Trinexapac-ethyl (TE) is a popular plant growth regulator in the turfgrass industry that inhibits gibberellic acid (GA) biosynthesis and effectively reduces leaf elongation and subsequent clipping production. This greenhouse sand culture experi- ment was conducted to determine effects of TE application on kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.) responses to salinity stress. The five salinity levels (0, 20, 40, 60, and 80 mM NaCl) were applied in nutrient solutions and TE treatments (0, 1, and 1.7 g/100 m 2 ) were applied twice at 4-week intervals. Under non-saline conditions and low level salinity conditions, application of TE at 1 g/100 m 2 (TE1) increased turf quality (TQ), leaf total non-structural carbohydrates (TNC),and chlorophyll (Chl) content. Inhighsalinity, TE1 alleviated the decline in TQ, antioxidant enzyme activities, leaf TNC, Chl, and K + content. In addition, treated turf with TE at 1 g/100 m 2 had lower proline, Na + , and malondialdehyde (MDA) contents. However, the adverse effects of high salinities were more pronounced when turf was treated by TE at 1.7 g/100 m 2 (TE1.7), suggesting that effects of TE on salt tolerance vary with its dosages and salinity levels. We concluded that moderate inhibition of GA biosynthesis by TE enhances salt tolerance in kentucky bluegrass and suggest that enhancement is the result of the maintenance of antioxidant activities,leadingtomorerootgrowthandgreaterlevelsofTNCandChlcontent.Chemical names used: 4-(cyclopropyl-b-hydroxymethylene)-3, 5-dioxocyclohexanecarboxylic acid ethyl ester (trinexapac-ethyl).


This letter proposes a deep neural network (DNN)-based indoor localization approach that leverages WiFi Fine Timing Measurement (FTM) and Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) as environment features to provide accurate location estimation. Our method uses DNN with raw FTM and RSSI measurements for self-learning and produces enhanced ranging information in the presence of measurement noise. Experimental data was obtained from real-world settings using commercial off-the-shelf devices in two different indoor office environments. The proposed solution was evaluated regarding the localization Mean Squared Error, demonstrating remarkable accuracy and outperforming state-of-the-art methods.


The paper discusses a model of phenomenology based on the distinction between sensations and perceptions and it proposes an architecture based on a comparison process between the effective and the expected sensations generated by a 3D robot/environment simulator. The phenomenal perceptions are thus generated by the simulator driven by the comparison process. The paper contributes to the consciousness research field by testing the added value of phenomenology on an effective robot architecture implemented on an operating autonomous robot RWI B21 offering guided tours at the Archaeological Museum of Agrigento, Italy.


The migration to wireless network from wired network has been a global trend in the past few decades. The mobility and scalability brought by wireless network made it possible in many applications. Among all the contemporary wireless networks, Mobile Ad hoc NETwork (MANET) is one of the most important and unique applications. On the contrary to traditional network architecture, MANET does not require a fixed network infrastructure; every single node works as both a transmitter and a receiver. Nodes communicate directly with each other when they are both within the same communication range. Otherwise, they rely on their neighbors to relay messages. The self-configuring ability of nodes in MANET made it popular among critical mission applications like military use or emergency recovery. However, the open medium and wide distribution of nodes make MANET vulnerable to malicious attackers. In this case, it is crucial to develop efficient intrusion-detection mechanisms to protect MANET from attacks. In this paper, we added an additional feature (multiple keys) for encryption and decryption along with Digital signature. To adjust to such trend, we strongly believe that it is vital to address its potential security issues.


PURPOSE
To describe a benign nodular lesion in the peripheral zone (PZ) of the prostate gland.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
In 1,087 patients, the features of 722 focal lesions in the PZ or central zone of the prostate on transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) scans were retrospectively compared with histologic findings in biopsy samples.

RESULTS
In 18 patients (5.5% of the 328 patients with benign lesions), benign hyperplasia was found in a focal, nodular lesion obviously located within the PZ. On TRUS scans, the nodules were well circumscribed, ovoid or round, and slightly hypoechoic (n = 11) or isoechoic (n = 7). The isoechoic lesions were surrounded by an anechoic halo. One nodule was an incidental sonographic finding; the 17 others were felt as firm (n = 11) or soft (n = 6) at digital rectal examination. The ratio of serum prostate-specific antigen (PSA) level to prostatic volume was low (< 0.1), except in one patient (0.24).

CONCLUSION
Some sonographic features and the normal PSA values might suggest a benign nodule in the PZ, but TRUS-guided biopsies and histologic correlation are necessary to confirm the diagnosis.


The nearest ally of this species will prove to be A. paradoxus H. Deyr. from the island of Makian (Ann. Soc. Ent. Belge. VIII. p. 223, and p. 227, pl. 4 fig. 20). It has a length of about 3—3 1/2 mm, and is of a blackish bronze colour, bright bronze on the head and pronotum. — The whole insect is covered with an extremely fine and dense sculpture which is only visible with the aid of a lens of strong power.


