Iris biometrics is considered as the unique and accurate biometric characteristics that are suited for large scale applications such as India's AADHAR, CANPASS, and many other national ID programs. However, the accuracy of the iris recognition is observed to degrade when eye (or iris) is affected by the diseases. Among many other eye diseases, cataract results in a cloud formation on the eye lens and is a potential problem, especially in the developing countries. In this paper, we present a preliminary study on 84 data subjects to reveal the effect of cataract on iris recognition performance. We investigate three different scenarios, which involve: (1) Enrolment and recognition of affected eyes (pre-operated eye) (2) Enrolement and recognition of operated eyes (post-operated eye) (3) Enrolment with affected eyes and recognition with operated eyes. Extensive experiments are carried out using five different academic and commercial iris recognition methods to get complete insight on the impact of cataract on the recognition performance. Results obtained on our database indicate the degraded performance in verification of the cataract operated eye.


Arsenic trioxide(As2O3,ATO) is one of the most effective therapeutic agents for patient with acute promyelocytic leukemia(APL),common but irreplaceable.Depending on its potential values,it has also been developed for treatment of other forms of tumors(e.g.liver and lungs cancer).Although As2O3 has been studied in vivo and in vitro for many years,there are some controversies regarding the usage of ATO for its multi-targeted action.In this review,we focused on the current state of knowledge with respect to the effect of arsenic trioxide in vivo and in vitro.


Abstract SINCE the original demonstrations that both concentrates containing antibiotics and pure aureomycin stimulate the growth of poults (McGinnis et al., 1949; Stokstad and Jukes, 1950), numerous reports concerning the growth promoting action of antibiotics have appeared in the literature. In these reports, however, no data have been presented showing the effect of pelleting feed on the subsequent response of poults to the added antibiotic supplements. It was the purpose of the experiments described here to show whether or not the growth promoting properties of the antibiotics procaine penicillin, diamine penicillin and aureomycin hydrochloride were affected by the feed pelleting process. PROCEDURE Day-old, unsexed Broad Breasted Bronze poults were distributed at random into electrically-heated battery brooders so that each group contained 10 poults. The basal diet shown in Table 1 was used in 2 feeding trials. In the first experiment, pharmaceutical grade antibiotics were used and 200 pound batches of the …


Collaboration between anaerobic wastewater digestion and membrane separation is obtaining many interests for its high-rate bioreactors performance. This research aimed to study the performance of membrane bioreactor in digestion of palm oil mill effluent (POME) into biogas. Tubular polyvinylidenefluoride (PVDF) ultrafiltration membrane with pore size 0.03 µm was used in this study. Experiments were performed in two runs, using CSTR under mesophilic temperature with (Run 1) and without MBR (Run 2). During first 3 weeks, both runs were operated for sludge acclimation. After 3 weeks, MBR operation was started in the first run. Sludge retention time (SRT) was maintained at 45 days between 0 - 58th day of fermentation time and 30 days after 58th days, while hydraulic retention time (HRT) was maintained at 10 days for an MBR. Results from MBR treatment showed that by extending SRT in return the excess sludge from digester, chemical oxygen demand (COD) loading rate and suspended solids (SS) concentration were increased to 6.9 kg/m3/d and 37,000 mg/L, respectively. COD effluent concentration was kept < 2,000 mg/L with COD removal ratio more than 97%, biological oxygen demand (BOD) effluent was reached around 100 mg/L, COD degradation ratio was 78% and biogas generation per fed COD was reached 0.38 Nm3/kg-fed COD at HRT of 10 days and SRT of 45 days. This result showed that the MBR treatment system are highly effective in treating POME and is feasible to be applied on an industrial scale.Collaboration between anaerobic wastewater digestion and membrane separation is obtaining many interests for its high-rate bioreactors performance. This research aimed to study the performance of membrane bioreactor in digestion of palm oil mill effluent (POME) into biogas. Tubular polyvinylidenefluoride (PVDF) ultrafiltration membrane with pore size 0.03 µm was used in this study. Experiments were performed in two runs, using CSTR under mesophilic temperature with (Run 1) and without MBR (Run 2). During first 3 weeks, both runs were operated for sludge acclimation. After 3 weeks, MBR operation was started in the first run. Sludge retention time (SRT) was maintained at 45 days between 0 - 58th day of fermentation time and 30 days after 58th days, while hydraulic retention time (HRT) was maintained at 10 days for an MBR. Results from MBR treatment showed that by extending SRT in return the excess sludge from digester, chemical oxygen demand (COD) loading rate and suspended solids (SS) concentration were in...


Relationships are the foundation upon which all youth development rests. Young people grow, learn, and develop through relationships. Relationships socialize youth and subsequently encourage identity development.2 Relationships provide connection, a necessity for all humans.3,4 Supportive relationships promote positive academic, behavioral, and psychological outcomes,5 while also buffering against negative outcomes such as substance abuse.6,7 Relationships are the vehicle that propel adolescent development forward.


The increasing demands on natural resources to provide food and feed has led to increased global initiatives to improve production sustainability and efficiency. The use of insects as an alternate source of protein for human food and production-animal feed is one such avenue gaining attention. With there being a large variety of insect species endemic to each region, there is likely to be an ideal candidate for each specific production system and region. Insects require less land and water than do terrestrial animals, have high feed-conversion efficiency (FCE) and emit low levels of greenhouse gases (GHG). Insect species currently investigated for mass production include black soldier fly larvae (BSFL), mealworms and crickets. In western societies, it is less likely that wide-scale adoption of insects as a food source will occur, although speciality products with 'hidden' insects, such as cricket flour, are commercially available. It is likely to be more achievable for insects to be included into the diets of production and companion animals. While there has been significant investment in research and development of large-scale insect-production systems, such facilities are yet to start producing at a significant scale. The safety and efficacy of insects as a food or feed must be established in conjunction with the development of mass rearing facilities and the optimisation of insect-rearing substrates. Insects also have nutraceutical properties that may have beneficial impacts on animal health and growth, with scope for these properties to be exploited as feed or food additives. The present review will explore the following question: 'are insects a future livestock industry for Australia?'.


This work reports the possible development of reduction processes when treating the molten metal and slag using a ladle furnace under conditions of intensive stirring with an inert gas. The industrial data have been received, confirming the possibility of decreasing the concentration of ferrous and manganese oxides in the slag and stabilizing the contents of manganese and silicon in the metal.


Implementing education for sustainability demands higher education institutions to overcome various challenges, such as understanding the concept of sustainability, training change agents, curricular changes, among others. In this scenario, partnerships show themselves as important facilitating elements to mitigate such challenges. Thus, this study seeks to assess, empirically, a conceptual model regarding partnerships being used as facilitating elements to overcome challenges faced by higher education institutions during education for sustainability's implementation. To do so, a qualitative research, of a descriptive nature and that used a multicase study as a research strategy was carried out with six Brazilian higher education institutions. The results showed that partnerships are used to minimize challenges related to the identification on higher education institutions' stakeholders' demands, to the formalization and institutionalization of sustainability and education for sustainability and to changes in the curricula and teaching methodologies. It was also possible to observe that the challenges faced by higher education institutions can be grouped in five fronts, as recommended in the framework available in the literature and assessed in this research for its validation.


Sir, The elegantly designed prospective cohort study by Linard et al. published in BJOG provides significant insights into the association between utilisation of recommended antenatal care and severe maternal (SMM) and perinatal morbidity (SPM) in the PreCARE cohort (9117 women with singleton pregnancies). Maternal morbidity and mortality among ethnic groups in the UK and European countries is emerging as a major health problem at the present time. Therefore, a precise timeline-based cost-effective prevention strategy is warranted to identify susceptible women of varying genetic profiles who may be at increased risk of pregnancy-related complications, including severe maternal morbidity attributable to antenatal pulmonary embolism, eclampsia, acute fatty liver of pregnancy (AFLP), amniotic fluid embolism (AFE), peripartum hysterectomy, stroke in pregnancy, endometriosis, uterine rupture, placenta accreta, HELLP (haemolysis, elevated liver enzymes and low platelets) syndrome and severe sepsis. The present study had a number of strengths. Stringent inclusion/exclusion criteria were followed for selection of study subjects from four maternity units around Paris, France (timeline 2010– 2012); indeed, a sample size of 9117 women with singleton pregnancies is impressive and adds to the overall quality of the study in terms of statistical power (>80%) with relevant adjustments for covariates, maternal social, demographic and medical characteristics, using a statistically sound and robust logistic regression analysis. The data analysis is accurate, highlighting the main outcomes: SMM and SPM. The authors assessed antenatal care utilisation by reporting initiation of care after 14 weeks, fewer than 50% of recommended visits, gestational age, absence of first, second/third trimester ultrasounds, and two modified Adequacy of Prenatal Care Utilisation indexes. Moreover, the core tenets of bioethics and good-practice research were followed in reporting the study outcomes. The findings in this cohort study demonstrated that 34.6% of women had inadequate antenatal care utilisation; the incidence of SMM was 2.9% and of SPM 5.5%. Associated analyses revealed a percentage of recommended visits below 50%, late initiation of care, and failure to have the recommended ultrasounds. Interestingly, inadequate antenatal care utilisation as per the index was associated with SPM [adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 1.37 (1.05– 1.80)]. The study provides impressive clinical insights into antenatal care utilisation for successful clinical management of pregnant women. In our view, aberrant metabolic flux involving a complex cross-talk among diverse yet interrelated biochemical signal transduction pathways and the genetic variants in signalling components (e.g. receptors, growth factors, transcription factors) may be involved in the underlying pathophysiology of pregnancy-related disorders and/or complications in a specific patient population subset. Future studies with a sophisticated multicentre target-population based strategy are warranted for identification and validation of predictive and prognostic biomarkers so as to reduce the increasing risk of SMM and SPM. Furthermore, pregnant women could be counselled and informed about breastfeeding and dietary regimens for their general psychological and physiological well-being. Mammography could be recommended for breast malignancy/cancer screening among asymptomatic/symptomatic women during the course of pregnancy.


