a 3D bulk superconducting state in the low-temperature regime with true zero resistance triggered by transversal Josephson interaction, this transition appears to be completely absent in the NbN nanowire array. The small coherence length in NbN, which strongly suppresses the Josephson coupling is discussed as the origin of this difference.


We investigated cognitive–motor multitasking in 29 top athletes with intellectual impairment (II) recruited during the European Championship Games organized by Virtus (World Intellectual Impairment Sports) and 29 control (CT) athletes matched for age, sex, sports practiced, and lifetime accumulated practice hours.


This paper analyzes the variations of the relative positions of the parts composing an assembly when part dimensions span their specified tolerance zones. We focus on the simplified case where each part is modeled as a toleranced polygon defined as follows: each edge of this polygon is supported by a line of fixed orientation lying anywhere in a strip bounded by two extreme lines; these lines are themselves defined in a coordinate system attached to the part. The relative placements of parts in an assembly A are defined by spatial relations, such as edge e of part P is parallel to edge f of part Q, at distance d. We define the relative position of any two parts, P and Q, in an instance of A as the transform (a translation in our case) between the coordinate systems attached to these parts. Because of the possible variations in the geometry of each individual part, the relative position of P and Q is not constant over multiple instances of A. Hence, the question: what is the range of possible relative positions of any two parts in A? This paper describes an efficient algorithm to solve this problem. Experimental results obtained with an assembly sequence planner that incorporates this algorithm are also presented.


Hemp (Cannabis sativa L.) has historically been cultivated for fibre to be used for various applications such as textiles, rope and other materials. In recent years, interest has risen in using hemp fibre as an alternative to glass and carbon fibres in biocomposites. In order to easily extract fibres from hemp stalks they must first undergo a process referred to as "retting" in which the fibres are separated from the outer cuticle layer and inner woody core. Retting, through the use of various microbes, degrades the matrix of hemicellulose, lignin and pectin in which the cellulose fibres are embedded. Various retting methods include dew retting, water retting and chemical/enzymatic retting. Dew or field retting is a low cost and eco-friendly method commonly used in Europe but it has not been rigorously studied in the Manitoban climate. The goal of the present study is to determine the effects of dew retting in Manitoba on the pectin content of extracted hemp fibres. Attenuated Total Reflection (ATR) Fourier-Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy was used to determine and compare presence of pectin among field retted, water retted and unretted hemp fibres. As pectin degradation occurs during the retting process, monitoring the change in pectin using ATR FTIR spectroscopy can assess the degree of retting in hemp fibres.


The leapfrog alternating direction implicit finite difference time domain (ADI-FDTD) method is applied to analyze the response characteristics of dielectric under electromagnetic pulse (EMP) with prefect matched layer (PML) boundary condition. It can deal with electrically large object with unconditionally stability and less computational expenditures as its advantage. The two-dimensional field of computational region under exaction source in time domain, which is based on the leapfrog ADI-FDTD method and PML boundary condition, is realized with Matlab.


Engine performance was normal with the fuel blends used. A slight decrease in fuel energy supplied gave a decrease in available horsepower, but higher' thermal efficiencies partially offset the decrease. No unusual problems were found in the 50 hours of short term tests. Continued tests are required to determine long term effects of the blends. The fuel blend viscosities were approximately double that of diesel fuel but much less than that of soybean oil. Observed injector spray patterns showed no appreciable differences on a test stand when comparing the blends to diesel fuel. Some contamination of the lubrication oil was indicated, but results of used oil analyses were not available at this time. The combustion pressure-time diagrams showed slight ignition delay due to the ethanol component, however, no knock was audible while tests were in progress. Inspection of the engine after each 25 hour period of operation revealed no excess carbon buildup. The injector tips and energy cells were free of coking. Longer term tests will be conducted to determine the extent of carbon coking. Longer term tests will be conducted to determine the extent of carbon buildup problems. The indications from these tests showed that carbon buildup and injectormore » coking were not problems with the combustion of the blends used. 4 figures, 2 tables.« less


The present work provides an analysis of the Dufour, radiation absorption, Hall and ion slip effects on MHD free convective rotating flow of Agwater based nanofluid past a semi-infinite permeable moving plate with constant heat source. In this regard, metal will be considered as nanoparticles with water as base fluid. Governing nonlinear boundary layer equations and boundary conditions are transformed into a system of nonlinear ordinary coupled differential equations and are solved by perturbation technique. Effects of different parameters on skin friction coefficient, local Nusselt number and Local Sherwood number are also discussed.


Bambara groundnut flour (BGF) contained 19.20-19.26% protein, 9.81-10.85% fat and 0.50-1.28% fiber. Boiling of bambara groundnut for 10-30 min reduced tannin and trypsin inhibitor for 76.26-77.63% and 91.81-92.65%, respectively. In addition, they increased water absorption and swelling power, but decreased foaming, emulsion and gel capacities, as well as decreased viscosity of Barberder viscoamylograph. On the other hand, increasing BGF in the blends of wheat or rice flour (0-30%) affected on increasing water absorption but decreasing viscosity of Barberder viscoamylograph (p<0.05). Bread, wheat noodle and rice noodle containing BGF had higher protein and fat, darker and more changing of texture when compared with the control (100% wheat or rice flour). Overall, 10% BGF of the blends demonstrated satisfied products.


This paper discusses a new internal force calculation method of anti-sliding pile with multi-row pre-stressed anchors on the high slope engineering.Based on the principle of foundation coefficient method in calculating the internal force of the ordinary anti-sliding pile,considering the deformation consistence between multi-row anchoring cables and pile body,the finite difference method is presented to calculate its internal force.Comparing with the traditional method,this method is easy to compile a program to calculate the tensile force of anchors,displacement and internal force of the whole pile and it's regularities of distribution.The field testing results and the calculating results are compared by an engineering example,it shows that the calculation results reflect the actual stressful condition of pile,and this calculation method is applied and reliable.


A liquid crystal display device includes a thin film transistor arranged at crossings of gate lines and data lines; a pixel electrode connected to each thin film transistor; a common electrode arranged on a second substrate; a layer of liquid crystal material provided between the first and second substrates; a protrusion arranged on the common electrode for controlling an orientation of the liquid crystal molecules within the layer of liquid crystal material; and a common voltage generator applying an AC common voltage to the common electrode, wherein a polarity of the common voltage is inverted every predetermined period.


The purpose of this study is threefold: (a) identify the leadership practices of educational leaders at community colleges as rated by full-time and part-time faculty members and by using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire form 5x; (b) explore the relationship between the educational leaders' perceived leadership styles and the job satisfaction levels of full-time and part-time faculty members as measured by Paul Spector's Job Satisfaction Survey; (c) examine gender, educational level, years of teaching experience and employment status differences, if any, with regards to the total score of job satisfaction for full-time and part-time faculty. This study's sample of full-time and part-time faculty was obtained from three community colleges in Southern California. Three survey instruments were utilized for this study: a demographic survey, the MLQ-5x, and the JSS. The surveys were administered to all the full-time and part-time faculty members in three selected colleges. A total of 131 respondents participated in this study. Faculty members who worked for a transformational leader as well as a leader whose score were high on contingent reward (a subscale for transactional leadership style) had a higher correlation with their satisfaction with pay, promotion, supervision, contingent rewards, coworkers, and communication. There were no significant differences in the overall satisfaction between full-time and part-time faculty members, nor between male and female faculty. Likewise, years of teaching experience was not related to any differences in the


Abstract : A Robotic Command Center, is to be developed to allow a commander and two drivers (three people) to control four remote vehicles. The drivers will be attempting to control two vehicles each--a difficult task. Giving vehicles a measure of autonomy is one way to simplify that task. On the other hand, deployed vehicles must not be hampered by software with limited competence or reliability. The only solution available soon is a vehicle control interface that allows for the entire range of possibilities between autonomous behavior and continuous teleoperation. Ideas are fused from telerobotics and from the Reaction Planning subfield of Artificial Intelligence, to develop a technology that permits vehicles to react autonomously to expected circumstances, while also permitting the human operator to instruct vehicles about what to do and how to do it. This study will program some examples of behaviors for the vehicles to perform semi-autonomously, and those behaviors by running them in the Team Works I environment. An interface was designed and built that allows the vehicle driver to communicate with the intelligent software controlling any and all of the vehicles. A single person is capable of controlling four simulated vehicles at the same time. The competence of the vehicle is to be expanded to give the operator new ways of instructing the vehicles, and to push those capabilities toward deployment in the real world.