In this paper, we attack the recent NIST submission Giophantus, a public key encryption scheme. We find that the complicated structure of Giophantus's ciphertexts leaks information via a correspondence from a low dimensional lattice. This allows us to distinguish encrypted data from random data by the LLL algorithm. This is a more efficient attack than previous proposed attacks.


The invention relates to a method for providing an underground heat storage isolated, underground heat-insulated storage, construction part for a foundation and an underground heat-insulated storage, and use of this structure part. The method comprises the steps of: A. the formation of an excavation in a substrate by the excavation of soil material; B. placing in the excavation of a structural element comprising a plurality of chambers which are open at their upper side; C. it in a lower part of the chambers application of heat-insulating material for forming a heat-insulating bottom of the heat-insulated space; and D. applying to the heat-insulated bottom of a filler material comprising a heat storage medium.


The operation principle and construction design of a dual sensing arm fiber optic vibration sensor are described on the basis of all-fiber optic Mach-Zehnder(M-Z) interferometer.According to the theoretical design structure,it used the sensing probe made by the silicone rubber and iron block to complete the all-fiber optical dual sensing arm M-Z interferometer,and measured the interfere visibility was about 95.8%.It built the experimental system to detect different frequencies of the vibration signal.The preliminary test results indicated that the natural frequency of the system was between 850 Hz to 1 150 Hz,which is consistent with the theoretical analysis.Operating frequency band below the natural frequency of the sensor is from 100 Hz to 800 Hz,and above the natural frequency is from 1.2 kHz to 6.0 kHz.


A macroporous silica with azimuthally shifted double-diamond frameworks has been synthesized by the self-assembly of an amphiphilic ABC triblock terpolymer poly(tert-butyl acrylate)-b-polystyrene-b-poly(ethylene oxide) and silica source in a mixture of tetrahydrofuran and water. The structure of the macroporous silica consists of a porous system separated by two sets of hollow double-diamond frameworks shifted 0.25c along ⟨001⟩ and adhered to each other crystallographically due to the loss of the mutual support in the unique synthesis, forming a tetragonal structure (space group I41/amd). The unit cell parameter was changed from a = 168 to ∼240 nm with c = √2a by tuning the synthesis condition and the wide edge of the macropore size was ∼100 to ∼140 nm. Electron crystallography was applied to solve the structure. Our studies demonstrate electron crystallography is the only way to solve the complex structure in such length scale. Besides, this structure exhibits structural color that ranged from violet to ...


The invention relates to braised duck food in the catering industry and a making method thereof. The invention combines medlar with the braised duck so as to obtain a special flavor of Chinese herbal medicine in addition to the traditional flavor of the braised duck; and moreover, the invention has obvious food therapy effect for symptoms such as liver-kidney yin deficiency, dizziness, tinnitus, photophobia, shed tears, poor vision, and the like.


From the modern point of view, dyslipoproteinemia and its clinical manifestation – atherosclerosis – is a complex multifactorial process, which is based on inflammation, and, as a consequence, oxidative stress.The aim of the study was to identify the dynamics of the concentration of diene conjugates and malondialdehyde in the blood and liver of rats of different ages under oxidative stress caused by modeling dyslipoproteinemia with subsequent mechanical injury of skeletal muscle.Materials and methods. The study was carried out on white mongrel healthy male rats 24 months old (120 individuals) and 6 months old (120 adults). All old and young animals were divided into four subgroups within their group, 30 animals each. The animals of the first subgroup in the groups of old and young rats are intact rats. Animals of the second subgroup in each group had a mechanical dissection in the area of the middle third of the calf muscle of the hind limb. Animals of the third and fourth subgroups of each group were subjected to dyslipoproteemia modeling. After the specified time, the animals of the fourth subgroup of both groups were injured in the middle third of the calf muscle of the hind limb.Conclusions. Mechanical injury of the calf muscle in combination with dyslipoproteemia is characterized by intense oxidative stress and leads to an increase in the concentration of malondialdehyde and diene conjugates in the liver and blood tissues of rats, and in old animals these processes are more pronounced than in young ones.