Three new ionone glucosides, rehmaionosides A (1__∼), B (2__∼), and C (3__∼), and a new monoterpene glucoside rehmapicroside (4__∼), were isolated from Chinese Rehmanniae Radix, the dried root of Rehmannia glutinosa L(ibosch)___=.[kan-jio (in Japanese) from China]. Their absolute configurations were determined on the basis of chemical and physicochemical evidence which included the application of the exciton chirality method for allylic benzoyl derivatives.


This paper first introduced the harm of discard-oil and the state quo of its reuse development, and then put forward an idea of co-firing discard-oil for power generation and analyzed its feasibility. It was concluded that this idea is completely feasible with appropriate process design, reasonable mxing ratio and proper environmental protection measures.


Abstract Stability analysis of retaining structures supporting variably saturated backfills is a topic of great significance in civil engineering. However, the backfill soil may be exposed to elevated temperature; this may result in changes of the saturation state, thus posing temperature-dependent effective stress, variable suction stress and different hydro-mechanical characteristics to partially saturated soils. In the present work, the significant impact of elevated temperature is incorporated into the soil-water retention curve and suction stress-based effective stress formulations. Accordingly, the lower bound theorems of limit analysis in conjunction with finite element and second-order cone programming are adopted so as to thoroughly examine the impact of elevated temperature on the coefficients of lateral earth pressure acting on a model retaining wall backfilled by two hypothetical partially saturated soils; a granular material (sand) and a cohesive material (clay). The effective stress-based formula for the strength of variably saturated soils is implemented to modify the conventional Mohr–Coulomb yield criterion. In general, it was shown that for unsaturated clay backfills, the active lateral earth pressure decreases while the passive lateral earth pressure increases with increasing the induced temperature; however these influences were observed to be small for the sand backfill.


The purpose of the paper is to study the linguistic environments in which subject-verb agreement errors occur in students' academic work. The paper also aims to find out if these errors were competence or performance errors. The study was conducted at the National University of Lesotho (NUL). The study had a two stage research design. In the first stage, students wrote a test in their field of study. In this test, no focus on subject-verb agreement was included. The test scripts were used to identify subject-verb agreement errors and the linguistic environments in which such errors occurred. In the second stage, a follow up test was given to the same group of students. They were given sentences which were a mixture of correct, incorrect and ambiguous sentences and were asked to evaluate the grammaticality of the sentences by putting a tick after the correct sentences and a cross after the incorrect ones. For the incorrect sentences they were to underline the error and give the correct answer. The main findings of the study were: subject-verb agreement errors are prominent in simple sentence constructions and in complex linguistic environments. The study also found that performance errors appear frequently in simple sentence construction (simple errors) while competence errors are found to be prominent in complex linguistic environments.


In this brief, a Schottky Barrier MOSFET (SB-MOSFET) based on Impact Ionization mechanism is used to design a leaky integrate and fire (LIF) neuron with considerable enhancement in area, energy and cost is proposed. Using 2D calibrated simulation, we confirmed that SB-MOSFET LIF is able to replicate the neuron behavior precisely without using external circuitry. The proposed LIF neuron shows significantly lower energy per spike of ~4 pJ/spike, which is lowest among the single transistor based neurons present in the literature. The recognition precision of 89.2% has been accomplished for Modified National Institute of Standards and Technology (MNIST) image. Besides this, SB-MOSFET doesn't require any doped regions, therefore it can be fabricated with low thermal budget.


In this paper,the main characteristic parameters of 2 standardized chronologies of tree-ring samples collected from the Baluntai region and that of 9 standardized chronologies of tree-ring samples collected from the mountainous regions in the headwaters of the Urumqi River are compared.The results show that the climatic information contained in the standardized chronologies of tree-ring samples collected from the Baluntai region is possibly more than that from the mountainous regions in the headwaters of the Urumqi River.After analyzing the correlation coefficients between the chronologies of the tree-ring samples collected from these two regions,it is found that the correlation between these chronologies is significant and at significance level of 0.01,which reveals that these chronologies contain possibly the climatic information of larger extent covering both southern and northern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains.The chronologies of the tree-ring samples collected from the Forstan Valley and the mountainous regions in the headwaters of the Urumqi River contain possibly more climatic information about the whole Tianshan Mountains than that from the Saserk Valley because of their higher correlation coefficients.After comparing,it is found that the average value of the high-and low-frequency information of the chronologies of tree-ring samples collected from the Baluntai region is higher than that from the mountainous regions in the headwaters of the Urumqi River,and the highfrequency information content of tree-ring samples collected from both Forstan Valley and the mountainous regions in the headwaters of the Urumqi River is higher than the low-frequency information content.


Quantifying carbon uptake or gross primary production (GPP) from agroecosystems is important for understanding the spatial and temporal dynamics of carbon fixation by crops. The availability of high-resolution remote sensing data can significantly improve GPP estimation of small-scale agricultural fields. Multispectral satellite data with 3-m spatial resolution and frequent global coverage are available from the PlanetScope network of satellites. However, this data remains largely unexplored for studying the carbon dynamics of agroecosystems. The overarching goal of this study was to develop a simple empirical method for quantifying the GPP of dryland maize (Zea mays L.) using remotely sensed vegetation indices along with in-situ measurements of photosynthetically active radiation and leaf area index by linking it with carbon uptake data from an eddy covariance flux tower. Four vegetation indices were investigated: the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), the soil adjusted vegetation index (SAVI), the weighted difference vegetation index (WDVI), and the two-band enhanced vegetation index (EVI2). This study was conducted over a three-year period from 2017 to 2019 in East-Central Texas. A total of 12 GPP prediction models were developed using individual yearly data and were used for predicting GPP of the other 2 years. Predicted maize GPP values were then compared against tower-based GPP. The NDVI models were the least successful in predicting GPP and had the highest root mean square error (average: 10.1 3 gC m−2; maximum: 26.3 gC m−2). Models based on SAVI performed especially well with error ranging from 0.05 to 0.94 gC m−2. The slope of the regression between SAVI-based estimated GPP and measured GPP was not different from 1.0 in all combinations of years. The success of the SAVI-based GPP models for predicting dryland maize carbon uptake indicates that it was the least affected vegetation index by changing soil background condition in this row cropping system.


[Objective]To learn the hygienic quality of drinking water in Zhongshan city,provide the scientific basis for improving the drinking water quality.[Methods]With periodic sampling,drinking water in urban area and every town of Zhongshan city were sampled and analyzed every season.The types of analysis items included toxicological parameters(arsenic,cadmium,hexavalent chromium,lead,mercury,selenium,cyanide,fluoride,nitrate,trichlormethane,carbon tetrachloride,chlorylene,tetrachloroethylene,malathion,parathion,methyl parathion,dimethoate,dichlorvos,benzene,toluene,xylene,ethyl benzene,styrene,chlorpyrifos,etc.),organoleptic and general chemical parameters(color,turbidity,odor and taste,macroscopic substance,pH value,aluminum,iron,manganese,zinc,copper,chloride,sulphate,total soluble solid,total hardness,oxygen consumption,volatile phenols,anionic detergents,etc.),radioactivity parameters(general alpha radioactivity,general beta radioactivity,etc.),microbiological parameters(total bacteria count,total coliform bacteria,thermotolerant coliform bacteria,escherichia coli,etc.) and disinfectants parameters(free chlorine,total chlorine,etc.).[Results]309 samples of drinking water were evaluated,and 289 samples met the requirements of the Drinking water sanitary standard(GB 5749-2006) for all items,with the standard-reaching rate of 93.5%.[Conclusion]The hygienic quality of drinking water in urban area and every town of Zhongshan city is good.However,the relevant departments should pay great attention to drinking water quality,in order to ensure the health and safety of drinking water.


In sound compression and synthesis, it is valuable to have objective distance measures which can predict the perceived dissimilarity of two sounds. Furthermore it is desirable also to be able to estimate the extent of the dissimilarity or the quality difference between sounds. Since it is the perceived difference that needs to be quantified it can be expected that measures that are derived from models of hearing will provide the best predictions. An overview of the topic of auditory modelling is presented. An objective measure based on a distance metric applied to auditory excitation patterns is described. This perceptual measure is compared with a traditional spectral distortion measure in the prediction of the discrimination of spectral envelope distortions of vowel-like sounds. The results of a subjective experiment indicate that the perceptual measure is significantly superior.


The flexural force-deformation behavior of high strength square concrete-filled steel tube (CFT) beam-columns was experimentally investigated. The parameters in the study included the width-to-thic...


A field experiment was carried out to study the effect of different sources and methods of silicon application on direct sown rice during the kharif season in 2019-20 at Agricultural college farm, Bapatla, A.P, India. Experimental plot was laid out in randomized complete block design having nine treatments with three replications. Among different treatments imposed application of calcium silicate @ 200 kg ha-1 along with 100% RDF significantly increased the growth attributes like plant height, average number of tillers per hill and dry matter production as well as yield of direct sown rice.