Kinetic runs of microgel-aldolase mediated reactions between dihydroxyacetone phosphate cyclohexylamine salt and D-glyceraldehydes were made in CH2CN, THF, DMF, DMSO and MeOH and aqueous-organic solution of these solvents at physiological temperature 37o. The same runs were effected between DHAP cyclohexylamine salt and non-natural aldehyde acceptors under similar conditions. Reaction was fastest in 1:3 DMSO/ H2O, faster than in aqueous medium the environment in which this enzyme normally operates. Preparation of a non-natural sugar using this system is related. Keywords : Microgel-aldolase, Kinetic physiological temperature, Natural acceptors, Non-natural acceptors.


Remote sensing satellites have become increasingly sophisticated in terms of increased spatial, radiometric, and temporal resolution. Over the past few decades sensing devices have become more sophisticated with not only higher spatial resolution but have also now become more capable at capturing data in much more precisely defined bandwidths or frequency ranges. This provides the ability to identify particular vegetation, forestry, wildlife and fish, minerals ‐ even camouflage ‐ with greater precision. This evolution of sensor capabilities has, however, led to new needs on the ground in terms of interpreting the data. The new interpretative needs ‐ because much more data is captured ‐ involve requirements for new and faster processing techniques on the ground. Or it has led to the need for "preprocessing of data" (i.e., discarding noncritical or nonmeaningful data) before being down loaded from the satellite. The point is that the more capable sensors that collect a larger amount of data serves to alter the way the torrent of data downloaded from the


The new sugarcane variety YT00-236 was bred from female parent YN73-204 and male parent CP72-1210 by Zhanjiang Sugarcane Research Center of Guangzhou Sugarcane Industry Research Institute.Experiments showed that YT00-236 was very precocious,stable cane yield and high sugar content with good budding,tillering,stalk width,ratooning and more millable cane.It resisted to lodge and Smut,and obviously resisted to Mosaic disease.The mean cane yield of YT00-236 was increased by 23.1% than that of the ROC10,and the sugar content value in October was 14.80%.The average sugar content from October to the next January was 16.63%,which was increased by 1.77%(absolute value) than that of the ROC10.YT00-236 was registered by Science and Technology Department of Zhanjiang City in December,2005.


Under aerobic conditions, the A and B horizons of soils are magnetically enhanced due to neoformation of ferrimagnets through pedogenesis. This study systematically investigated soils developed on calcarenites of Neogene age in southern Spain to determine the dominant factors controlling the soil magnetism. Geochemical and clay mineral analyses indicate that aeolian dust significantly contribute to the A and B horizon material of the Spanish soil. Nevertheless, the magnetic enhancement of soils can be simply attributed to the pedogenically produced ferrimagnets in-situ. Therefore, the magnetism of Spanish soils is still linked to paleoclimatic variations regardless of the complexities of aeolian inputs from the Northwestern Africa.


Percutaneous retrograde arch aortography was performed in a series of 94 patients with symptoms suggesting cerebrovascular insufficiency. In 26 of these a major stenosis (greater than 50% reduction of measured luminal diameter) was present in the cervical carotid artery(s). In 75% of this subgroup an arleriographic flow pattern was seen which correlated closely with the lateralization of cerebral ischemic manifestations. This pattern consists of a 0.5 sec or greater delay in linear flow of contrast material through the stenosed carotid artery as compared with the contralateral one. Evidence is presented to support the assumption that such a finding reflects an actual diminution of volume blood flow and is the result of the stenosis demonstrated. Two control groups of 19 neurologically normal and 60 neurologically symptomatic patients without significant stenosis of larger cerebral vessels were studied by arteriography in an identical manner. No patient in either control group manifested a unilateral delay in linear flow. Provided artefact can be excluded, this sign is believed to be a valuable index of the clinical significance of cervical carotid artery stenosis.


The following article has as main objective to debate, in the psychological area, issues related to the underdevelopment reality, using as example the Northeast Area of Brazil. From the works of studious such as Josue de Castro, Paulo Freire, and Martin-Baro among others aspects are raised from the social-economic formation and the current northeastern context, like its inclusion in the globalized international economy. The relations among political regime, ideology and character are examined; as well as the concepts of: fatalism, submission and resignation ideology, oppressed character, personal value, personal power and consciousness. Under the perspective of Social Psychology, the article analyses questions, on the macro level as well as micro social, one trying to articulate knowledge to delineate psychosocial characteristics of the excluded people, under the underdevelopment conditions. It still questions Commonwealth-Society relationship in its present time, as well as it points out proposals of intervention.


The aim of the present study is to reveal the hydrodynamic properties in open-channel flows including the rising-bubbles. Particularly, when we consider effective control techniques of aeration in actual rivers, turbulence structure of open-channel flows including bubble plumes has to be investigated. However, such a bubbly open-channel flow has very complicated phenomena, and thus there are few previous studies that have been tried by high-accurate measurements and numerical simulations.Therefore, in this study, PIV measurements using high-speed CCD camera have been conducted, and consequently, the rising-lines of bubble plumes, primary velocity distributions and turbulence structure have been revealed experimentally.


From the viewpoint of method and aim of random vibration test,the rule of test effect was analyzed. Formerly,the effect of the random vibration test was mostly judged by the test operator subjectively.In this article,to describe the quantity of the test effect,some statistics variables were defined.They describe the effect of a random vibration form RMS and PSD.To validate this method, some data simulations were given using the Dual-Shaker test model.And then some of its applications were discussed.


We present a report covering our preliminary research on the control of spatial sound sources in wavefield synthesis through gesture based interfaces. After a short general introduction on spatial sound and few basic concepts on wavefield synthesis, we presents a graphical application called spAAce which let users to control real-time movements of sound sources by drawing trajectories on a screen. The first prototype of this application has been developed bound to WFSCollider, an open-source software based on Supercollider which let users control wavefield synthesis. The spAAce application has been implemented using Processing, a programming language for sketches and prototypes within the context of visual arts, and communicates with WFSCollider through the Open Sound Control protocol. This application aims to create a new way of interaction for live performance of spatial composition and live electronics. In a subsequent section we present an auditory game in which players can walk freely inside a virtual acoustic environment (a room in a commercial ship) while being exposed to the presence of several "enemies", which the player needs to localise and eliminate by using a Nintendo WiiMote game controller to "throw" sounding objects towards them. Aim of this project was to create a gestural interface for a game based on auditory cues only, and to investigate how convolution reverberation can affects people's perception of distance in a wavefield synthesis setup environment.


Time-correlated single-photon technology is emerging as an important approach to 3D Imaging. This paper presents a reconstruction algorithm that exploits data statistics and multi-scale information to deliver clean depth and reflectivity images together with associated uncertainty maps. The statistical method has been implemented to run on graphics processing units (GPUs) that enable real-time reconstruction of moving scenes at more than 1000 depth frames per second on the 32 × 64 pixels real Quantic4x4 SPAD sensor array data. Comparisons with state-of-the-art algorithms on simulated and real data demonstrate the robust and efficient performance of the proposed method.


With the development of information technology,multimedia education now becomes a common means in classroom teaching in colleges and universities. Multimedia education has many superiorities,but there are still some problems in its application. It needs to be summarized and improved.


Abstract This study's goal is to understand repatriates' personal experiences about their career success motives in the years following an international assignment and how that may prompt turnover intentions. The case study comprises data from 8 Portuguese companies belonging to different industries. Overall, we interviewed 42 repatriates and 17 human resource organizational representatives. Building on career success literature, this study's findings show that these repatriates' main career–pull motives to stay with the organization are related to (1) Recognition and Affection, (2) Financial and Employment Security, (3) Developmental Career Opportunities, (4) and, lastly, Career Advancement. By comparison, these repatriates' career–push motives to leave pertain to (1) the Lack of Developmental Career Opportunities, (2) Financial and Employment Insecurity, and (3) Recognition and Affection Breach. Furthermore, the findings shed new light on the role played by contextual-structural career boundaries as a mitigating factor in repatriates' turnover intentions. Overall, we add a new contribution to the literature on career success and repatriation by showing that Affective career success motives (both Intra-Inter-Personal) are, on the whole, more important than Achievement career success motives in these repatriates' turnover intentions.