The study reveals the analysis of the discourse of St. Petersburg parents for their ideas about children's computer games. The focus of our attention was the settings that underlie the strategies of regulation of these game practices by adults. The empirical base of the study was a series of semi-structured interviews with parents of children under ten years of age with different social characteristics (gender, age, nature and level of education, income), whose children play video games, and for various reasons are not involved in this process. Interviews were conducted in St. Petersburg in 2016-2017. According to the results obtained, the prohibition or permission of games on the computer, as well as the frequency of access to the gadget and the type of gaming activity (educational – entertaining) are based on two key ideas. The first can be referred to as the idea of "fullness of life", and the second, respectively, as the idea of "quality of life". The idea of "fullness of life" is based on such ideas about the world, when the main value is the diversity of activities, the saturation of life with events. The idea of "quality of life" is based on the value of in-depth development of a particular activity, which is currently considered as an important, significant. As the analysis showed, Russian parents use both ideas in the argument of both permission and prohibition of children's video games, but do not mix them in justifying their own decisions and actions. We also assume that the idea of "quality of life" has a deep history and has been popular for several decades, while the idea of "fullness of life" characterizes the discourse of the modern dynamic and changeable consumer society.


Experimental evidences of the slow dynamic behaviour of a banana-shaped liquid crystal (LC) detected by means of Deuterium Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (DNMR) in its nematic phase are reported. Deuterium line-shape and line-width trends of DNMR spectra of three selectively deuterium-labelled isotopomers of 4-chloro 1,3-phenylene bis 4-4′-(11-undecenyloxy) benzoyloxy benzoate (ClPbis11BB) are discussed in comparison with those of a deuterated probe dissolved in ClPbis11BB, used as LC solvent. Different dynamic regimes are observed for the central and lateral aromatic rings of the probe. These experimental remarks are discussed in terms of overall and internal molecular motions.


This paper demonstrates significant BER improvement in burst traffic transmission using optical-gain clamped amplifiers. Critical chaotic cases are identified for peculiar burst sequences and their impact in transmission is assessed.


This paper examines blanket guarantee and restructuring decisions in respect of a multinational bank (MNB) using Nash bargaining, when the threat of a panic motivates countries to take decisions quickly. The failure of the bank would cause unevenly distributed externalities between the countries concerned, which influences restructuring incentives. In equilibrium, the bank is either liquidated or one or both of the countries recapitalizes it. The partition of the recapitalisation costs is sensitive to the country-specific benefits and costs from recapitalisation, panics and liquidation. The home regulator benefits from the privilege of being the only entity that can legally liquidate the MNB. Rational expectations regarding the bargaining result affect the incentives to declare a blanket guarantee.


Polyelectrolyte Entanglement across Interfaces and Wet Adhesion- Influence of Polyvinylamine on Wet Adhesion between Cellulose Model Surfaces Modified with Carboxymethylcellulose


The EU has formed the European system of financial supervision, which includes the European Committee of systemic risk, the Authority on Banking Supervision, Insurance Supervision Authority and Supervision of pension security body for supervision of the securities market, the Joint Committee of the European regulatory authorities, competent or supervisory authorities in EU member states. Regulations referred to in Article approved scope of work and authority.


Shanxi is a special area where a large number of imperial family members lived from the beginning of Ming Dynasty.By jiajing and Longqing period,the population of the clan families group in Shanxi had become one of the largest family groups in the country.As parasitic bloc with privileged position,the members of imperial families should be divided into two groups for census with narrow and wide meanings.The population data recorded in 'Yu Die(玉牒)'should be regarded as the number of household instead of the people number.By the end of Ming dynasty,the population of imperial families in Shanxi has surpassed 200,000.


With the continuous development of deep learning, transformer has become a new leader in the field of vision in recent years. Transformer has not only completely changed the field of natural language processing (NLP), but also made some pioneering work in the field of computer vision (CV). Compared with convolutional neural network (CNN), Visual Transformer (ViT) has achieved excellent performance on many benchmarks such as ImageNet, COCO and ADE20k, depending on its excellent modeling ability. In the process of experiments, the final results are often overfitted due to insufficient training data, too many iterations and too complex models. In view of the over fitting caused by insufficient training data, the most direct way is to collect more training data. However, data acquisition is often the most difficult part. In the field of CV, we can enrich the distribution of training data by using data augmentation, so that the model obtained through the training set has stronger generalization ability. In this paper, from the perspective of training data processing, Alzheimer's disease data set is taken as a sample, and the sample data set is enhanced by Flip and rotation, Cutmix and Mixup. The results show that the accuracy in test data of the base model is 86.51%. Then, the Flip and rotation augmentation reaches 86.79%, a lower one, shows this data augmentation is not suitable for this task. The Cutmix reaches 88.95%, which improves the prediction accuracy of the model. The effect of Mixup is the best, reaching 89.61%. The Mixup augmentation method can effectively improve accuracy and overcome overfitting.


Introduction:
 Post-ablation radiofrequency tissue friability has been described; however, tissue friability post cryoablation has not been well studied. We report a case of left atrial perforation with normal contact force radiofrequency ablation 22 days after initial cryoballoon ablation.