Cristian RADU 1 1 Student, Faculty of History and Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, 1 Mihail Kogălniceanu Street, 400084, Romania. E-mail firstname.lastname@example.com. Abstract: The implementation of artificial intelligence morality is one of the most important themes discussed in the field of A.I. While many discussions focus on finding the right ethical system to implement, it is also important to address an important dilemma that comes with this possible innovation. Besides finding the right ethical system for A.I, we must also be aware of the conditions required to make possible the implementation of such a system. And these are not hardware requirements, but specific traits through which A.I. become more akin to humans. In this article, I will discuss what features do a.i. need to have in order to work with abstract ideas such as morality. To do this, I will first write a definition of human nature, based on past definitions written by various philosophers. And starting from this definition, I will highlight the most fundamental and essential human traits such as thinking and the nature of human rationality, communication, and the relationship between mind and body. After, I will compare these traits with a.i. to find out how close or far is the technology of achieving moral thinking. In order to accomplish these, I will use secondary sources of literature such as books and articles.


This article analyzes popular education in rural areas, with a focus on education as conceived by collective political actors — popular social movements — to counter the "civilizing" model of the modern school. It seeks to unveil the contradictory concepts that impregnate the concepts and experiences of popular organizations as subjects of popular education. Modern bourgeois education is lirnited to processes in the schools, neglecting learning from experience, culture and work. In the same way tha twork is educational, participation in popular social movements is also educatio-nal considering its role in the formationof class and class identity. Popular education thus has a class character and it is this which distinguishes the abstract concept of modern education. The criticism of education limited to schools does not deny the importante of school institutions nor does it fail to recognize the right of the popular classes to education, which is universal. The paper reviews the concept of popular education, reviving its relationship with the world of labor, where social movements are constituted and which define them in their social and pedagogical practices.


This study aims to determine the effect of production costs, fishing experience, fishing distance, and
fish prices on the income of fishing rods in Kolo Bawah Village, Mamosalato Subdistrict, North Morowali
Regency. This research was conducted from June to July 2021. The determination of respondents in this
study was carried out using a random sample method, with a total sample of 44 respondents from a total
population of 270 people. The analysis used is multiple linear regression analysis. The results of the analysis
show that the variable cost of production is 0.059, experience at sea is 31.039, the distance to sea is 13.710,
and the price of fish is 10.540, has a real and significant effect both partially and simultaneously on the
income of fishing fishermen in Kolo Bawah Village, Mamosalato District, North Morowali Regency.


A review of cities of the dead: circum‐Atlantic performance, by Joseph Roach. Columbia University Press, New York, 1996, 328pp, ISBN: 0–231–10460‐X (hardback), 0–231–10461–8 (paperback)


This note provides technical details of the presentation Equilibrium Bidding in Complementary Auctions. Section 1 presents the single object case with additional explanations and section 2 reveals the difficulty of applying single object case argument to two objects case. Section 3.1 shows a system of partial differential equations assuming implicit function theorem is applicable. However, conditions of the theorem cannot be easily checked globally due to complexity of the problem. Section 3.2 provides a proof regarding local solution existence at the origin where a neighborhood includes a point that a bidder values zero for both goods. 12


Background: The Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 estimates that 3.5 billion people worldwide experience dental and oral health problems, with dental caries being the most common disease. The 2018 RISKESDAS data shows that the greatest caries prevalence is in the 5-year-old (93.4%), 12-year-
old (68.8%), 15-year-old (68.1%), 35-44 years (92.1%) and 65 years old. -74 years (95.2%). Dental caries has an impact on the quality of life of the sufferer which can interfere with daily activities so that efforts are needed and people become more aware and care about their oral health. Method: The solution to the problem is carried out by educating the community, one of them are in Margasari, Tegal. Dental Health Education is carried out using poster media to make it more interactive, effective and efficient. Evaluation of the implementation is done by using a questionnaire. The results of the questionnaire were tabulated using SPSS with the Wilcoxon non-parametric test method. Result: wilcoxon signed rank shows that there are 0 negative ranks, 24 positive ranks, and 1 ties. Z value based on negative ranks are -4.322 Conclusion: There is an increase in knowledge of respondents after being
given education.


Inner-shell photodetachment from Ru{sup -} was studied near and above the 4p excitation region, 29-to-91-eV photon energy range, using a merged ion-photon-beam technique. The absolute photodetachment cross sections of Ru{sup -} ([Kr]4d{sup 7}5s{sup 2}) leading to Ru{sup +}, Ru{sup 2+}, and Ru{sup 3+} ion production were measured. In the near-threshold region, a Wigner s-wave law, including estimated postcollision interaction effects, locates the 4p{sub 3/2} detachment threshold between 40.10 and 40.27 eV. Additionally, the Ru{sup 2+} product spectrum provides evidence for simultaneous two-electron photodetachment (likely to the Ru{sup +} 4p{sup 5}4d{sup 6}5s{sup 2} state) located near 49 eV. Resonance effects are observed due to interference between transitions of the 4p electrons to the quasibound 4p{sup 5}4d{sup 8}5s{sup 2} states and the 4d{yields}{epsilon}f continuum. Despite the large number of possible terms resulting from the Ru{sup -} 4d open shell, the cross section obtained from a 51-state LS-coupled R-matrix calculation agrees qualitatively well with the experimental data.


All employees in an organization are unique in terms of their qualities, motivation, skills, and personality traits. The challenge for modern HR professionals is to ensure that each employee perform their duties to the best of their ability by identifying a role which is best suited for them. This matching of jobs and people to facilitate excellence in performance can be achieved through competency mapping.


The circulation characteristics and physical quantities of a large scale blizzard weather process occurred in Suihua from 17 to 20, November 2013 was analyzed with the Micaps 3 data. The results show that, high vortex's development cause this snowstorm, the surface shear line is the main influence system, strong water vapor convergence in low level provide adequate moisture for the blizzard. Blizzard generate in the east wind reverse warm advection of ground low pressure.


To provide long-term weather resistance useful such as for better building interior and exterior to the fluorine-containing copolymer aqueous coating composition and the fluorine-containing copolymer aqueous dispersion composition for use therein. Fluorine-containing copolymer aqueous dispersions and water-dispersible polyisocyanate compound is dispersed in water fluorocopolymer aqueous coating composition having a hydroxyl group.


Abstract— Reduced pyridine nucleotides were observed to cause a delay as well as a diminution of light emission from peroxidized luminol at pH 6.5. Other reductants were found to have similar effects. Neither superoxide nor hydroxyl radical scavengers quenched chemiluminescence of luminol in the presence of horseradish peroxidase and H2O2. A scheme in which reductants such as NADH and NADPH prevent peroxidase from oxidizing luminol to aminophthalate is proposed. Moreover, it is concluded that neither O2−nor OH' play a role in the peroxidation of luminol by horseradish peroxidase.


The aim of our study was to describe our experience using a Spectra Optia® automated apheresis system in children with sickle cell disease (SCD). We used automated red blood cell exchange (RCE) to treat acute and chronic complications in 75 children with SCD who had a median age of 10 years [7-13]. We analysed 649 exchange sessions. Peripheral venous access was limited in a number of the children, thus requiring a femoral central double‐lumen venous catheter (CVC). We recommend the use of heparin locking, with 500 units in each lumen of a CVC. This method was well tolerated, with few complications during the procedures. For preoperative prevention, all of the patients had achieved a post-RCE HbS level of <30% since this is a mandatory condition imposed by the anaesthesiologist. With a post-RCE Hb level of approximately 10-11 g/dL, a blood exchange volume of ≥32 mL/kg, and an interval between each RCE procedure of ≤30 days, it was able to maintain the residual HbS level below 30%. Despite a target pre‐exchange HbS level of 47%, we did not encounter a single stroke recurrence. Erythrocytapheresis is useful and safe for children with SCD.


This paper presents an analysis of empirical studies on the effects of transportation facilities on property values. The primary purpose of this study is to address the effects of the presence of transportation facilities on the value of surrounding properties under time and spatial domains. Both the effect of distance from the High-speed Rail (HSR) and the effect of time relative to the completion of the HSR segment contribute to the non-linearity of house prices. While previous studies of the effects of transport accessibility on property and land values have focused on either cross-sectional spatial or temporal patterns, the joint analysis of these two dimensions has not been systematically investigated. We use home transaction data from a period around the completion of the HSR in Kaohsiung City and combine a standard hedonic price model with a spline regression technique to verify non-linear variations of the effect along the temporal and spatial dimensions. The dynamic changes in the house price are analyzed by spatial interpolation techniques (Kriging), which benefit from explicitly dealing with spatial dependence effects. Finally, we estimate the model for a regular series of distances from the HSR, and for time points both before and after the opening of the rail in order to track price effects across various distances and over time.


The present invention relates to an airtight container cover to be coupled onto an upper portion of the container. The airtight container cover comprises a transparent cover and a packing closure. The transparent cover has a first protrusion formed along an outer periphery of a transparent plate and a second protrusion spaced apart from the first protrusion such that a packing groove is formed in the vicinity of a rim of a lower surface of the transparent plate, wherein said transparent has through-holes. The first protrusion has opening/shutting means formed integrally therewith, and both sides of the second protrusion have connection grooves. The packing closure comprises a packing member integrally fitted to the packing groove of the transparent cover, and a closure member formed integrally with the packing member by means of connection portions which pass through the connection grooves of the second protrusion and integrally fitted into the through-holes of the transparent plate. The closure member of the packing closure has a fine hole which automatically opens to discharge gases when the container thermally expands. The airtight container cover of the present invention has said transparent cover and said packing closure, which are double-molded and formed integrally with each other, thus improving use convenience by preventing a separation between the transparent cover and the packing closure. In addition, the packing closure has said fine hole, making it possible to discharge only gases when the container is filled with pressure, and thus enabling the container to be used in a microwave oven. Liquid in the container having the airtight container cover of the present invention is prevented from leaking even when the container is falls down due to an impact during transportation, thus enabling the container to be easily transported onboard a vehicle, ship, airplane or the like.