To understand the transformation of the industrial relations (IR) system in Israel, we propose a four-group typology according to workers' membership in unions and coverage of collective agreements. Using this typology, and relying on various data sources, we estimate that in 2000 membership was 40 to 45 percent, and coverage was about 56 percent, down from 80 to 85 percent for both measures in 1981. The data also reveal the emerging differences among the four groups, including income differentials. Moreover, comparing workers' actual membership and coverage with their preferences suggests that the system has not yet reached equilibrium. The study demonstrates that only a four-group typology succeeds in surfacing the complex nature of union decline.


In high performance data center networks, switching the data from source node to destination node needs a proper signal processing to decode the address bits and switch the data and to avoid contention. In this article, we propose the hardware design for switching the data from one node to other bi‐directionally. The design is verified in an experimental test bed.


The invention provides an intelligent employed electric system, which comprises a two way line incoming power supply, a line incoming breaker which is respectively connected with the two way line incoming power supply and a generatrix which is respectively electrically connected with the line incoming power supply, wherein a bus coupling circuit breaker is arranged between two section of generatrixes, the invention also comprises a line incoming detecting unit, an intelligence controlling device which is electrically connected with each output end of the line incoming detecting unit, wherein the intelligence controlling device is respectively electrically connected with each breaker, the intelligence controlling device controls a close-open gate of each breaker through judging voltage and electric current value of each incoming line and according to the state of the current close-open gate of the breaker and the operating mode which is required by the system, the intelligent controlling device carries out an auto-switch-on control to each breaker according to the collected information when any line incoming power supply is failure, therefore the employed electric system can be led to continuously supply power, and the reliability of the employed electric system is effectively increased, failure processing time and operating cost are reduced, and the invention is particularly applied to an unattended transformer station whose voltage grade is 110kV or under 110kV.


The invention belongs to the technical field of fine chemical industry and relates to crystallization purification technology of chemicals, in particular to the crystallization purification technology for of thiourea. According to the crystallization purification method of the thiourea, surfactant is mainly adopted to solubilize impurity of the thiourea solvent system in a selected mode, the crystallization ability of the impurity is reduced, the impurity is left in fluid phase, and the purity degree of the thiourea is increased. The crystallization purification method of the thiourea is simple in operation, easy to control, low in energy consumption and free of special equipment input, obtained products are even in crystallization and good in whiteness, content of crystallization is higher than 99%, and the crystallization purification method of the thiourea suitable for crystallizing the thiourea product in industrial production, satisfying demands of medicine, fine chemical and other industries, and improving purity degree of down-stream products.


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During the design of electronic circuits and systems, particularly those for RF communications, the need to abstract a subsystem from a greater level of detail to one at a lower level of detail arises frequently. One important application is to generate simple, yet accurate, system-level macromodels that capture circuit-level non-idealities such as distortion. In recent years, computational ("algorithmic") techniques have been developed that are capable of automating this abstraction process for broad classes of differential-equation-based systems (including non-linear ones). In this paper, we review the main ideas and techniques behind such algorithmic macromodelling methods.


Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is sensitive to carrier frequency offset (CFO), which destroys the orthogonality and causes inter-carrier interference (ICI). In this paper, we investigate the average error probability of OFDM systems impaired by CFO over frequency selective Rayleigh fading channels. By exploiting the Beaulieu series, the effects of CFO on the symbol error rate (SER) and bit error rate (BER) performance, which depend strongly on the statistical characteristics of the fading channels, are expressed as the sum of an infinite series in terms of the characteristic function (CHF) of the ICI. We only consider OFDM systems modulated with BPSK, QPSK, 8-PSK and 16-QAM, and the Gray-coded mapping are employed for the evaluation of BER performance.


The elimination of soiling from painted surfaces, especially for recent unvarnished paintings, by means of alkaline soaps with a high pH poses a significant risk to the objects. The wide range of objects that can be treated with these products and their longstanding presence on the specialist market have led to this pilot study to evaluate the existence of residues and/or damage from them on painted surfaces. The methodology applied involves the use of analytical techniques such as gas chromatography–mass spectrometry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, polarized light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and energydispersive Xray spectroscopy, and confocal scanning microscopy. This study presents the results from the use of Vulpex soap at low concentrations in an aqueous solution, in white spirit, and in fluid hydroxypropyl cellulose gels, applied directly on the unvarnished painting or on barrier paper and rigid agar gels. A reduction in the amount of residues was observed when soap was used in a 1% concentration in white spirit or as a gel. All the aqueous treatments caused surface damage, especially cracking, flattening, and particle removal and accumulation. The damage may be associated with both the application method and the rinsing process. Some treatments have been tested by a team of professional restorers, and a good correspondence was found with the results from the test samples. The main difference between restorers appears to depend on the area of the painting that was treated.


There is an increasing interest in standards and technical literature to the probabilistic characterization of voltage and current harmonics in multi-convertor power systems. The characterization requires to express the input data of the harmonic penetration modelling by random variables and to apply probabilistic techniques of analysis. Among probabilistic approaches, Monte Carlo simulation is widely applied even if it requires high computational efforts. This paper describes a probabilistic approach for harmonic analysis of a multi-convertor power system which takes into account the interactions among the grid voltage distortions and the converter current harmonics. In order to reduce the computational efforts, the Point Estimate Method (PEM) is applied as an alternative to Monte Carlo simulation. PEM permits to account for the uncertainties that affect the evaluation of the steady state operating conditions in the presence of non linear loads and allows us to obtain the first moments of the output random variables of interest through the solution of only few deterministic harmonic power flows. Numerical applications to a test system are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and speed of the proposed method.


This paper introduces a Self-powered Cardiac and Activity Vigilant Monitoring (SCAVM) system that continuously senses and wirelessly streams electrocardiogram (ECG) and motion data to a smartphone. SCAVM consumes only 370 μW on average and is powered solely by indoor solar, allowing it to maintain its monitoring at a sampling rate such that no critical events are missed. The fully integrated system incorporates an energy harvesting and power management unit, an ECG analog-front end (AFE), an accelerometer, and a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) System on Chip (SoC) for data collection and wireless communication. SCAVM represents a significant advancement in self-powered multi-modal sensing with continuous vigilant operation and smartphone/cloud interface capabilities, providing a feasible solution for long-term patient monitoring beyond the clinic.


Foliage Penetration Radar has been widely studied for detection and characterization of objects under dense foliage. The radar performance for detecting objects under foliage has generally been optimum in the VHF and UHF bands, where the spectrum is already dense with other RF communications applications. When the forest density is low, L-band is an alternate choice for area surveillance. The geographic conditions for more efficient radar design at L-band are explored.


these, within 'society' with its beliefs, attitudes and mentalities which may be exogenous to the texts but eminently relevant to the way in which they are produced, communicated and understood, opens up perspectives of analysis and understanding which more traditional analyses have hitherto left unexplored. Of course, the process which ventures upstream from the mere description and analysis of visible text features to a wide-ranging critique of society at large demands a fair amount of inference and interpretation, and may, therefore, reveal as much about the critic as about the object of her criticism. The textual data with which Walsh operates is not, strictly speaking, a 'corpus', but a 'collection', but presumably one composed in good faith and not selectively pasted together for the purpose of the argument. In this regard, the book belongs to a school which prefers to work with texts which are symptomatic according to the analyst's judgment and sensitivity rather than salient in terms of an observable contrast with a corpus representative of the language as a whole. Walsh's reading of these texts is, avowedly and unsurprisingly, a 'feminist' one, and one so sensitive to gender issues that sometimes the reader is given the impression that whatever the media say about women must be fraught with sexism, and that when it does not appear overtly, it must be covert, subliminal or implicit. The process of triangulation employed by Walsh should offer some guarantees against bias, but then it must be pointed out that at least two, and sometimes three, points of the triangle are held by feminists too; and that, notably at the level of reception, Walsh sometimes seems to substitute her own judgement for that of the public, or otherwise resorts to generalizations like 'The majority of women are likely to feel discursively excluded [from male-gendered liturgical language]. This point was made by one of my respondents' (p. 173). This tendency to ab uno discere omnes is methodologically regrettable, but it is not an isolated example (it has been criticized in some of Fairclough's works as well); nor does it, I believe, fundamentally affect the main line of the feminist argument. Even though the cover image (two women holding and gagging a man) suggests that men may not come out of it unscathed, the book makes thought-provoking reading.