 Description:
 A 59-year-old male with persistent atrial fibrillation, severe biatrial enlargement, non-ischemic cardiomyopathy (EF of 20%), underwent initial cryoballoon pulmonary vein isolation with left atrial roof cryoablation with restoration of sinus rhythm and no complications. Patient presented 22 days later with sustained atrial flutter and heart rate over 130 bpm refractory to aggressive medical management, cardioversion, and acute on chronic congestive heart failure. Early re-ablation was performed with electrophysiology study and 3D activation map confirming ectopic atrial tachycardia foci arising from left atrial roof, anterior to the border of previously cryo-ablated region. St. Jude TactiCath™ contact force ablation catheter, was used to ablate this foci, and termination within 5 seconds of ablation was observed. Using the Force-Time Integral index to guide further ablation, the surrounding area was ablated for an additional 20 seconds at 30 W with a maximum recorded contact force throughout the procedure of 35 grams, and an average of 10-15 grams.A decrease in systolic blood pressure from 120 mmHg to 80 mmHg was noted, and intracardiac ultrasound confirmed 1.5 cm of pericardial effusion. Successful pericardiocentesis and reversal of anticoagulation was performed with ongoing bleeding, and eventual surgical intervention was required. On direct visualization during surgery, the left atrial roof perforation was confirmed, and was noted to be very friable and difficult to retain suture for repair. Patient did well post-operatively and was discharged with no recurrence of arrhythmias.

 Conclusions:
 Despite standard of care monitoring, including force-time integral index and contact-sensing catheters, atrial perforation occurred likely due to increased tissue friability post initial cryoablation. The optimal timing for repeat ablation is not completely understood, and extreme caution and avoidance of early re-ablation risk is prudent.


David W. Kriebel's Powwowing among the Pennsylvania Dutch: A Traditional Medical Practice in the Modern World traces the history of powwowing and seeks to explain why it continues to be practiced in the twenty-first century. Due to his decision to write a qualitative study of powwowing, Kriebel has crafted a well-written and wonderfully enjoyable book. Part of the volume's appeal stems from Kriebel's integration of case studies and appendices that allow powwowers and their clients to speak for themselves. Kriebel is an excellent storyteller. He enthusiastically takes his reader along on his journey to understand powwowing, its practitioners, and its persistence. Powwowing, a traditional medical practice of the Pennsylvania Germans, remains an important health-care choice for the Pennsylvania Dutch and their neighbors. After reading about Kriebel's hair-raising meeting with a powwower, the reader will be hooked and will look forward to turning the pages of the book in anticipation of Kriebel's next account. Kriebel introduces the reader to powwowers who still practice; he also presents a wide assortment of primary sources from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He includes healing recipes, cases of demonic possession, and his own interviews with modern-day practitioners. Scholars interested in theoretical and philosophical interpretations of the traditional medical practice will not be disappointed. Furthermore, chapter 7 and appendix 1 consider powwowing in terms of anthropological theory and ideas about identity formation. Readers wanting to learn more about powwowing's ties to herbalism will have to look elsewhere. Kriebel's decision not to emphasize herbalism stemmed from his choice to focus on the supernatural qualities, or what he terms "'magical' or 'spiritual' practices and beliefs," associated with powwowing (16). Although herbalism is classified as a natural healing practice, rituals and ideas associated with it often have a supernatural foundation. Thus, Kriebel's explanation as to why he decided not to investigate the herbal tradition within powwowing appears unjustified. Due to its nice balance of narrative and theory, this volume will appeal to a broad audience. Powwowers and their clients will appreciate Kriebel's sensitive account of this significant healing practice. Scholars interested in traditional healing will be inspired and impressed by his thorough investigation of powwowing. Historians of Pennsylvania culture and folklife will find the book an excellent addition to their libraries and their classrooms.


Objective To evaluate the clinical efficacy and safety of super selective uterine artery infusion chemotherapy and embolization in treatment of cervical cancer. Methods 58 cases of cervical cancer confirmed by pathology were randomly divided into two groups 28 cases of treatment group and 30 cases of control group. Treatment group was treated by super selective uterine artery infusion chemotherapy and embolization. Control group was treated by therapy of extensive hysterectomy and pelvic lymph node dissection. Results The effective rate of treatment group and control groups were 82. 1% and 90. 0% ,there was no significant difference between them( P 0. 05) . Conclusion Superselective uterine arterial chemotherapy and embolization in treatment of cervical cancer which can reduce pain and improve quality of patients,is a safe and effective treatment.


Nature has always represented a fundamental source of inspiration to solve mankind's scientific challenges and engineering tasks. For instance, it has been shown that a hierarchical organization over multiple length scales allows enhanced quasi-static mechanical properties, while the relative orientation of adjacent chiral centers strongly affects the physical properties of a polymer, and internal heterogeneous architectures may result in shape changing systems, to cite a few examples. In this paper, we discuss how bio-inspiration may be used to enhance the potential of phononic crystals and acoustic metamaterials.