ABSTRACT
This article has as its object of study fieldwork practice in the teaching of Geography and Environmental Education in the final years of elementary school. For its development, it was supported by a state-of-the-art research, to map the studies that address the practice of fieldwork in Geography and EE in the final years of elementary school, and from the Brazilian production extracted from the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (BDTD), from the first document available in the BDTD (1967) until 2019. The main results point to the concentration of production in the Southeast Region of the country, as well as the temporal distribution concentrated in the last decade. It is evident that fieldwork practice appears as a favorable methodology to the development of activities that transform the school routine and enable the connection between theory and practice. Likewise, the possibility of promoting Environmental Education in Geography classes and the insertion of new technologies in teaching and learning are highlighted.
Keywords: Fieldwork. Geography. Environmental education. State-of-the-art.


It is argued that the zero-point energies of free quantum fields diverge at most quadratically and not quartically, as is generally believed. This is a consequence of the relativistic invariance which requires that the energy density of the vacuum $\rho$ and its pressure $p$ satisfy $\rho=-p$. The usually obtained quartic divergence is an artifact of the use of a noninvariant regularization which violates this relation. One consequence of our results is that the zero-point energies of free massless fields vanish. Implications for the cosmological constant problem are briefly discussed.


A synchronous rectification circuit of DC/DC converter is prepared as controlling negative clamping-driving circuit by negative clamping component of secondary edge winding on transformer at DC/DC converter, using said clamping component to discharge electricity onto rectification tube/follow current tube and clamping rectification tube/follow current tube on a low level, setting a capacity on negative clamping-driving circuit and electric-connecting one end of said capacity to said secondary edge winding and another end of said capacity to control end of said clamping component.


The development of bio analytical techniques brought a progressive discipline with in the pharmaceutical trade is to get a quantitation life of a drug and its metabolites .They introduced some combined instrument in assessing the bioanalysis of the medicine. LC-MS is one of the bio analytical techniques that combine the physical separation capabilities of liquid chromatography with the mass analysis of mass spectrometry. This combination was first reported in 1967 and the first LC-MS system was introduced in 1980's. The main objective of this is to over view the principle, method development and validation. This review describes brief introduction to the methods of quantitative analysis which are one of the most valuable course in scientific training. An introduction to HPLC such as stationary phase used is briefly overviewed. The mass analyzers such as Quadra pole, TOF used in mass spectrometry with principle are also discussed.


S4 is the name of DLR's high resolution rotor code for simulation of aerodynamics, dynamics, acoustics and flow field of isolated rotors like those being operated in the wind tunnel. In 2001, the HART II test was performed by DLR, ONERA, US Army AFDD, NASA Langley and DNW in the large low-speed facility (LLF) of the DNW. The test encompasses the Bo105 40% Mach scaled and dynamically scaled model rotor in descent flight condition creating a large amount of blade-vortex interaction (BVI) noise as the baseline (BL) case. Higher harmonic control (HHC) was applied at 3/rev with different phases for minimum noise radia-tion (MN) and for minimum vibration characteristics (MV). This paper addresses the S4 code validation using HART II data of blade motion, section air loads and acoustic radiation. Acoustic radiation is post-processed by DLR acoustic code APSIM using S4 unsteady airloads as input. It is found that even with such kind of comprehensive code qualitatively and quantitatively good results can be obtained for all these aspects, when appropriate engineering models are applied: unsteady aerodynamics, fully elastic blades and wake vortex system with prescribed geometry.


A software retrofit method, stand-by loading scheme, is proposed for a switching system in which the service downtime should be suppressed under several minutes per year. In general, software upgrade is performed in the system suspension state. However, in a switching system, it should be exercised without breaking the service continuity and minimize the possible side effects against on-going services. Stand-by loading scheme satisfies such a requirement in addition to the high efficiency in the maintenance and repair, and easy upgrade of additional functions of a switching system, and thus makes the system to evolve easily. Currently, a switching system adopting this method was constructed and has been used successfully in the field.


Gullino, M.L. 2009. Teaching Plant Pathology and Disease and Pest Management for University Students: Some Considerations After Thirty Years of Experience. Arab Journal of Plant Protection, 27: 233-235 Specific courses in Plant Protection are in place in most Agricultural Universities around the world. They are generally given at the MS level, after the concepts of plant protection have been introduced to students in Plant Pathology and Agricultural Entomology courses offered at the BS level. Plant protection, with very few exceptions, is thought worldwide in integrated courses, which combine the expertise of plant pathologists, entomologists and, less frequently, weed scientists. Such fragmentation represents one of the problems encountered, mostly at the student level, because a split view of the different topics, that generally need a holistic approach, is often given. Plant Protection is also the topic of MS courses and Ph.D. programmes. The changing role and importance of courses on plant protection in agricultural curricula, the need of such course also in food technology and agricultural biotechnology curricula are critically discussed. The importance of a good balance between theory and practical activities as well as the need of life-long learning in such field is discussed, together with the possible innovations in teaching methodologies.


A combined algorithm for automatic target detection and height estimation, based on amplitude comparison using multipath lobes of three sensors positioned one above the other, and a three-positioned in a plane method, is proposed in this paper. A method for three-positioned radar system base estimation, allowing target height measurement with height probability of detection, is developed and applied. The measurement accuracies, achieved with two approaches for target height estimation with identical statistical and power detection parameters, are compared. The suggested approach can be successfully applied in different sensor system solutions.


Smart interactive textiles are the next frontier of ubiquitous computing and may serve as novel and accepted interfaces that go beyond conventional human-computer interaction. Apart from the technical perspective, it is important to understand if and under which conditions people adopt these technologies and which factors constitute perceived barriers of technology acceptance. In this work we examine people's attitudes towards smart textiles and their relationship to the intention to use these products in their home environment. This article provides a precise modeling of younger and older people in regard to expertise in interacting with technology, their desire to control and automate functions in their home environment, and the evaluation of a smart cushion for controlling the home environment, using the Smart Textile Technology Acceptance Model that is derived from the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology 2 model. This model was applied for a specific smart textile product and the evaluation was focused on user-diversity, attitudes, and age. The article concludes with open research questions and guidelines for practitioners to leverage the benefits of smart textile user interfaces.


Since its development in the 1940's, the Marshall Method has increasingly been accepted by the highway agencies throughout the world to design and control bituminous paving mixtures. At the present time, 76% of the state highway agencies in the United States use this method. Being an empirical test method which does not measure the fundamental engineering properties of bituminous concrete, the Marshall Method has had its shortcomings despite the overall success. This has led to its modifications by several agencies including the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (DOT). Among the agencies using the Marshall Method these are significant differences in the procedures and applications. It is quite possible that most of these modifications have been made to suit the local conditions such as available raw materials and mixes, traffic and climate. However, one is amazed to see the wide disparity which exists. This paper outlines the Marshall testing and design procedures used by the various states in the USA and also the Pennsylvania DOT's experience with this method.


ACCORDING TO THE NEUROBIOLOGIST Benjamin Libet, we are incapable of positive free voluntary acts; these, or rather, their mere conscious semblance, are, according to his view, sheer effects of cerebral causes. Notwithstanding this, free will is not impossible; it can exist in the form of "negative free will," that is, of a veto of voluntary movements. Libet states his position in the following manner: I have taken an experimental approach to the question of whether we have free will. Freely voluntary acts are preceded by a specific electrical change in the brain (the "readiness potential," RP) that begins 550 msec. before the act. Human subjects became aware of intention to act 350-400 msec. after RP starts, but 200 msec. before the motor act. The volitional process is therefore initiated unconsciously. But the conscious function could still control the outcome; it can veto the act. Free will is therefore not excluded. (1) In spite of his "experimental approach to the question of whether we have free will," Libet's theses are primarily philosophical ones: the notion of free will, the distinction of "positive voluntary actions" from a vetoing or controlling power of free will, and many others cannot be known by empirical tests per se, but only by philosophical reflection on their outcome and by properly philosophical methods of knowledge. (2) Given their fundamentally philosophical character, there are many ways in which philosophy can tackle the issues and claims Libet raises in organizing and interpreting his famous tests with free will that result in his denial that we possess positive free will and in his simultaneous claim that we do or at least might possess "negative free will," namely a free veto power. (3) One of these ways consists in simply asking whether we have cognitive evidence of possessing positive free will. If we can find, as I intend to show in this essay, that there is not just one but, rather, various ways by which we can gain evident knowledge about human persons' possessing both "positive" and "negative" free will, and if this evidence is sound and founded on rational cognitions of things themselves, Libet's attack on positive free will is thereby refuted. In other words, if we can substantiate authentic philosophical evidences that we possess "positive free will," we will refute, in the strongest possible way, its merely hypothetical denial by Libet; for no matter what way we have to answer his objections and reflect on his test results in detail, a cogent refutation of his hypothetical objections will be guaranteed by the knowledge that we indeed possess free will, a knowledge we can gain, I shall seek to show in this paper, along different routes. Thus, abstracting from Libet's experiments, which he himself believes to allow only for hypothetical conclusions, and focusing on purely philosophical evidence for free will that is not merely hypothetical and therefore surpasses in evidence all his merely empirical and at best probable theories, is a perfectly legitimate form of criticism against Libet and is the main purpose of the following reflections. Following the attempt to complete this primary task of the present paper, we will also analyze the various meanings of the distinction between positive and negative free will that Libet introduces and show that asserting the one while denying the other entails a logical contradiction. When we speak of a free act, we mean first that a given act is caused by the person himself who possesses the power of free will, and not by any material or spiritual cause outside of him, neither by chains of electrical and chemical causes in the brain, nor by society and education, nor by God, who would predetermine and force--or determine in a softer way without experienced coercion--a person to act in a certain manner. The person himself as cause of free acts refers, furthermore, to the person as conscious agent who engenders a free act consciously through an inner "fiat" (which is not to deny that the originally conscious act can give rise to different senses of superconscious or also subconscious will, of which we do not always have conscious, let alone reflexive, awareness). …


Fig. 2. ED50 of Aureobasidin A (AbA, A-D) or Compound 20 (Cpmd 20, E-H) – μg mL−1; (95% Confidence Interval) – against the Toxoplasma RH tachyzoite form in HFF cells. 6 days post addition of the compounds. In agreement with Sonda et al. (2005), both compounds were non-toxic to HHF cells under the conditions employed. A and E: no wash out post-compound addition; B and F: wash out 2 h post-compound addition; C and G: wash out 8 h post-compound addition; D and H: 2 h pre-treatment of isolated parasites preinfection. Calculated using GraphPad Prism 7, log (inhibitor) vs normalized response – Variable slope. >10 μg mL−1 – ED50 could not be determined. Representative in triplicate dataset.