SUMMARY Ithasbeenreported thatautoantibodies against the#2-adrenergic receptors areinvolved inthe pathology ofallergic disorders andofChagas' disease. Therefore, theimmuneresponse against a peptide (H26Q) correspo dingtotheputative second extracellular loop ofthehumanf2-adrenergic receptor, whichcouldbe target forautoantibody attack, wasanalysed inviewofitspossible immunogenicity. Thefree pptide induced aTcell-mediated humoral response inthecontext ofthree different murine MHC haplotypes. TheTcell epitope wasfoundtobelocalized intheN-terminal region ofthepeptide. Highly specific T helper cells werecapable ofstimulating B cells withthe potential togenerate alarge antibody repertoire reactive withtheloop peptide. MoAbswerescreened toanalyse this Bcell response forantibodies potentially interfering withreceptor function anda MoAbwasfound thatimpaired ligand binding tothereceptor.


The aim of this study was to study the expression and subcellular localization of TlSP gene of Theileria luwenshuni in eukaryotic cells.The pEGFP-N1-TlSP recombinant plasmid was constructed and transfected into Vero cells with lipofectamine 2000.Western-blot was used to verify the expression of rTlSP recombinant protein.The distribution and subcellular localization of rTlSP recombinant protein in eukaryotic cells was determined using fluorescent microscope and laser confocal microscopy imaging technique.The results showed that the recombinant plasmid was successfully expressed in Vero cells and the green fluorescence was distributed in the cytoplasm;however,the green fluorescence distributed in nucleus in empty vector.Therefore,T.luwenshuni TlSP gene was expressed successfully in heterologous eukaryotic Vero cells and the expression of protein mainly located in Vero cell cytoplasm.


To the Editor: Superficial angiomyxoma is a rare, cutaneous, acquired, benign, soft tissue neoplasm that can arise as a single tumor or multiple tumors. Histologically, it is characterized by the presence of a prominent vascular pattern and moderate inflammatory infiltrate within the myxoid matrix. Subungual location of angiomyxoma is very rare; to our knowledge, this is the fourth case. A 45-year-old male was referred in our department because of the appearance of clubbed nail deformity of the left thumb fingernail. The lesion had gradually increased in size during the last 5 months (Figure 1). The affected nail was slightly erythematous, sensitive when submerged in cold water, and occasionally painful; however, palpation did not produce any pain or fluctuant swelling. Additionally, the lesion did not limit the activity of the distal interphalangeal joint. No recent trauma of the affected fingernail was reported. According to the personal history, he used the computer daily. Radiographic examination of the digit demonstrated minimal soft tissue swelling that slightly elevated the nail plate. The tumor was removed 3 weeks after the initial examination in an outpatient setting. The lesion was oval with a myxoid texture, almost 2 cm in diameter. Histologic examination revealed a circumscribed lobulated mass with a prominent capillary network and spindleand stellateshaped cells (Figure 2). Immunohistochemical staining was positive for CD34 and negative for S-100. These findings were compatible with subungual angiomyxoma. Two months later, the surgical site healed, with an excellent cosmetic and functional result. No recurrence was seen at the 12-month follow-up visit. The bulbous digital deformity known as clubbing has been related to cardiac, pulmonary, and other systemic diseases. Isolated forms are due to local injury, whitlow, lymphangitis, or subungual neoplasms. The disorders that produce nail deformity may be malignant (melanoma, squamous cell carcinoma) or benign (mucous cyst, fibrokeratoma, exostosis, glomus tumor, keratoacanthoma, pyogenic granuloma, nerve sheath giant cell tumor). Cutaneous myxomas are well-demarcated nodules of the dermis or subcutis. Myxoma and superficial angiomyxoma are rare, benign, cutaneous neoplasms usually seen on the digits and also on the head, neck, trunk, and genital region. They are more sharply circumscribed and more vascular than cutaneous focal mucinosis. Histologically, these tumors express vimentin with variable positivity for CD34 and are usually negative for S-100 protein. Although the histologic features of superficial angiomyxoma are distinctive, its existence seems not to be widely accepted. Thus, some authors believe that ''angiomyxoma'' and ''myxoma'' are synonyms, whereas others consider superficial angiomyxoma to be a term used to describe cutaneous myxomas with more prominent vascularity. In 1988, Allen and colleagues presented 30 cases of superficial angiomyxoma and reported its differentiation from myxoma, based on the presence of collagenous diaphragms, rich vascularity, and inflammatory cell infiltrate in a mucoid matrix seen in angiomyxoma. Calonje and colleagues also supported the concept of superficial angiomyxoma as a distinct entity. Superficial angiomyxoma affects all ages, with a peak incidence in the third to fourth decade of life. Superficial angiomyxoma has been reported as a solitary lesion, usually less than 5 cm in diameter, or in association with Carney complex (skin and cardiac myxomas, spotty skin pigmentations, endocrine overactivity, and endocrine tumors), NAME syndrome (nevi, atrial myxoma, myxoid neurofibroma and ephelides), or LAMB syndrome (mucocutaneous lentigines, atrial myxomas, mucocutaneous myxomas, and blue nevi). Angiomyxomas in unusual positions, such as the floor of the mouth, eyelid, and epididymis, have also been described. Sanusi described a case of subungual myxoma in 1982. The first case of subungual superficial angiomyxoma was reported in 2002. Two cases of subungual angiomyxomas occurring on the thumb and the fifth toe were reported in 2005, and the fourth case is the present. Misago and colleagues also reported a fibrokeratoma-like lesion on the radial lateral side of the proximal interphalangeal joint of the right index finger. Clubbed nail deformity was the clinical presentation manifestation in all cases of subungual myxomas and angiomyxomas. Pain has rarely been reported in subungual myxoma, whereas a previous history of trauma of the fingernail was reported in one case of subungual myxoma. DOI 10.2310/7750.2011.10036


A new technique based on the use of polymer to drastically decrease the temperature sensitivity of Bragg gratings realised on planar silica waveguides deposited on silicon is proposed. Moreover, this technique suppresses the polarisation dependence of the Bragg filters.


Identifying the nature and reactivity of surface intermediate species is critical to understanding the fundamental reaction pathways of NO oxidation on mullite-type oxide catalysts. Using in situ F...


This paper identifies analyzes and explains how socio-economic processes at the global and national levels are reflected in the practical experiences of Thai female labour migrants and their relationships with their rural families and communities left behind. It investigates rural-urban migration streams towards Bangkok and its vicinity and the target group of female migrant factory workers.


Plymouth, England—Latanoprost (Xalatan, Pfizer Ophthalmics), a potent topical ocular antihypertensive agent, does not seem to cause changes in the central corneal thickness after 2 months of follow-up. This result contradicts previous studies that reported a statistically significant decrease in the central corneal thickness, according to George D. Pappas, MD.


Several studies have proposed job migration over the wide area network (WAN) to reduce the energy of networks of datacenters by taking advantage of different electricity prices and load demands. Each study focuses on only a small subset of network parameters and thus their results may have large errors. For example, datacenters usually have long-term power contracts instead of paying market prices. However, previous work neglects these contracts, thus overestimating the energy savings by 2.3x. We present a comprehensive approach to minimize the energy cost of networks of datacenters by modeling performance of the workloads, power contracts, local renewable energy sources, different routing options for WAN and future router technologies. Our method can reduce the energy cost of datacenters by up to 28%, while reducing the error in the energy cost estimation by 2.6x.


This letter introduces a novel alcohol-based digital etch technique for III–V FinFET and nanowire MOSFET fabrication. The new technique addresses the limitations of the conventional water-based approach in enabling structures with sub-10-nm 3-D features. Using the same oxidation step, the new technique shows an etch rate of 1 nm/cycle, identical to the conventional approach. Sub-10 nm fins and nanowires with a high mechanical yield have been achieved. InGaAs nanowires with a diameter of 5 nm and an aspect ratio greater than 40 have been demonstrated. The new technique has also been successfully applied to InGaSb-based heterostructures, the first demonstration of digital etch in this material system. Vertical InGaAs nanowire gate-all-around MOSFETs with a subthreshold swing of 70 mV/decade at  ${V} _{\mathrm { {DS}}}=$  50 mV have been obtained at a nanowire diameter of 40 nm, demonstrating the good interfacial quality that the new technique provides.