This paper presents development work on a tool for modelling the spectrum of incoming solar radiation for application to predict the seasonal change in efficiency of thin film amorphous silicon photovoltaic devices due to spectral shift. The work is based on NREL's SPCTRAL2 model for clear skies. Development work on the original model includes modification of the aerosol model with UK measurements and extended work on the Nann/Riordan cloud cover modifier method to operate satisfactorily in cloudy conditions. The model is implemented in Borland Delphi 5.0 and requires only standard meteorological data for input to generate the solar spectrum from 300 to 1700 nm. The model has been validated in Loughborough, UK against spectral measurements from the spectroradiometer at CREST.


The objective of this paper was to revisit the issue of police brutality in post-apartheid South Africa, since it has recently become a highly contextual topic with polarising views. Some individuals have tried to justify the level of brutality by the South African Police Service, while others disagree with these views and perceive the issue as problematic. Apart from the literature review, questionnaires where formulated distributed to twenty individuals from the general public, in order to ascertain their perception regarding the issue. This questionnaire was structured in a way that would allow the individuals to not only state their opinion regarding the different aspects of the South African Police Service but to also enable the respondent to elaborate on their reasoning. The finding from the feedback obtained from ten respondents reveal that police brutality is perceived as a major problem in South Africa, and most individuals are perturb by the current state of affairs. However, they feel very helpless in their ability to change the situation. Some respondents feel that it is only people in top positions in the police hierarchy or government that could influence the change that is required to improve the situation, in order to enhance the image of the South African Police Services, in such a way that communities could perceive them more as friends rather than enemies. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n3p574


This project is conducted at the main campus of Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM),Melaka.The changes of weather and passing cloud may caused variation of solar irradiation that contributed to variation of PV output power.Unfortunately,the variation of PV output will cause energy losses and harmonic distortion.Thus,the aim of this project is to study the correlation between solar irradiance and Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) contributed from PV inverter and investigate the efficiency of PV
inverter with variation of solar irradiance.Fluke 43B meter and Automatic Weather Monitoring System(AWS) were used to record the required data.The data was collected for 3 to 6 months in order to analyse the data.In addition,the value of THDi,current,solar irradiance,output and input voltage have been recorded for 8 hours a day for 30 days.From the collected data,its shown that the variation of solar irradiance effects the THDi and current profiles.When the solar irradiance is high the value of current also increase.
However,THDi increases when the solar irradiance is low. This implies that,in order to get high power quality of output,the value of solar irradiance should be high.Based on
the result, it shows that the average value of THDi fulfil the requirement from TNB Technical Guidebook.Furthermore, the inverter efficiency is high when the DC power output is high.Low and fluctuating DC power output cause the value of inverter efficiency to decrease.In addition,the value of solar irradiance give impact to inverter efficiency.The finding shows that the of solar irradiance,DC power output and efficiency have the same behavior.


[Objective]To control the development of diabetes and prevent complications.[Methods]The traditional Chinese medicine(TCM) care was.implemented on 102 cases of elderly patients with diabetes.[Results]The knowledge of preventing diabetes was improved through the implementation of TCM care.[Conclusion]It was very important to control the development of diabetes,prevent complications and improve the life quality of the patients by comprehensive and effective drug treatment based on implementation of TCM nursing.


The subroutine LOC3, which computes haplotypes and linkage disequilibrium from three-locus phenotypes according to Piazza (1975), is presented and some clarifying comments on the inconsistency of the variables u1— u8 in Piazza's paper are given.


The number of computer based functions embedded in vehicles has increased significantly in the past two decades. An in-vehicle embedded electronic architecture is a complex distributed system; the development of which is a cooperative work involving different manufacturers and suppliers. There are several key demands in the development process, such as safety requirements, real-time assessment, schedulability, composability, etc. Intensive research is being conducted to address these issues. This paper reviews recent technology advances in relevant aspects and covers a range of topics highlighted above.


Objective To assess the anatomical and visual outcomes of stage 4A retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) after lens-sparing vitrectomy.Methods It was a retrospective case series study.Twenty eyes of 15 infants with stage 4A ROP were identified and underwent lens-sparing pars plana vitrectomy under anesthesia.Anatomical outcomes were assessed with an indirect binocular ophthalmoscope and RetCam Ⅱ imaging system at the follow-up visit.Visual outcomes were measured with a grating acuity test (Lea gratingTM).Results All twenty eyes had complete retinal reattachment after surgery.Three eyes had distortion or dragging of the macula (15%).The macula appeared to be normal in the remaining eyes (85%).Twelve eyes of 9 infants were successfully measured with a grating acuity test.Average grating acuity was 6.4±2.5 cpd (2-12 cpd),which was 4.29±0.20 (3.82~4.60) when transformed to optotype acuity values.Two eyes had distortion or dragging of the macula.The visual acuity of these 2 eyes was 3.82 and 4.0,respectively.Visual acuity of the remaining eyes was 4.3 or better.Conclusion Patients with stage 4A ROP retinal detachment can be treated successfully with respect to anatomical and visual outcomes utilizing lens-sparing vitrectomy.