South Africa continues to face a persistent housing challenge. This article examines the success of a housing partnership initiated by WASSUP, a housing-based voluntary organisation operating in Diepsloot, a low-income community north of Johannesburg. Findings showed that from its inception the organisation had gained grassroots support, because it targeted the felt housing maintenance needs of the community. Local leadership and other non-profit organisations (NPOs) in the community developed a sense of ownership, as they were involved in defining the relevant needs and the establishment of WASSUP. The authors recommend purposeful support for housing partnerships through financial and advisory support, among other aspects.


Schizophrenia is a complex and debilitating psychiatric illness characterized by positive symptoms like hallucinations and delusions and negative symptoms like blunting of affect, avolition, and poverty of thought. This constellation of symptoms is hypothesized to result from dopaminergic dysfunction, glutamatergic dysfunction, and dysfunctional stress-‐‑ reactivity. Prior to the onset of schizophrenia there is a prodromal period when individuals begin to experience sub-‐‑ clinical symptoms and decreased functioning. This period is important to study not only to help elucidate biologic mechanisms of the illness but also to potentially alter the course of the illness through early treatment. The difficulty of studying this period lies in its recognizing it prospectively. To address this researchers have begun to study the at-‐‑ risk mental state, a state that is associated with a high but not inevitable risk of conversion to psychosis. The studies described in this dissertation are aimed at a neurofunctional characterization of the at-‐‑ risk mental state in three primary domains: reward-‐‑ anticipation, hippocampus-‐‑ dependent learning, and stress-‐‑ reactivity. Individuals at-‐‑ risk for psychosis and age-‐‑ matched healthy volunteers underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging while performing tasks targeting these domains. In the reward-‐‑ anticipation task, at-‐‑ risk individuals showed decreased ventral tegmental area (VTA) and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) responses to reward anticipation. In the hippocampus-‐‑ dependent v learning task, at-‐‑ risk individuals showed deficits in hippocampus-‐‑ dependent memory, decreased VTA engagement, and increased DLPFC activation during learning of associations between items. In the stress-‐‑ reactivity task, at-‐‑ risk individuals showed increased activation in the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis/basal forebrain (BNST), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), and medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) in response to neutral faces. Collectively, these experiments show that neurofunctional deficits in reward-‐‑ anticipation, hippocampus-‐‑ dependent learning, and stress-‐‑ reactivity are present in the putative prodrome, prior to the onset of psychosis. Regions implicated are those that would be expected based on current models of schizophrenia and neurofunctional studies in those with frank psychosis.


www.ccmjournal.org February 2013 • Volume 41 • Number 2 When some 30 yrs ago a concept of traumatic brain injury (TBI) therapy oriented on cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP) was formulated (1), we all hoped for radical improvement in fatal outcome statistics. It did happen only partially. At present, although numbers may vary from centre to centre, mortality ranges from 30% to 20% and an average proportion between favorable and unfavorable outcome is still around fifty–fifty. From data reported worldwide, it appears that, although CPP may be reasonably controlled, intracranial hypertension remains a main reason for fatal outcome. There are, generally, four mechanism of rising intracranial pressure (ICP) after TBI:


ln this paper, we describe an approach to planning sensing slralegies dynamically, based on the system's current best information about the world. Our approach is for the system to automatically propose a sensing operation, and then to determine the maximum ambiguity which might remain in the world description if that sensing operation were applied. The system then applies that sensing operation which minimizes this ambiguity. To do this, the system formulates object hypotheses and assesses its relative belief in those hypotheses to predict what features might be observed by a proposed sensing operation. Furthermore, since the number of sensing operations available to the system can he arbitrarily large, we group together equivalent sensing operations using a data structure that is based on the aspect graph. Finally, in order to measure the ambiguity in a set of hypotheses, we apply the concept of entropy from information theory. This allows us to determine lhe ambiguity in a hypothesis set in terms of the number of hypotheses and the system's distribution of belief amongst those


Playing sport at a higher or high level increase the risk of injury. Specific handball injuries include injuries of the shoulder, elbow, ankle, knee, shin splints syndrome etc. Injuries caused by overuse significantly reduce the player's effect and are often difficult to explore. This research examines the frequency of certain predisposing factors, i.e. analyzes the injury risk and pain level among handball players. The results show that among most players (55%) the risk of injury is low. Intervention should be directed towards 8 players who claim moderate to high risk of injury. Pain level question analysis shows that only 3 players report pain which (slightly) reduces their effect in sport activities. A large percentage of players (65%) report flat feet or some other spine deformity, 35% suffers from fatigue, insomnia and irritability, and even three of them think about withdrawing from sports /changing type of sport. Negative moderate correlation was obtained between the variable pain manifestation and the total score in the second part of the survey (increase in total score means lower risk of injury). However, this correlation is non-significant. It is necessary to conduct research on a large number of players.


Ketonic monosaccharide and disaccharide sucrose have long been added to Fructose, Glucose and Galactose to improve their biochemical, glycobiological and biological properties [1–11]. Ketonic monosaccharide and disaccharide have begun to replace larger sugars in insulin resistance, obesity, LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease because they can impart different properties such as biochemical, glycobiological and biological properties, at the same time, provide property enhancements at lower loadings sugars form a variety of ordered structures on nanometer length scales, allowing them to severe as a ordered matrix for Fructose, Glucose and Galactose which add functionality to the sugars [11–21]. Discontinuous molecular dynamics simulation is used to study the phase behavior of Fructose, Glucose and Galactose [22– 25]. Considerable effort has been devoted to theoretical and computational simulation studies of sugars phase behavior [26–31]. This editorial describes the models used for phase diagrams of self– assembled mono–tethered nanospheres (TNS) from molecular simulation and comparison to larger sugars. An impressive variety of Fructose, Glucose and Galactose of different sugars and geometries has been synthesized. Also, in this editorial, we aim to predict the assembled structures formed from Fructose, Glucose and Galactose as well as to compare with larger sugars. Moreover, we have developed a model for self–assembled mono–tethered nanospheres (TNS) and perform Brownian Dynamics (BD) simulations to investigate the tendency for these model self–assemble.


The article explores the possibilities of using operational analysis tools for managing a commercial organization in a crisis economy. The approaches to the use of indicators of the profitability threshold and the margin of financial strength to prevent the insolvency and bankruptcy of the organization are considered. The target function of the economic activity of a commercial organization has been formalized. The possibilities of regulating the strength of the operating leverage to reduce the loss of the company's profit with a decrease in sales in the context of the economic crisis have been studied.


In this paper, an experimental investigation was performed of the thermal performance of different working fluids in thermosyphons that can be used in thermal control of electronic equipment. The working fluids were considered acetone, water, ethanol, and methanol. The thermosyphon are manufactured of copper with an outer diameter of 9.45 mm, an inner diameter of 7.75 mm, a total length of 200 mm, whereas an evaporator of 80 mm length, an adiabatic region of 20 mm in length and a condenser of 100 mm in length. They were loaded with 1.39 ml of the working fluid, corresponding to a filling ratio of 40% of the evaporator volume. Experimental tests were performed in a vertical position considering thermal loads between 5W and 25W. The thermosyphons operated satisfactorily in all the tests. The operating temperature distribution as a function of time and the heat resistance behavior as a function of power dissipation have been presented for each analyzed working fluid. These results indicated that acetone is the working fluid that has the best thermal performance.


oD data often provide the only information available for comparison of health status both between countries and within countries at a regional level. in each country, the production of these data involves two main stages: certification and coding of causes of death. results of comparisons presented in this atlas may be used as a starting point to investigate the sources of observed differences, (e.g. behavioural, cultural, ecological factors) or to assess the effectiveness of health prevention policies and the quality of health care. Because C oD statistics


A simple model of the chemical-looping hydrogen-production system was developed to investigate the syngas reduction of and H2O/O2 oxidation of Fe2O3, CoFe2O4, and NiFe2O4. The model was used to calculate the metal oxide reduction conversion in a packed-bed reactor (PBR) before breakthrough of CO/H2, the reduction product gas composition, the steam necessary to fully oxidize the reduced material, and the steam-associated energy requirements and to analyze the possibility of hybrid H2O/O2 oxidation for H2 and electricity generation. Model results were compared to laboratory PBR experimental results with additional analysis by thermogravimetric analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, and temperature-programmed reduction for each material. Use of NiFe2O4 and CoFe2O4 was found to increase the flexibility of the chemical-looping hydrogen process, which allowed more H2 production than is currently possible with Fe-based materials while maintaining the ability for electricity generation from supplemental O2 oxidation. The mixed-metal spinel materials were ideally suited for converting lower quality syngas into H2 by lower temperature reactions.