In this research article, we introduce the notion of sum and direct sum of vague ideals of a near-ring and developed some results related to the vague ideals of a near-ring with suitable example.In this research article, we introduce the notion of sum and direct sum of vague ideals of a near-ring and developed some results related to the vague ideals of a near-ring with suitable example.


Abstract:  Melatonin is produced following circadian rhythm with high levels being released at night and has been implicated in the regulation of physiological processes in major tissues, including the pancreas. The aim of our study was to examine the effects of melatonin on intracellular free Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]c) in AR42J pancreatic cells. Our results show that stimulation of cells with 1 nm cholecystokinin (CCK)‐8 led to a transient increase in [Ca2+]c followed by a decrease towards a value close to the prestimulation level. Melatonin (at the concentrations 1, 10, 100 μm and 1 mm) induced changes in [Ca2+]c that consisted of single or short lasting spikes in the form of oscillations or slow transient increases followed by a slow reduction towards a value close to the resting level. Depletion of intracellular Ca2+ stores by stimulation of cells with 1 nm CCK‐8 or 1 μm thapsigargin (Tps) blocked Ca2+ responses evoked by melatonin in the majority of cells. Conversely, prior stimulation of cells with 1 mm melatonin in the absence of extracellular Ca2+ inhibited Ca2+ mobilization in response to a secondary application of CCK‐8 or Tps. In summary, our results show that melatonin releases Ca2+ from intracellular stores and can therefore modulate the responses of the pancreas to CCK‐8. The source for Ca2+ mobilization most probably is the endoplasmic reticulum. These data raise the possibility that melatonin also involves Ca2+ signalling, in addition to other intracellular messengers, to modulate cellular function.


neurohumoral excitation has been considered the hallmark of heart failure. At the humoral level, cardiac dysfunction has been shown to be associated with increased angiotensin II, aldosterone, and vasopressin levels. The clinical implication for such humoral dysregulation is the increase in salt and


Executive Summary: Motivation: Current practices in risk assessment and management for industrial systems are characterized by its methodical diversity and fragmented approaches. In retrospect these risk and safety paradigms resulted from diverse industries driven and limited by available knowledge and technologies. A change based on industry driven R&D work is needed. At present the European Industry recognised their obligation to reconsider risk and safety policies, having a more competitive industry and more risk informed and innovation accepting society in vision. Therefore the large collaborative project IRIS is proposed to identify, quantify and mitigate existing and emerging risks to create societal cost-benefits, to increase industrial safety and to reduce impact on human health and environment. Project Outline: The project is led and driven by industry to consolidate and generate knowledge and


In this paper we study a continuous time, optimal stochastic investment problem under limited resources in a market with $N$ firms. The investment processes are subject to a time-dependent stochastic constraint. Rather than using a dynamic programming approach, we exploit the concavity of the profit functional to derive some necessary and sufficient first order conditions for the corresponding social planner optimal policy. Our conditions are a stochastic infinite-dimensional generalization of the Kuhn--Tucker theorem. The Lagrange multiplier takes the form of a nonnegative optional random measure on $[0,T]$ which is flat off the set of times for which the constraint is binding, i.e., when all the fuel is spent. As a subproduct we obtain an enlightening interpretation of the first order conditions for a single firm in Bank [SIAM J. Control Optim., 44 (2005), pp. 1529--1541]. In the infinite-horizon case, with operating profit functions of Cobb--Douglas type, our method allows the explicit calculation of t...


Abstract : If an aerosol is introduced between an observer and an object of interest, the apparent contrast between the target and background will decrease. The mechanism of contrast reduction depends on meteorological conditions, the testing geometry, and the way radiation interacts with the aerosol. Some previous approaches to the problem and their limitations are discussed. The mechanism of contrast reduction is described and related to relevant properties of aerosols. A specific design for a chamber to measure relevant aerosol properties is described. References to other work are included when alternative chamber design features are feasible. A Monte Carlo technique is described which can utilize measurements made in the chamber to obtain answers to tactical problems. (Author)


Wildlife value orientations among inhabitants of the Netherlands were explored by conducting semi-structured interviews, and using predefined value orientations that were previously revealed in the United States. Special attention was paid to the existence of mutualism orientations, viewing wildlife as capable of relationships of trust with humans and having rights like humans do. Most predefined orientations were expressed by the interviewees. Mutualism was the predominant orientation, detected across subjects and across the interview questions. Within the mutualism orientation different perspectives were found: assignment of human characteristics to wildlife, mutual recognition and interaction with wildlife, a basic ethical position that animals have the same rights as humans, and the perspective that animals deserve respect and should not suffer. The materialism orientation, viewing wildlife as object for human use, was revealed rarely. These results match with the hypothesis of a shift toward mutualism orientations in Western societies.


This paper investigates the optimisation of the fit procedures to determine with the highest accuracy the key data of photovoltaic cells and modules from their current–voltage characteristics. Our analysis is based on numeric current–voltage curves obtained by solving the two‐diode equation in steady state. The established state‐of‐the‐art fit procedures, such as the ASTM E948‐09 standard, are shown to be outperformed by smart adjustments of the fit range and the regression type. As a result of this optimisation, the accuracy in determining the short‐circuit current density is improved by up to 15 times, the open‐circuit voltage by 3 to 10 times and the maximum power by 4 to 5 times, in comparison to state‐of‐the‐art approaches. It is demonstrated that the signal‐to‐noise ratio of the experimental data strongly influences the fit accuracy, and therefore, the fit criteria must be adjusted according to the noise level of the measuring unit. Finally, our fit procedures were applied to experimentally measured current–voltage curves of 3000 silicon heterojunction solar cells. Notably, the established fit standards are shown to overestimate the maximum power by up to 0.2%, whereas our proposed fit yields more consistent values. In conclusion, novel fit guidelines are provided, aiming at enhancing the key data determination of high‐efficiency photovoltaic cells and modules. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Non-governmental organizations, foundations, and various social actors promote the mobilization of the sustainable development goals set by the United Nations and contribute to improving the population's quality of life. Frequently, the search for opportunities to generate agreements and social innovation projects is done manually by accessing the web and selecting, according to the search, those calls that best align with the interests of each social actor. These activities are performed repeatedly by one person spending a lot of time, affecting productivity and timeliness in finding and implementing the social partnerships. Considering the technological advances and known Big Data techniques, an opportunity is identified to improve the results of these activities by automating the operations. This paper presents an alternative to optimize the searching and segmentation of possible projects. Through the implementation of web scraping techniques according to keywords in social topics and clustering algorithms for the creation of groups of initiatives according to similar features, to generate partnerships between actors and social calls, which ultimately impact the generation of alliances and networks with a common cause, benefiting more communities.


In this thesis, I designed a system for augmenting a space with linked audio. Using this system, individuals can associate audio clips with a location in real-world space. When an individual using the system passes through this augmented space, he or she can hear the audio clips that have been left by traveling through the associated locations. Furthermore, audio clips in the environment can be linked together, so that an individual listening to one audio clip can be directed to related audio clips in the augmented space. In addition, a method of allowing the user to navigate through the augmented space is presented. Thesis Supervisor: Judith Donath Title: Assistant Professor of Media Arts and Sciences


This paper aims to emphasize the importance of collocations in English language education and assessment, examining the correct use of collocations and vocabulary range and distributions in the learner corpora of EFL university students in Korea, as a means of measuring their communicative competence. The correlation between the collocations use and the L2 learners' oral proficiency levels was investigated. The relationship between vocabulary range and distributions, and their fluency levels was examined as well. The results of this study indicated that students with higher language proficiency level produced relatively more collocations, which confirms that L2 learners' fluency or nativelikeness is highly relevant to the correct use of collocations. The results also showed that the more fluent speakers produced more tokens and types. This study demonstrated a meaningful examination of the spoken data of EFL learners by employing corpus linguistic approach to data analysis. Also, it may help teachers and practitioners provide meaningful and significant data-driven input to L2 learners in their efforts to enhance the learners' English fluency through assessing the learners' oral proficiency levels on the basis of their correct use of collocations.


IDC Financial Insights, in conjunction with ACI Worldwide, recently conducted a survey across nine markets in the Asia/Pacific to better understand the current state of payments technology adoption and to assess how new Internet-based services would affect payment trends in the region. The survey was conducted in Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and Thailand. One of the central objectives of this research was to evaluate the awareness and perception of new digital methods of payment and how these would impact consumer behavior. In addition to the consumer survey, IDC also conducted several in-depth interviews with heads of payments across major financial institutions in the region to better understand how they expect the role of the bank to change in this new payment ecosystem.