Key words:
Retinopathy of prematurity;  Stage 4A ;  Vitrectomy ;  Visual function


AIM
Although CD44 has been suggested as a prognostic marker in renal cell carcinoma (RCC), the prognostic significance of this marker in three main subtypes of RCC is still unclear. Thus, the present study was conducted to evaluate the expression and prognostic significance of CD44 as a cancer stem cell marker in different histological subtypes of RCC. Methodology & results: CD44 expression was evaluated in 206 well-defined renal tumor samples using immunohistochemistry on tissue microarrays. Higher CD44 expression was associated with more aggressive behavior, tumor progression and worse prognosis in clear cell RCC (ccRCC) but not in papillary and chromophobe RCC subtypes.

DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION
Cancer stem cell marker CD44 may be a promising target for cancer treatment only in ccRCC.


Spiraling costs of a product revision demand that we mitigate risks to product yield due to unintended disconnects between SPICE models used for design and production silicon, and intentional process retargeting for product performance optimization. This often necessitates product robustness to about +/-4.0-sigmas or about 60 ppm. However, the computational costs of even the most advanced simulation techniques are so prohibitive for many of the large circuit design problems that one often cannot obtain visibility to circuit behavior below about 5000 ppm. In this paper, we build on the scaled sigma sampling (SSS) foundation presented earlier and develop a formalism for efficient assessment of circuit yield exposure to low probability tails, including estimation of its confidence interval and optimization of process sigma scale factors and sample sizes used for the SPICE simulations. We illustrate the efficacy of SSS through an extended suite of circuit yield estimation examples including one that investigates the yield dependencies of a normality capable metric on process shifts and multiplicity.


Based on the features of two-robot coordination control system, a coordination system in layered modularization was set up from the human motor control system. A module of object hybrid impedance controller (HIC) was designed, so it can compensate the whole dynamics and its stability was analyzed. After make the inner force controller combine reasonably with the motor controller, the integrated controller of two-robot can be realized. The experiment results show that the control effect is satisfactory.


The present work deals with the Red Army Faction group in post-war Germany. Firstly the question is answered what the RAF was mainly about; urban guerrilla warfare or a terrorist group. Subsequently, historical connections and events are analysed which gave rise to terrorism in Germany. This work mainly focuses on the three generations of RAF, its members, concepts und consequences. Finally, the significance of the group is mentioned from today´s point of view.


NEPTUNE (North-East Pacific Undersea Networked Experiments) will be an innovative network of many sub-sea observatories linked by about 3,000 km of powered, electro-optic cable covering most of the Juan de Fuca Plate (200,000 sq km), North-East Pacific, with shore stations at Port Alberni, BC and probably Nedonna Beach, OR (www.neptunecanada.ca, www.orionprogram.org, www.neptune.washington.edu). Each observatory will host and power many scientific instruments on the surrounding seafloor, in boreholes in the seafloor, and buoyed into the water column. Remotely operated and autonomous vehicles will reside at depth, powered or recharged at observatories and directed from distant labs. Continuous near-real-time multidisciplinary measurement series will extend over 25 years. Major research themes include: structure and seismic behavior of the ocean crust; dynamics of hot and cold fluids and gas hydrates in the upper ocean crust and overlying sediments; ocean/climate change and effects on ocean biota/fisheries at all depths; deep-sea sedimentation, ecosystem dynamics and biodiversity; and engineering and computational systems research. These involve interacting processes, long-term changes, and chaotic, episodic events difficult to study and quantify by traditional means.


Contingent attentional capture costs can double or triple when participants search for multiple targets simultaneously (e.g. pink and green letters). Specifically, these costs occur when a distractor related to one goal (e.g. a pink digit) appears on the same trial as a target related to another goal (e.g. a green letter). We call this effect "set-specific capture," because the pink distractor captures attention and causes a corresponding enhancement of the "search for pink letters" attentional set over the other "search for green letters" set (Moore & Weissman, 2010, 2011, 2014). In the present investigation, we examined whether color similarity has an impact on a) how attentional sets are maintained in a dual-target search, and b) set-specific capture costs incurred by attentional set enhancement. Participants searched for letters appearing in either of two colors in a continuous rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream. Half of participants, in the "opponent" group, searched for color opponents (e.g. pink and green) on opposite ends of an isoluminant, equally saturated color wheel. The other half, in the "similar" group, searched for colors separated by approximately 120° on the same wheel (e.g. purple and orange). For both groups, distractor letters appeared in the RSVP stream that linearly separated the target colors in color space, ensuring participants maintain two distinct attentional sets. Overall target identification accuracy did not differ across groups, indicating that color similarity does not have an impact on the maintenance of attentional sets, as long as the colors are linearly separable. However, set-specific capture costs were significantly greater in the "opponent" group, suggesting that attentional set enhancement may capitalize on opponent-process circuitry: when two attentional sets are maintained simultaneously, enhancement of one may cause inhibition of its color opponent. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015.