It is an important measure of American teacher education reform to set up professional development school,which is significant for the development of American teacher education reform and the improvement of teaching quality.This paper research the forming and development of 'professional development school' from factors,program,and significance.


Objective To establish GC method for simultaneous determination of borneol,menthol,camphor and methylsalicylate contents in Zhenjiang Babu plaster.Methods The internal standard was Naphthalene.HP-INNOMAX quartz capillary column(30 m×0.32 mm,1.0μm) and FID were used.The injector temperature was 230℃ and the detector temperature was 250 ℃.Column temperature raised by programming with beginning temperature at 90℃,maintaining for 7 min,then increased the temperature to 140℃ at the rate of 5℃·min-1,maintaining for 13 min.Results The linear ranges of borneol,isoborneol,menthol,camphor and methylsalicylate were: 0.033 0~0.329 8 mg/mL(r=0.999 0),0.015 9~0.158 8 mg/mL(r=0.999 0),0.050 7~0.507 1 mg/mL(r=0.999 1),0.060 0~0.599 8 mg/mL(r=0.999 2),0.247 0~2.470 4 mg/mL(r=0.999 0),The average recoveries were 99.12%、99.96%、100.53%、100.94% and 104.58%,and all RSD were less than 5%(n=6).Conclusion This method is sensitive,accurate and reproducible.It can be used to control the quality of Zhenjiang Babu plaster.


Objectives: Sexual-minority youth exhibit increased rates of psychiatric morbidity, subject to various social factors. We examine the impact of ethnicity and culture on these phenomena, with particular reference to Asian youth living in Western societies. Conclusions: Youth from minority ethnic groups who do not identify with their native gender and/or who are not exclusively heterosexual are known as 'double minorities'. Available evidence suggests that such individuals are at particularly increased risk of depression and suicide, but that this may be mitigated by social support. More research is needed to understand the challenges faced by 'double minorities', notably their perception of and ability to access available clinical and social supports.


Summary form only given. The size and shape requirements imposed on many electronics applications today require innovative fabrication methods to surpass the limits of conventional printed circuit board manufacturing techniques. Flexible electronics based on thin films such as polyimide or elastic substrates like PDMS have contributed to the emergence of non-planar substrates, as has the use of omnidirectional printing, which enables the direct writing of conductive traces using metal-based inks on surfaces of arbitrary shape. Not without as host of issues, these methods are vulnerable to stretches and cracks, and often feature lower conductivity than PCBs due to the difficulty of fully sintering ink particles on polymer substrates.


In this paper the time domain responses of UWB Radar signals from scattering targets are analyzed. In particular, the aim of this paper is to investigate the pulse distortion of UWB Radar signals by a scattering object, i.e. how does the scattered signal vary with respect to the Radar signal incident on the object itself. The investigation is performed analyzing the polarimetric responses of different targets (flat plate, sphere). The time domain description (impulse response and pulse preserving capability) of a generic scattering process is mathematically described. Then for verification and application, these prior defined quantities are experimentally measured for two particular targets, a flat plate and a sphere.


This letter presents a <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${D}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-band subharmonic downconversion mixer for next-generation communications and implemented in a 90-nm SiGe BiCMOS technology. The design consists of a cascoded push–push doubler and a wideband transimpedance amplifier (TIA), and it utilizes a novel, 180° hybrid coupler topology to achieve wide bandwidth, moderate conversion gain (CG), and power consumption. The subharmonic mixer achieves a peak in-band gain of 5.1 dB and a bandwidth of 38 GHz at a center frequency of 136 GHz. The subharmonic mixer utilizes a fixed local oscillator (LO) of 2 dBm at 57.5 GHz and consumes 50.8 mW of dc power. The core die area of the subharmonic mixer is <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.9\times0.5$ </tex-math></inline-formula> mm2. This mixer achieves highly competitive performance in terms of CG, bandwidth, and power consumption with respect to <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${D}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>-band subharmonic mixers demonstrated in silicon.


Wetlands are important ecosystems—they provide vital hydrological and ecological services such as regulating floods, storing carbon, and providing wildlife habitat. The ability to simulate their spatial extents and hydrological processes is important for valuing wetlands' function. The purpose of this study is to dynamically represent the spatial extents and hydrological processes of wetlands and investigate their feedback to regional climate in the Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) of North America, where a large number of wetlands exist. In this study, we incorporated a wetland scheme into the Noah‐MP land surface model with two major modifications: (a) modifying the subgrid saturation fraction for spatial wetland extent and (b) incorporating a dynamic wetland storage to simulate hydrological processes. This scheme was evaluated at a fen site in central Saskatchewan, Canada and applied regionally in the PPR with 13‐year climate forcing produced by a high‐resolution convection‐permitting model. The differences between wetland and no‐wetland simulations are significant, with increasing latent heat and evapotranspiration while suppressing sensible heat and runoff in the wetland scheme. Finally, the dynamic wetland scheme was applied in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The wetlands scheme not only modifies the surface energy balance but also interacts with the lower atmosphere, shallowing the planetary boundary layer height and promoting cloud formation. A cooling effect of 1–3°C in summer temperature is evident where wetlands are abundant. In particular, the wetland simulation shows reduction in the number of hot days for >10 days over the summer of 2006, when a long‐lasting heatwave occurred. This research has great implications for land surface/regional climate modeling and wetland conservation, especially in mitigating extreme heatwaves under climate change.


A new VLSI architecture for sparse matrices reduces the I/O and reduces the number of trivial multiplications. A two pipeline 30 MHz processor has been fabricated. This device performs 60 million MACs per second and reduces the time complexity for matrix multiplication by several orders of magnitude for most applications.


Agricultural traits of root and canopy, and water use efficiency of 10 wheat varieties were analyzed under different irrigations. The results show that different wheat varieties under the same water deficit are almost alike. But there are some differences among 10 wheat varieties. The sufficient irrigation can increase the biomass of winter wheat but decrease the water use efficiency. Two times of irrigation can get the highest water use efficiency and a very high yield. The experiments also show that "6365" is better for water use efficiency, and is the best for drought resistance capacity and yield potential.


This article aims to reflect on teacher identity in courses in psychology, by problematizing the conditions in which the identity of the teacher is formed. It is guided by the concept of identity, the idea of teaching as a profession, the research on teaching in psychology courses, and the training of teachers. This article concludes with considerations pertaining to the context of the performance of psychologist-teachers–an important dimension in the constitution of teacher identity. It is proposed at the end that the specificities of teaching psychology are what characterize the nature of the profession.


Employee theft is a major problem affecting most U.S. businesses every year. This problem is particularly severe for the retail industry, as it results in an estimated $26 billion in losses every year. In this study, we examine the extent to which internal controls mitigate employee theft. Specifically, we investigate the effectiveness of two types of internal controls: formal monitoring and mutual (peer) monitoring. We analyze store-level and chainlevel data from the convenience store industry and find that: Mutual monitoring alleviates employee theft directly, whereas formal monitoring mitigates employee theft indirectly by reducing the strength of the relationship between employee turnover and employee theft. We also find a complementary effect between formal and mutual monitoring. Our study adds to a stream of literature that examines the effects of control mechanisms in reducing agency problems.


The selection of an appropriate parameterization of data is a fundamental step in a majority of empirical research effort. Likewise, detecting or estimating features of non-stationarities in data sequences is a critical point in conducting credible research that uses data for inference. In this spirit, this paper presents a simple decomposition of the empirical return distributions of financial assets into the sum of various normal distributions. The decomposition is motivated by the fact that market participants expect distributions to be drawn from two or three possible scenarios. It is also motivated by the recent applications of the EM algorithm to financial data. A parametric and a nonparametric approach are proposed and applied to the empirical distribution of the CAC 40 index traded in the Paris Bourse. We estimate the parameters of the mixture and propose a decomposition into three Gaussian distributions which essentially differ by their variances. The decomposition fits the observed distribution. An alternative approach, which consists in detecting these changes and estimating the distribution of the returns between two changes is developed. The results are obtained using a segmentation method, which is applied to financial data. One of the main findings in this paper is that the two approaches show the same results and give support to the proposed decomposition. There exists three kinds of regimes in the Paris Bourse and the series of the returns jump from a regime to another one at some random instants. This work might be applied to other data sets or other data generating conditions. It can used for the valuation of standard and exotic derivatives.


In the letter we demonstrate experimentally the operation of a polarisation-independent amplitude modulator based on the evolution of the electro-optical modulation efficiency against the position of the mode with respect to the electrode system. For a 20 mm-long Mach-Zehnder interferometer command voltages of 5 V have been obtained at the polarisation-insensitive configuration.


Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are being used for many airfield signal lighting applications, and it is important to ensure that they can be correctly identified by pilots, including those with deficient color vision. Until recently, color specifications for aviation signal lights used by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and maintained by the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) have been unchanged for several decades. Filtered incandescent lamps used in most signal lights have largely consistent and predictable chromaticities within the allowable aviation color boundaries. Additionally, colored glass filters produce luminous intensity differences among incandescent signal lights of different colors, and these differences might assist color-deficient pilots (e.g., protans and deutans) in distinguishing among them. Many commercially available LEDs have chromaticities within the SAE color boundaries but look perceptibly different than incandescent sources of the same nominal color. In addition, because the luminous efficacies (in lm/W) of red, yellow, green and white LEDs are similar, LED signal lights with these colors could have similar luminous intensities while still meeting FAA requirements. If such signals were used, a color deficient pilot's ability to discriminate among their colors might be reduced because the redundant information of intensity differences would not be present. It is therefore important to understand the practical implications of these differences between LED and incandescent light sources.