Spawning and recruitment periodicity and post-recruitment mortality were investigated in the bluehead wrasse Thalassoma bifasciatum on fringing reefs on the west coast of Barbados by direct census and by otolith dating techniques. Spawning was seasonal, occurring primarily between January and August. Recruitment was seasonal, and was significantly correlated with spawning with time lags of 1 and 2 mo. This is consistent with the 45 d (range 33 to 64 d) larval life of T. bbifasciatum, and suggests that seasonal variation in spawning is the principal factor driving seasonal variation in recruitment. Spawning frequency was higher around new and full moons (spring tides) than around first and last quarters (neap tides), but recruitment did not differ significantly with lunar phase. Daily spawning was more frequent during ebb tides than flood tides, with peak spawning occurring near the beginning of ebb tide. Surface currents on the study reefs were offshore on 96 % of the 94 occasions monitored, regardless of tidal phase. Surface currents at ebb tide were faster than at flood tide, and ebb tide currents were faster during spring tides than neap tides. The data suggest that both daily and lunar spawning cycles are influenced by daily and lunar variation in the speed of offshore currents. Population densities on all reefs had returned to pre-recruitment levels within 3 mo of the end of seasonal recruitment. Monthly mortality (O/O dying per month) on each study reef during the post-recruitment period was correlated with population density on that reef at the start of the month. This may suggest that post-recruitment mortality is density-dependent, but it could result from the covariance of density with age. However, the mean monthly mortality rate over the post-recruitment period on each reef was significantly correlated with recruitment strength to that reef. This suggests that post-recruitment mortality is density-dependent, and hence that post-recruitment processes influence the population dynamics of bluehead wrasse in Barbados.


Individuals and communities have historically reinforced values and shaped society in ways that best fit their own objectives. This study re-evaluates the interaction between religious, ethnic-, racial-, gender-, and class-based values and ideals and giving, based on Ohio between 1990 and 1930.


Government agencies will seek to hold not only companies, but also their officers and directors, accountable for lapses in compliance


It has been shown that the hysteresis loop of the uniaxial triglycine selenate ferroelectric can be gradually suppressed in an inhomogeneous electric field not parallel to the ferroelectric axis. Such a field was generated by a constant electric potential applied to silver paste measurement electrodes painted on a single-crystal sample of the form of a small round plate with an additionally attached grounded silver side (ring) electrode. No changes in the coercive field were visible during the remanent polarization decay over time. A reduction of remanent polarization persisted for many days after disconnecting the inhomogeneous electric field if no alternating electric field was applied. The original dielectric properties could be easily restored by annealing the sample above the critical temperature. The mathematical formula for the remanent polarization decay in time is discussed.


We consider the problem of estimating functionals of discrete distributions, and focus on a tight (up to universal multiplicative constants for each specific functional) nonasymptotic analysis of the worst case squared error risk of widely used estimators. We apply concentration inequalities to analyze the random fluctuation of these estimators around their expectations and the theory of approximation using positive linear operators to analyze the deviation of their expectations from the true functional, namely their <italic>bias</italic>. We explicitly characterize the worst case squared error risk incurred by the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) in estimating the Shannon entropy <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$H(P) = \sum _{i = 1}^{S} -p_{i} \ln p_{i}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, and the power sum <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$F_\alpha (P) = \sum _{i = 1}^{S} p_{i}^\alpha ,\alpha >0$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, up to universal multiplicative constants for each fixed functional, for any alphabet size <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$S\leq \infty $ </tex-math></inline-formula> and sample size <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n$ </tex-math></inline-formula> for which the risk may vanish. As a corollary, for Shannon entropy estimation, we show that it is necessary and sufficient to have <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n \gg S$ </tex-math></inline-formula> observations for the MLE to be consistent. In addition, we establish that it is necessary and sufficient to consider <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n \gg S^{1/\alpha }$ </tex-math></inline-formula> samples for the MLE to consistently estimate <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$F_\alpha (P), 0<\alpha <1$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. The minimax rate-optimal estimators for both problems require <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$S/\ln S$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$S^{1/\alpha }/\ln S$ </tex-math></inline-formula> samples, which implies that the MLE has a strictly sub-optimal sample complexity. When <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$1<\alpha <3/2$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, we show that the worst case squared error rate of convergence for the MLE is <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n^{-2(\alpha -1)}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> for infinite alphabet size, while the minimax squared error rate is <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$(n\ln n)^{-2(\alpha -1)}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. When <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\alpha \geq 3/2$ </tex-math></inline-formula>, the MLE achieves the minimax optimal rate <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n^{-1}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> regardless of the alphabet size. As an application of the general theory, we analyze the Dirichlet prior smoothing techniques for Shannon entropy estimation. In this context, one approach is to plug-in the Dirichlet prior smoothed distribution into the entropy functional, while the other one is to calculate the Bayes estimator for entropy under the Dirichlet prior for squared error, which is the conditional expectation. We show that in general such estimators do <italic>not</italic> improve over the maximum likelihood estimator. No matter how we tune the parameters in the Dirichlet prior, this approach cannot achieve the minimax rates in entropy estimation. The performance of the minimax rate-optimal estimator with <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n$ </tex-math></inline-formula> samples is essentially <italic>at least</italic> as good as that of Dirichlet smoothed entropy estimators with <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$n\ln n$ </tex-math></inline-formula> samples.


The invention discloses titanium reinforced high-cobalt martensitic aged anti-corrosion ultrahigh-strength steel and a preparation method, belonging to the technical field of alloy steel. The steel comprises the following chemical components in percentage by weight: less than or equal to 0.01% of C, 7.0 to 14.0% of Cr, 3.0 to 11.0% of Ni, 5.0 to 17.0% of Co, 0 to 6.0% of Mo, 0.3 to 2.0% of Ti, less than or equal to 0.3% of Al, and the balance of Fe and inevitable impurity elements. The preparation method preferably adopts smelting processes of vacuum induction, vacuum arc remelting or vacuum induction, electroslag remelting and the like. Compared with the prior art, the steel has the advantages that the comprehensive performance is good under the co-action of high Ti and Co content in the alloy, and the steel has strong toughness matching, higher strength and better stress corrosion resistance at the same time due to the corresponding Cr.


In order to accurately predict dissolved gas concentration in transformer oil and to anticipate transformer faults, a prediction model based on historical dissolved gas data in transformer oil is proposed by combining Sparrow Search Algorithm (SSA) and Long Short-Term Memory network (LSTM). First, the concentrations of dissolved gases (H2, CH4, C2H6, C2H4 and H2) in oil were monitored and collected continuously for one year from the same transformer as the training and testing dataset of SSA-LSTM model. Then, SSA algorithm was employed to optimize the parameters of LSTM, including the number of hidden units, the maximum training cycle, the initial learning rate and so forth. By comparing and analyzing different ratios of the training and testing sets, 80% of the entire dataset was chosen as the best training set due to its good balance between prediction accuracy and convergence time. Finally, SSA-LSTM was used to predict the gas concentration in the oil over the next 7 days. The results reveal that, in comparison with traditional prediction methods (BP and LSTM), our proposed SSA-LSTM model has a better prediction performance as measured by prediction accuracy (Acc), mean absolute error (MAE), root mean square error (RMSE) and determination coefficient (R2). In conclusion, our proposed model can more accurately describe the variation rule of the dissolved gas concentration in the oil and provide a strong guarantee for the safe and stable operation of the power transformer.


Radio over fiber (RoF) has emerged as one of the most economical, high-bandwidth and low loss transmission for microwave signals [1]. In a simple RoF system, the optical carrier is modulated by an RF signal resulting in an optical carrier with sidebands also referred as Double Side Band (DSB) scheme. Though simple, the distribution of power in multiple sidebands make it power inefficient and susceptible to phase distortion due to chromatic dispersion in the fibre resulting in fading and signal degradation at the receiver end. These undesirable behaviour increase with RF signal frequency. One of the approaches to address this issue to us Optical Single Side Band (OSSB) transmission scheme [2]. Recently, OSSB generation using Bragg grating, Sangnac loop and micro-ring resonators has been demonstrated with sideband suppression of 12, 34.4 and 29 dB respectively [3-5].