In order to discover normal and abnormal running patterns of large-scale network,and to analyze its security situation,this paper introduced a paradigm to illustrate how to design security data mining system of large-scale network.The system collected many kinds of large-scale network security data,and did data mining and situation assessment on those data,and then presented analyzed results via the graphic user interfaces.The design focused on technical scheme,method of collecting security data,system modules,realization technique and system evaluation.


Copyright: ©2021 Raina SK. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Agriculture farming is very important part for life of people. It is the important source of economy and food. over the previous years, this area has seen a lot of changes and advancement in the diverse cultivating approaches and techniques. For example, these days, there is the utilization of inorganic compost, the utilization of decreased amount of pesticides, the utilization of various work vehicles and machinery. The accessibility of such data sources has seen the requirement for the utilization of regular assets and cycle with point of improving agriculture yield and decreasing expenses. The utilization of newideas in farming accompanies a great deal of advantages.


Based on examining 401 specimens of Callosciurus erythraeus in Southern China, we find there are distinct differences between the new subspecies on Callosciurus erythraeus zhaotongensis which distributes in Zhaotong Area, Northeastern Yunnan and other subspecies of Callosciurus erythraeus. Pelage color: dorsal pelage is brown-yellow, and there is a slightly darker area in the center. Ventral pelage, from chest to belly, is chestnut reddish, but throat and chin are brown-grey; there are not any significant differences between the back and the ventral of the tail, the terminal of tail hair is brown-yellow, subterminal is black, and there is a brown-yellow (slightly yellow-whitish) area at the end of tail; the backs of feet are brown, with slightly blacker. After more analysis have been made on external and cranial measurements (coefficient of difference), the results indicate: at least one coefficient of difference between Callosciurus erythraeus which from Zhaotong Area, and the other 13 subspecies of Callosciurus erythraeus respectively is over 1.28, that is to say this group is a new subspecies: Callosciurus erythraeus zhaotongensis subsp.nov..


Objective To explore the value of CT and electrolaryngendoscope in the T-staging of laryngeal cancer. Methods Twenty-six cases of laryngeal cancer proved pathologically were examined by CT and electrolaryngendoscope before operation. The findings were analyzed and compared with pathology in details. Results There were 7 supraglottic cancers,12 glottic cancers, 2 subglottic cancers and 5 transglottic cancers. Operation and pathology confirmed 1 case as tumor in site. There were 6 in T_1, 6 in T_2, 2 in T_3 and 11 in T_4. The accurate rate of the electrolaryngendoscope and CT to T_1 and T_2 stage was 80% and 69.2%, while to T_3 and T_4 stage was 23.1% and 84.6%, respectively. The accurate rate of CT combined with electrolaryngendoscope of T stage was 88.5%. Conclusion CT combined with electrolaryngendoscope is valuable in the T staging of laryngeal cancer before operation.


Forest policy in Orissa, as a matter of fact In India, has a long, ancestry, Sporadic attempts on the part of the native and British rulers to protect and exploit the forests form the ingredients of the present forest policy. Under the impact of planning forest policy exhibit new dimeonsions. Growth, stability Environmental and recreational aspects of forests and wild life protection, etc, form different Important facets of the new forest policy, Some gaps, however, have been identified in the structure of the forest policy pursued in Orissa It has been felt that the forest policy has not been looked at in depth as developmental imperatives warrant.


In this paper, we propose a depth image based real-time 3D hand tracking method. Our method is based on the fact that human hand is an end point of human body. Therefore, we locate human hand by finding the end point from a predicted position of hand based on the hand position of the previous frame. We iteratively grow a region around the predicted position. The end point on the major axis of the region which stops moving with region growing is selected as the final position of human hand. Experiments on Microsoft Kinect for Xbox captured sequences show the effectiveness and efficiency of our proposed method.


In this paper we investigate the non-existence of a projective plane of order 12 by using the relationship between Latin squares and projective planes. We arrive at a conjecture: if the sum of all divisors of a positive integer n, (n) > 2n, then there is no finite projective plane of order n.


Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of specific clinical conditions, which include visceral obesity, hyperglycemia, dyslipidemia and hypertension. It significantly increases the development and subsequent progression of cardiovascular disease. It is assumed that inflammation may act as an etiologic link with the pathophysiologic mechanisms of these states. It is especially important to study the role of ghrelin in patients with hypertension and obesity, its relationship with the level of TNF-α, lipid and carbohydrate metabolism parameters. In this scientific work we first identified the relationship between the level of ghrelin and insulin in the blood serum of patients with type 2 diabetes.