This paper reports a corpus-based study on the acquisition of English There-be construction in Chinese EFL(English as a foreign language) learners' writing.Based on the theories of Interlanguage(IL),Contrastive Interlanguage Analysis(CIA),Language Transfer(LT) and Error Analysis(EA),the results indicate that:First,the basic types of structural expansions used in There-be construction are acquired by learners at the very beginning.Subsequently,with the increase of learners' proficiency,there is a tendency of reduction for the simple types;in contrast,the trend for the complex types is increasing gradually.Second,there are some explicit characteristics in the errors of There-be construction use committed by Chinese EFL learners at different levels.In addition,it's evident that negative L1 transfer may play a prominent role in these errors.


The purpose of this study was to suggest overall facilitating plan for 'Horse riding tour' in Korea. There are several obstacles to the growth of horse riding industry. For example, as the perspective of tourism, there is no legal basis for developing a 'Horse riding tour'. Moreover, only 28% of total riding facilities were registered as sport facilities. We focused on two different aspects of 'Horse riding tour', attractiveness, and infrastructure and demand or supply side. Firstly, several strategies were analyzed for enhancing the attractiveness as follows. 'Hosting the FEI World Equestrian Games', 'Equestrian Game with North Korea', 'developing a new tourism product with horse riding at a tourism destination', 'dividing a place into two different purpose for people and horse', 'setting up a theme park for various experiences with horse', and 'operating a horse riding facilities environmentally and friendly for its sustainability'. Secondly, we also suggested other approaches for improve an infrastructure and demand or supply side as well. 'Education, training and regulation modification', 'improving awareness and publicizing of horse riding', 'developing a hot spot for each type and supporting for culture and event program', and 'developing an online framework for providing an information'. The detailed strategies were presented in this study. Those strategies and its implications might help practitioners as well as policy-makers.


This study was conducted to develop radish as a food product for home meal replacement using superheated steam (SHS). Also, the change of quality characteristics was studied during their storage. The radish cuts were treated with SHS for 0, 3, 5, and 7 min, respectively, followed by complete drying at 80°C for 6 hours. The results showed that radishes restored with mixed solution (drinking water:sugar:vinegar:salt=2:1:0.8:0.1) were harder than those restored with drinking water. All radishes were stored at 5, 10 and 15°C for 56 days to investigate the changes of quality characteristics during the storage. Radishes in the control group, restored with drinking water and stored at 15°C, were spoiled after 7 days of storage. The radish in the experimental group did not show any change in the water content; except an increase on the first day of storage. The hardness of radish decreased with an increase in the storage period. It was found that microbial growth was inhibited due to low pH of the mixed solution, in which radishes of the experimental group were immerse.


Currently, much consideration is given to earthen building materials regarding their highly sustainable properties. Numerous studies have highlighted their structural ability but their water sensitivity is still limiting a potentially more spread use. To limit this sensitivity several studies have recently brought out the positive effects of bio-stabilisers such as linseed oil or xanthan gum. These recent developments allow bio-stabilized earthen materials to be resistant to immersion in water. Also, a French experimental standard (XP P 13-901) for compressed earth blocks already asks for a minimal compressive strength after a two-hour immersion that is overly severe and is difficult to satisfy without the addition of high contents of hydraulic binders. In this paper, a critical study of this compressive test after immersion is conducted on bio-stabilized (linseed oil and xanthan gum) samples of different Breton earths. Some testing adjustments are suggested and the water-diffusion in the samples is followed and linked to previously obtained capillary absorption coefficients. It is shown that the effect of immersion on the mechanical strength depends on the sample size and that an equivalence between size and immersion time can be made based on an equivalent penetration depth. Linseed oil and xanthan gum help to significantly increase the compressive strength of the earthen materials after immersion and allow to avoid the addition of hydraulic binders in earthen blocks to obtained a strong water resistance. The water diffusion in the sample during the immersion can be linked to capillary absorption behaviour, thus a water content and a compressive strength after a given time of immersion could be easily predicted.


The sea fisheries of Scotland present a clear challenge to political wisdom. The fish on which the industry depends have been severely depleted by the combination of a series of improvements in the efficiency of fishing technology and inadequate political control over the access of competing fishermen to the common resource. Only rising prices due to scarcity have sheltered the industry from feeling the full effects of the crisis. Legal changes offer the opportunity for rational solutions to the problem, but at the time of writing, there is still no Common Fisheries Policy and meanwhile the problem gets worse and its solution more difficult. The interim arrangements for fisheries among the EEC states which were hastily put together on the eve of the enlargement of the Community in 1972 to include the UK, Ireland and Denmark are weak. They run only to 1982 when, in the absence of an agreed alternative policy, there is to be free competition among all fishermen of the EEC member states in what would become their joint waters. It was mainly because of this prospect that Norway decided, following a referendum, not to join the EEC, and it has been consistently opposed by fishing interests in both the United Kingdom and the Irish Republic. We wish to outline the problem and suggest the framework of a realistic answer to it.


In recent years,under the background of globalization an unparalleled development opportunity is provided for the manufactory industry in our country.The modern cutting tools have become a key factor for promoting manufactory technology.In addition,the constant progressive requirements for cutting machining and the level of the materials machined and also reducing the environmental pollution and so on have promoted the development of coating technology for modern cutting tools.The multi-composites coatings and multi-layer coatings such as TiAlN,TiAlCN and CrSiN,which come from the multi-alloy and diversification of coating processes combination,enable coatings to achieve high wear resistance,low friction coefficient and red hardness as well as high oxidation resistance,thus greatly advance the performance of modern cuttings.Nano-composites and micro-grain structure help the materials with difficult cutting properties to obtain new solutions.Diamond coating and DLC have achieved a good effect in nonmetal materials such as machining graphite components and fiber enhanced and also non ferrous alloy materials.To adapt to the development of coating process the equipment for coating has also achieved integration,modularization and intelligentization,resulting in technology individuation.The development of coating technology also reacts to the modern cutting tools and makes it become a kind of product with high technology.This fully shows the interactive development between the two.


Objective
To investigate the status quo of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) among nurses and discover the incidence of MSDs for each part of the body and analyze the risk factors for MSDs in order to provide references for raising the awareness of protection and improving the prevention measures.

Methods
A cross-sectional study method was adopted.Nurses who have worked for more than 5 years from five hospitals were investigated by a questionnaire, which covered the prevalence of MSDs and its possible risk factors.

Results
The MSDs were found throughout the whole body, while neck(72.0%)and shoulder(60.2%) were more easily affected.Logistics regression analysis showed age and seniority may be the risk factors for MSDs, while there was no clear link between height, weight, BMI and the incidence of MSDs.

Conclusions
We should focus on the protection of neck and shoulder for the prevention of MSDs among nurses, especially for those elderly nursing staffs and nursing staffs with longer working life.

Key words:
Nursing; Musculoskeletal disorders(MSDs); Neck pain; Risk factors


Current and former FDA officials and outside experts attended a wide-ranging forum in March to discuss regulatory obstacles and opportunities in bringing new cancer drugs to the market.

During the two-day seminar, held at the Washington, D.C., headquarters of the American Enterprise Institute for


Earlier approaches to the calculation of off-energy-shell two-body partial-wave transition amplitudes are reviewed, and the general requirements that may be placed on representations or approximations for such amplitudes are listed. A basis for the parameterization of the off-energy-shell behavior of the t matrix of the form t(p,p';k2) = [I f2 (p,p;k2 )] t2 (k2 ) is displayed for each approach to the calculation of off-shell transition amplitudes. These representations separate the off-energy-shell behavior from the better known and more exoerimentally accessible • on-shell behavior. They have the added advantage that the experimental on-shell t matrix expressed in terms of the phase shift can be included for k > 0) in calculations involving o.Lf-shel± transition anlitudes. Representations of the form .t2 (p,p';k2 ) = t2(k) + (p,pI ;k2 ) are given, as are analogous representations for the half-off-shell amplitude t(p,k;k 2 ) I • . . •UCP-1727 .-1-•


We present some results for the estimation of the bootstrap current after sillconization on the HT-7 tokamak.After siliconization,the plasma pressure gradient and the electron temperature near the boundary are larger than before siliconization.These factors influence the ratio of the bootstrap current to the total plasma current which increases from several per cent to above 10%.The results are expected to explain the previous experimental phenomena that,after siliconization,the plasma current profile is broadened and the higher current can be obtained easily on the HT-7 tokamak experiment.


nt on l king tural vealo tr cy (BMZ, 2022b): it is human-rights-based and genderformative. Human rights-based development cooperatio aims to realise human rights through a so-called human rights-based approach. This approach attaches paramou importance to viewing people as rights-holders. States, the other hand, have a duty to respect, protect and fulf human rights – which means they are duty-bearers. Wor in a gender-transformative way means addressing struc discrimination and its causes. Gender-transformative de lopment cooperation works explicitly to change social v ues, societal norms and the status quo, and in so doing t achieve greater gender equality.