Char gasification is affected by operating conditions such as reaction temperature, reactants gas partial pressure, total system pressure and particle size in addition to chemical composition and physical structure of char. The aim of the present work was to characterize the effect of coal particle size on gasification of chars prepared from two different types of bituminous coals at different reaction temperatures(1,000-). Lab scale experiments were carried out at atmospheric pressure in a fixed reactor where heat was supplied into a sample of char particles. When a flow of (40 vol%) was delivered into the reactor, the char reacted with and was transformed into CO. Carbon conversion of the char was measured using a real time gas analyzer having NDIR CO/ sensor. The results showed that the gasification reactivity increased as the particle size decreased for a given temperature. The sensitivity of the reactivity to particle size became higher as the temperature increases. The size effects became remarkably prominent at higher temperatures and became a little prominent for lower reactivity coal. The particle size and coal type also affected reaction models. The shrinking core model described better for lower reactivity coal, whereas the volume reaction model described better for higher reactivity coal.


The brand personality of an online product and service, usually represented by a Web site, is known as its e-brand personality. In the competitive conditions of online markets, e-brand personality is agreed to be an important factor in securing distinctive identity; however, few studies have suggested how to establish e-brand personality through the visual design of Web sites. This study explores the feasibility of constructing target e-brand personalities for online services by using visual attributes. It consists of 3 consecutive studies. The 1st study identified four major dimensions of e-brand personality on diverse Web sites. The 2nd study used 52 experimental home pages to identify key visual attributes associated with those 4 personality dimensions. The 3rd study explored whether those findings from the 2nd study can be applied in constructing Web sites for online services. The results showed that 2 visual attributes-simplicity and cohesion-are closely related to a bold personality. Three attributes-contrast, density, and regularity-can be used to create a Web site that has an analytical personality. Contrast, cohesion, density, and regularity are closely related to a Web site that is perceived to have a friendly personality. Regularity and balance were expected to be related to the sophisticated personality dimension, but no such relation was identified in the 3rd study. The article concludes with a discussion of implications, limitations, and future research directions.


This article focuses on the Community Protection Act (CPA), the State of Washington's legislative effort to control sexual violence, and on the victim advocacy groups that played a prominent role in this effort. It is argued by some, most recently by republican criminologists, that victim advocates serve democratic ideals and introduce into criminal process important values and interests that are neglected by professionals. Others argue that victim advocacy tends to promote punitive policies that empower the state, jeopardize constitutional rights, and divert attention from causes to symptoms. The evidence gathered in this research lends credence to the critics of republican criminology. Victim advocates were not reliable carriers of republican values in their strenuous support of the CPA, the central provisions of which reduce civil liberties and promote exclusion rather than reintegration.


With the globalization of economy and culture, it is necessary and inevitable for college students to restructure their value culture. The main structure of value culture is the ingenious integration of ethical culture and lawruling culture; the point of it is to meet the challenge of the globalization of culture, to respond to the governing policy combined by integrity ruling and law ruling and to answer to the requirements of education for allround development.


A surface-active monomer 11′-(methacryloyloxy)-undecyl(trimethyl)ammonium bromide (MUTAB) was synthesized and used as a stabilizer and comonomer for activator generated by electron transfer atom transfer radical polymerization (AGET ATRP) of n-butyl methacrylate (BMA) in emulsion. This reactive "surfactant" was applied in a continuous two-step microemulsion to emulsion technique. Stable polymer latexes with size ranging from 40 to 200 nm were obtained by adjusting the amount of reactive surfactant introduced to the system. The surfactant concentration could be decreased to as low as 1.3 wt % in the final emulsion (5.9 wt % vs monomer), while still maintaining good colloidal stability. The cationic reactive surfactants were covalently anchored on the surfaces of the formed particles, as indicated by a positive zeta potential. In addition, a well-controlled polymerization process was achieved by ATRP, as evidenced by the smooth growth in molecular weight of the polymer chains as the polymerization progresse...


In the Library of History, the Segesta described by Diodorus of Sicily has a subtle identity, as it is an indigenous, Elymus (thus non Hellenic) city, but it is also deeply hellenized. This perspective is similar to Cicero's in his Verrines. The point of view of both authors on the city seems to be moderated by a posterior reality, i.e. the evolution of the city between the Vth and the Ist century B.C. : both of them seem to actually depict Sicily as they perceive it in the Ist century.


This contribution assesses the functioning of Europe's Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) during the first 20 years of the euro's existence. It argues that two formative intellectual currents converged at Maastricht to shape the design and reception of the euro regime: ordoliberalism and neoliberalism. Germany's ordoliberalism inspired and shaped the euro regime design. Neoliberalism fashioned the reception of what was agreed at Maastricht under the influence of Bundesbank dogma and power. As a product of the zeitgeist, Europe got stuck with a deeply flawed euro regime. The Maastricht Treaty institutionalized an asymmetric (growth-unfriendly) policy regime. This suited the macroeconomic mainstream well, fighting the '1970s stagflation war' for the past 40 years. Twenty years of euro disillusion have produced the exact opposite: 'stagdeflation.'


Summary The somatic accessory cells in the testes of the sea cucumber, Chiridota pellucida (Holothuroidea: Apoda), are flattened flagellated epithelial cells covering the basal lamina of the germinal epithelium. Their nucleus is irregular or elongated with a prominent nucleolus. The cytoplasm contains the Golgi complex, cisternae of rough and smooth endoplasmic reticulum, numerous electron-lucent vesicles, and lipid droplets. C. pellucida accessory cells differ in ultrastructure from those in other holothurians.


Continued development of the Internet requires the development of efficient, easy-to-use search engines. Ideally, such development should call upon knowledge and skills from a variety of disciplines, including computer science, information science, psychology, and ergonomics. The current study is intended to determine whether search engine design shows a pattern of interdisciplinarity. Two disciplines were selected as the focus for the study: computer science, and library/information science. A citation analysis was conducted to measure levels of interdisciplinary research and publishing in internet search engine design and development. The results show a higher level of interdisciplinarity among library and information scientists than among computer scientists or among any of those categorized as other. This is reflected both in the types of journals in which the authors publish, and in the references they cite to support their work. However, almost no authors published articles or cited references in fields such as cognitive science, ergonomics, or psychology. The results of this study are analyzed in terms of the writings of Patrick Wilson, Bruno Latour, Pierre Bourdieu, Fritz Ringer, and Thomas Pinelli, focusing on cognitive authority within a profession, interaction between disciplines, and information-gathering habits of professionals. Suggestions for further research are given.


A rock drilling apparatus with several actuator units, a user interface control unit, and at least one control means connected to the user interface control unit for controlling the functions of the rock drilling apparatus, and for each actuator unit, a control element connected under the control of the user interface control unit for controlling the operation of the actuator unit in accordance with control signals provided by the user interface control unit, and a method for controlling the rock drilling apparatus. When the control element of an actuator unit of the rock drilling apparatus turns faulty, the control element of another actuator unit is connected to control the first actuator unit when the other actuator unit need not be controlled.


Hearling loss that is significant enough to interfere with social function affects 25% of persons age 65 to 74 and 50% of those age 75 and older.


Cholestatic liver injury is an important clinical problem with limited understanding of disease pathologies. Exosomes are small extracellular vesicles released by a variety of cells, including cholangiocytes. Exosome‐mediated cell‐cell communication can modulate various cellular functions by transferring a variety of intracellular components to target cells. Our recent studies indicate that the long noncoding RNA (lncRNA), H19, is mainly expressed in cholangiocytes, and its aberrant expression is associated with significant down‐regulation of small heterodimer partner (SHP) in hepatocytes and cholestatic liver injury in multidrug resistance 2 knockout (Mdr2−/−) mice. However, how cholangiocyte‐derived H19 suppresses SHP in hepatocytes remains unknown. Here, we report that cholangiocyte‐derived exosomes mediate transfer of H19 into hepatocytes and promote cholestatic injury. Hepatic H19 level is correlated with severity of cholestatic injury in both fibrotic mouse models, including Mdr2−/− mice, a well‐characterized model of primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), or CCl4‐induced cholestatic liver injury mouse models, and human PSC patients. Moreover, serum exosomal‐H19 level is gradually up‐regulated during disease progression in Mdr2−/− mice and patients with cirrhosis. H19‐carrying exosomes from the primary cholangiocytes of wild‐type (WT) mice suppress SHP expression in hepatocytes, but not the exosomes from the cholangiocytes of H19−/− mice. Furthermore, overexpression of H19 significantly suppressed SHP expression at both transcriptional and posttranscriptional levels. Importantly, transplant of H19‐carrying serum exosomes of old fibrotic Mdr2−/− mice significantly promoted liver fibrosis (LF) in young Mdr2−/− mice. Conclusion: Cholangiocyte‐derived exosomal‐H19 plays a critical role in cholestatic liver injury. Serum exosomal H19 represents a noninvasive biomarker and potential therapeutic target for cholestatic diseases. (Hepatology 2018).