Stride length estimation has various applications, ranging from pedestrian tracking to individual healthcare. It is usually achieved by inertial sensing, which, however, suffers from large errors due to the noisy readings on the low-cost commodity sensors and unconstrained human walking. Different from prior methods that explore inertial sensors only, in this paper, we present a fused radio and inertial sensing design that estimates fine-grained stride length. Our approach incorporates recent advances in WiFi sensing that underpins walking distance estimation at centimeter accuracy from radio signals. We then present a novel step detection algorithm using inertial sensor readings, which not only counts steps but also reports the time information of every detected step. The proposed algorithm then fuses the time-annotated distance estimates and steps to derive the stride length. The evaluation on a large public dataset shows that our step counting algorithm yields an error of 3%. Furthermore, experiments on commodity hardware with eight users demonstrate an error of about 2 cm in stride length estimation.


Towards the monetary and fiscal system of Islam : a personal report on some pertinent questions and the Seminar's response to them , Towards the monetary and fiscal system of Islam : a personal report on some pertinent questions and ... , کتابخانه دیجیتال و فن آوری اطلاعات دانشگاه امام صادق(ع)


Guarantee begins with the debtor credit agreement that followed with the handover of the object guarantee by debtor to creditor, where the creditors are banks. If referred in the regulation article 1 point 2 of Constitution No. 10/1998 concerning on banking stated that bank is a business entity that raised fund from citizen in the form of deposits and channeling them to the public in the form of credit and/or in other forms in order to improve the lives of many people. Bank has the important role in economic, because one of its function is giving the credit to citizen and helping the micro, small and medium enterprises. This given credit must be accompanied by collateral or collateral provisions from the debtor because it was one of the precautionary principal from Bank, and also with the efforts to protect the creditor at any time the debtor defaults. The covid-19 pandemic outbreak that had a profound impact on the entire life of society was also influence d the problem of credit and guarantee. The collateral agreement which is an accessoire agreement (follow-up or accompanying) follows the main or principal agreement, that is preceded by a credit agreement (debt agreement), including on what if there is bad credit and what efforts should be done by the Bank so that it does not experience even greater losses. For this reason, the writer is very interested, to find out the extent of the benefits of the collateral object for creditors as well as credit restructuring efforts during the Covid-19 pandemic.


The article is about Jangir Abbasovich Kerimov. An attempt is being made to reveal the defining features of his personality, to tell about him as a true patriot of his Homeland and an outstanding legal scholar. The main stages of his life path are traced; significant historical events that had a significant impact on him are described; meetings and relationships with famous people who inspired him, primarily the largest scientists of the XX – early XXI century, are described; his reflections on the fate of Russia and, of course, the fundamental postulates of the scientific and theoretical concepts proposed by him are analyzed. The article considers D.A. Kerimov's significant contribution to the development of the subject, structure, functions, categorical apparatus of the General theory of law and the state, which is an organic totality of three interrelated and continuously interacting parts: Sociology of Law, Philosophy of Law and the doctrine of the state.


In this paper, we aim to identify what kinds of knowledge management (KM) challenges are typical in the renewal of software development processes, and to propose solutions to the identified challenges. The research is a qualitative case study of a large software company renewing its software development processes towards reuse of software code, i.e. component-based-software-engineering (CBSE). The research is carried out from business and management points of view, not from the software engineering point of view.


Underestimation of path loss when planning the deployment of 802.11n APs can lead to coverage gaps and user dissatisfaction. The use of Free Space Path Loss modelling can sometimes lead to underestimation of path loss in urban environments when the effect of small scale fading is not considered. A field experiment was conducted with the aim to investigate the applicability of the ITU-R P.1141-7 Recommendation in path loss estimation of 802.11n signals in an urban environment in Malaysia. The results showed that Section 4.3 of ITU-R P.1411-7 can estimate the path loss of 802.11n signals with very low error margins of between 0 dB and 5 dB for transmitter receiver distances of 50 m and more. At these distances, the average difference of path loss estimation between FSPL and measured path loss is approximately 18 dB. The study concludes that 802.11n APs may need to be placed at closer proximities than previously assumed if FSPL is used to model the path loss. This is to ensure that targeted traffic is actually offloaded; coverage gaps are reduced; user satisfaction is improved.


Engineers are becoming increasingly affected by globalization. An assessment tool is needed to determine how well engineering curriculum prepare students to work in this global environment. As a first step toward this goal, a written survey was developed that included questions on respondent demographics, the engineer's role in serving society from the Pittsburg Freshman Engineering Attitudes Survey (PFEAS), if students believe that globally people define and solve engineering problems similarly, and the Miville-Guzman Universality-Diversity Scale (MGUDS-S) survey. MGUDS-S scores three areas: diversity of contact, relativistic appreciation, and comfort with differences. The combination of these areas relates to cultural competency. The survey was administered in freshman Introduction to Engineering courses at the University of Colorado (CU) and Oklahoma State University (OSU); with 191 and 93 respondents, respectively. The survey was also given to students in capstone design courses in civil and environmental engineering at CU, a graduate course of chemical engineering students at OSU, and an upper-level elementary education course at OSU. Comparisons are made between different groups to evaluate differences.


This paper considers energy-aware route planning for a battery-constrained robot operating in environments with multiple recharging depots. The robot has a battery discharge time $D$, and it should visit the recharging depots at most every $D$ time units to not run out of charge. The objective is to minimize robot's travel time while ensuring it visits all task locations in the environment. We present a $O(\log D)$ approximation algorithm for this problem. We also present heuristic improvements to the approximation algorithm and assess its performance on instances from TSPLIB, comparing it to an optimal solution obtained through Integer Linear Programming (ILP). The simulation results demonstrate that, despite a more than $20$-fold reduction in runtime, the proposed algorithm provides solutions that are, on average, within $31\%$ of the ILP solution.


Welcome to this Special Issue in which we explore recent thinking and developments concerned with the optical wireless communication systems and networks. The demand for access to higher data rate in wireless access network, wireless multimedia applications and wireless video is growing. There are mainly two technologies, radio and optical, capable of o!ering these services. Radio has the advantage of being available ubiquitously both outdoor and indoor and it also o!ers mobility. Radio technology, although most suitable for moderate-speed applications, may not be su$cient to support high-speed applications. On the other hand, optical is primarily an indoor technology and as a medium for short-range high-speed wireless communications, it o!ers advantages over radio, such as: (i) unregulated wide bandwidth; (ii) low interference due to localized transmission within a room; (iii) no multipath fading; and (iv) spectral re-use within a room or building. As a result, optical wireless transmission systems have received considerable interest over the last few years. They have already been used in applications from more complex wireless LANs such as those being speci"ed by the IEEE 802.11 and ETSI (HIPERPLAN) to simple remote controllers for home appliances. In optical wireless communication systems the average power emitted is limited by eye safety. Therefore, power e$cient modulation techniques are desirable. The paper by Ghassemlooy et al. gives a brief review of optical wireless communication and in particular modulation techniques. The paper focuses on digital pulse interval modulation and compares its performance with non-return to zero on-and-o! keying (OOK) and pulse position modulation (PPM). Indoor optical wireless transmission systems su!er from multipath dispersion that results in intersymbol interference, interference produced by ambient light, co-channel interference, mainly in LANbased systems, inherent user mobility and unavoidable changes within the surrounding environment. Simulation models are e!ective tools to understand the propagation characteristics of the indoor optical channel. Lomba and co-authors have developed a computationally e$cient algorithm for the simulation of indoor optical channels, considering multipath re#ections, which approximate the emitted and receiver patterns and the propagation environment. Spread spectrum (SS) techniques proposed by Wong et al. is one way of combating the problems of multipath dispersion and interference due to ambient light. This paper investigates the bit error rate performance of SS and compares it with both OOK and PPM. It shows that SS technique, just like PPM, is more robust to dispersion and interference than OOK. Diversity detection antenna (DDA) structure has been suggested to reduce multipath dispersion and the received ambient light as well as to increase the received signal power and omitting shadowing. Sterckx et al. report a study carried out in order to evaluate the performance of a novel, less complex DDA structure. They have shown that the signal burnout under highly directive spotlights can be reduced e!ectively by employing a single receiver antenna that collects light with a "eld-of-view of 1803.


Anterior cruciate ligament injury is an uncommon finding in children but when it does occur it is usually a result of tibial avulsion or, less commonly, a midsubstance tear. It is generally agreed that surgical fixation is a necessity. We present a case of proximal anterior cruciate ligament avulsion and a new method of fixation.


ABSTRACT Sugarcane (Saccharum spp.) yields in the South African sugar industry are affected largely by genotype by environment (G × E) interactions. The objectives of this study were to investigate the nature and magnitude of G × E interactions of selected sugarcane genotypes based on regional evaluation trials and to identify mega-environments to inform future testing strategies. The study was conducted across five regions in KwaZulu-Natal province. Ten sugarcane hybrids and one commercial check hybrid were evaluated using a randomized complete block design with four replications. Data collected were analyzed using the additive main effect and multiplicative interaction (AMMI 2) and genotype main effect plus genotype by environment interaction (GGE) bi-plot analyses. A combined analysis of variance detected significant variation for genotypes, locations, and crop year and their interactions for total cane yield, estimated recoverable crystal and sugar yield. Genotypes N19 and N40 showed broad adaptability for cane and sugar yields, whereas N51 and N12 were superior for sucrose percentage. High cane yields were achieved in the following environments: South Coast, North Coast, Hinterland and irrigated North regions. Overall, the Irrigated North region was the most suitable environment for discriminating among cultivars and for being a representative test environment. Two mega-environments (MGE) were identified for the industry; where Midland and Hinterland sites fell in the same MGE 1; and North Coast, South Coast, and Irrigated North were combined into MGE 2.