Electric discharge machining (EDM) process generally used for burrs free, less metallurgical damage, stress free and very precise machining and produces mould cavity, deep holes, complex shapes & size by arc erosion in all types of electroconductive materials. In this process, the metal is removed from the work piece due to erosion caused by rapidly recurring spark discharge taking place between the tool electrode and work-piece. Tool electrode and wok-piece both submersed into the dielectric fluid. The main aims of this review paper work is to present the consolidated information about the contribution of various researchers on the machining applications of electric discharge machining process on Nickel-Base Super alloys materials, utilization of various tool and techniques for correlating experiment results and applications of product through the EDM. Nickel-Base Super alloys materials is widely used for fuel tanks, aircraft & rocket engine components, nuclear fuel element spacers, casings, fasteners, rings, seal, measuring instrument, cryogenic storage tanks and automobile components etc.


Based on InSAR measurements,considering the horizontal nonhomogeneity of crust of the south and north sides of fault,3D semi-analytical visco-elastic body force model and genetic algorithm(GA) are employed to invert the location of the co-seismic fault,slip distributions and the crust medium parameters(poisson ratio) with more realistic fault geometry.The model fits better than the half-space elastic model and can excellently explain the asymmetry with respect to the fault.The result shows that the earthquakes occurred in a region with obvious horizontal nonhomogeneity of crust.


To report our experience with the efficacy and safety of anakinra for acute gouty arthritis in medically complex hospitalized patients.


Abstract : A process was developed to prepare PZT(52/48) precursor solutions. Five spin-on depositions of this solution (0.5M) were necessary to grow 0.5 micron thin films of polycrystalline PZT onto PT passivated silicon wafers. An addition of 15% excess PbO aided the densification process. Films derived from 1.5M solutions resulted in PZT films of equivalent thickness in only two depositions. Dielectric constant and tan Sigma were 800 and 2% respectively, at 1 kHz. Remnant and saturation polarizations were 12 and 25 micron c/sq cm, respectively. Coercive fields of 36-48 kv/cm were measured. From retention experiments, a polarization loss of 11.2% after 3.2 years was estimated (i.e., the switched charge would diminish from 5.8 to 5.2 micron C/sq cm). High frequency pulse fatigue data on Nb and Sn modified PZT showed a reduction of the switched charge of 26% after 4x10(exp 12) polarization reversals.


: To meet population growth, the excessive abstraction of water resources for irrigating water-intensive crops has become an increasing crisis in arid regions of Northwest China. This contains the perennial contradiction between development and desertification, typical of drylands, which we also find within the United Nations Convention to combat Desertification (UNCCD), where some interpret it as a developmentalist convention and others as a conservationist one. The Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) concept has been set up as the main tool to combat desertification by the UNCCD and is included in SDG 15.3. LDN refers to a state of zero net land degradation, where "the amount and quality of land resources necessary to support ecosystem functions and services and enhance food security remain stable or increase within specified temporal and spatial scales and ecosystems". Under the LDN framework, we apply two of its main pillars, prevention and land planning. The aim is to understand the underlying biophysical and socio-economic mechanisms of oasis expansion in NW China, a phenomenon known as oasification. The objective is to detect under what conditions oasification tackles desertification and when it triggers land and economic degradation. From this knowledge, it will be possible to propose guidelines of action to balance land use and comply with LDN.


A 56-year-old female  with a background of Tetralogy of Fallot (TOF) and atrial flutter attended the accident and emergency department with a 14-week history of 12 kg  weight loss and intermittently loose stools. With regards to the TOF, the patient underwent a Pott's shunt procedure at the


A new species of the genus Rhinolophus is described from Yunnan Province, southwestern China. The new taxon belongs to the Rhinolophus "philippinensis-group" and is distinguished by differences in the nose-leaf structures, craniodental characteristics, and bacular features.


To develop vocational education conforms to the actual situations of our country.Vocational education is playing a great role in the economic construction of our country.However,some problems have arisen in the development of this education,which must not be ignored.In view of the existing situation,we should fully recognize the objectiviity and necessity of quality cultivation in vocational education,take Marx's theory of people's all-round development as the guideline,and explore the new ways to promote quality cultivation.


Walnut microshoot grafting is a technique using walnut seedlings as rootstocks and microshoots in vitro as scions to propagate grafted walnut plantlets. Experiments were conducted to investigate the effects of genotype, age of seedlings, ways of hardening off and treatment of plant growth regulators. The results showed that the best grafting survival rate was 90% and transplant survival rate was over 95%. In this way, we can realize the rapid propagation of walnut.


According to the situation that the kind of flocculants is less , and the flocculants has poor capability of removal oil and organic polluter; by means of inverse suspeansion co- polymerization of cationic , hydrophobic and acryl amide monomer,new JH series flocculants are synthesized,its purification water effect on oily wastewater are researched. Experimental results show JH series flocculants have better capabilities of removal suspend-solid., oil and organic polluter than poly- acryl - amide and cationic polymer. The flocculants including 15% cationic and 1% hydrophobic function monomer have the best purification water effect.


We read with interest the enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique described by Lindgren et al. [1] for the detection of factor VIII antibodies. The method is similar to the one described by us [2] except that we have used a much higher concentration of the coating antigen, i.e. recombinant FVIII stabilized with albumin (Helixate, USA). We had optimized the concentration of the coating antigen after standardizing with various concentrations of the coating antigen and with or without 0.05% glutaraldehyde. The best results in terms of specificity and sensitivity were obtained with 5 U per well in a 200 lL suspension and when the plates were precoated with glutaraldehyde. When lower concentration was used very high non-specificity was observed. There was a very good correlation with the conventional Bethesda assay; the ELISA was found to be specific for FVIII antibodies and non-crossreacting, as seen by the negative reaction against various other antibodies. The ELISA described by Lindgren et al. is more economical in that the concentration of the coating antigen is ten times lower than that used by us, given the exorbitant cost of these recombinant factors. However, we could observe positive reactions with five severe haemophilia samples who were negative for inhibitors by the Bethesda assay. One of the patients subsequently became positive for FVIII antibodies by the Bethesda assay. It needs to be seen whether all these patients will subsequently develop Bethesda-detectable antibodies, or whether these are natural antibodies. If the former is true, then ELISA technique proves to be a very useful technique in detecting the inhibitors much earlier than the Bethesda assay. A periodic screening for inhibitors by ELISA in all severe haemophilia cases is warranted under such circumstances. There are some pharmacokinetic studies on the variation in the half-life of infused FVIII in different severe haemophilia patients who are otherwise negative for inhibitors by the conventional Bethesda assay [3]. They have attributed this to the antibodies which are not detected by the conventional clotting assays and ELISA may detect such antibodies and help in a better management of these patients. It has also been reported that some of the antibodies detected by the Bethesda assay may be anti-phospholipid antibodies rather than the alloFVIII antibodies [4]. In the clotting assay, these would be discriminated only by using an activated partial thromboplastin time (APTT) reagent with a low sensitivity to phosphlipids and a high sensitivity to antifactor antibodies. ELISA overcomes all these limitations of the clotting assays and is likely to be a robust technique for pharmacovigilance studies where a large number of samples need to be screened for development of antibodies to FVIII, when any new product is being tested.


Within their small air sacs, our lungs exchange oxygen (O2) from the air for the carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by our bodies. In these air spaces, O2 moves into small blood vessels while CO2 moves from the blood out into the air. Lung diseases can impair airflow and reduce the number of blood vessels in the lungs, making it harder to take in O2 and eliminate CO2. These changes to the lungs contribute to symptoms like breathlessness. The relationship between airflow and blood flow in our lungs is called V/Q, where V is for ventilation—the movement of air—and Q is for perfusion—blood flow to the lungs. While people with healthy lungs have good a good match between V and Q, those with certain lung diseases often have poor V/Q matching. In this article, we describe the origins of V/Q mismatch and its impact on lung function.