In this paper we address the issue of pronunciation modeling for conversational speech synthesis. We experiment with two different HMM topologies (fully connected state model and forward connected state model) for sub-phonetic modeling to capture the deletion and insertion of sub-phonetic states during speech production process. We show that the experimented HMM topologies have higher log likelihood than the traditional 5-state sequential model. We also study the first and second mentions of content words and their influence on the pronunciation variation. Finally we report phone recognition experiments using the modified HMM topologies


Tourism development is one of the priority sectors in a country because the influence of tourism is able to drive economic growth and become the country's largest foreign exchange earner. In developing tourism, the government has entered into partnerships such as that carried out by the Ponorogo Regency Government with the Moroccan International Group Of Development, Technologies And Construction Companies (GDTC) and the Ngebel Tourism Awareness Group (POKDARWIS) as the government's effort to develop Ngebel Lake tourism. The purpose of this research is to describe and analyze the characteristics of the Public, Private, and Community Partnership (PPCP) in the development of tourism in Ngebel Ponorogo Regency as well as the supporting and inhibiting factors. The method used is descriptive qualitative with data collection techniques through observation, interviews, and documentation. The data analysis technique uses data collection, data reduction, data display and verification. The results of this study found that the partnership between DISBUDPARPORA Ponorogo Regency, GDTC International Morocco and POKDARWIS Ngebel has not gone well, there are still obstacles between the government and private parties and in the budget that was initially submitted by the private party, they switched to using the APBD budget with government problems, which did not immediately make BUMD a requirement for disbursement of funds from the private sector. Therefore, it is necessary to improve the characteristics of successful partnerships so that stakeholders can improve themselves before collaborating


Automatic traffic light violation detection system relies on color detection of traffic light appeared in video frames. Presence of red light in video frame triggers detection software routine to identify vehicles violating traffic light. Detection of red light in video frames can be difficult due to: fading or dimming of red light, obscurity from large vehicles and flare. In this paper, we present a software technique based on HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) color model to eliminate difficulties in red light detection mentioned above and is able to identify all colors of traffic light which gives 96% detection accuracy.


Oxygen transfer across unsheared flat and wavy air−water interfaces is studied using a laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) technique. The LIF technique measures the dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration through oxygen quenching of the fluorescence from dissolved pyrene butyric acid (PBA). Fluorescence intensities in a two-dimensional plane in the water near the interface are imaged (instantaneously) with a high-resolution CCD camera. A series of image-processing and image-analysis steps corrects the intensities for variations in the fluorescence attributed to factors other than oxygen quenching and transforms the corrected fluorescence intensities into spatial measurements of the DO concentration. Near-interface vertical oxygen concentration profiles and two-dimensional concentration fields result. Estimates were obtained for the concentration boundary layer thickness, δc, and the mass transfer coefficient, kl, along flat and wavy interfaces. A severalfold increase in mass transfer rates is observed for an uns...


The purpose of the research was to the effect of row spacing on the growth of upland rice (Oryza sativa L.) Adan Krayan; and to find row spacing for better growth of upland rice Adan Krayan.The research carried out from July to October 2020 in Liang Bua Village,  Krayan Barat su-district, Nunukan Regency.The research used Completely Randomized Block Design (CRBD) with four treatment of row spacing and five replications namely: no uniform as control (p0), 30 cm x 30 cm (p1), 40 cm x 40 cm (p2), and 50 cm x 50 cm (p3).   The result of the research revealed that : (1) row spacing treatment affected significantly to very significantly on the plant height, number of leaf and number of a tiller at 30, 60, and 90 days after planting, and (2) the best of the growth was produced in 40 cm x 40 cm.


The paper aims at building a history-friendly model which replicates the history of the Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) industry focusing the crystal cycle and co-evolution of demand, technology and industrial structure. The most interesting characteristic of the TFT-LCD industry is the cyclical behavior of the price and investments. The model is distinctive compared to existing system dynamics models addressing industrial cycles in two points: 1) endogenous demand, technological change and entries are incorporated 2) industrial cycle affects evolution of demand and technology as well as are caused by the change of demand and technology, that is, we consider industrial cycle as a medium of co-evolution of demand and technology. The simulation results show that it can successfully replicate the crystal cycle, and investmentproduction delay, price delay and endogenous change of demand are factors of the crystal cycle. Moreover, we can see positive feedback between demand expansion and technological advance through medium of the cycle


This paper traces the continuation of the search for self in Don DeLillo's Americana, but also DeLillo's inclusion of terrorism in the novel. The changes in warfare give rise to an anxiety that further complicates the search for self in America. DeLillo's search for self directly contradicts modernism in that it cannot be accomplished by ignoring society and looking inward to some intrinsic truth. The search for self in this novel is stunted by the fact that these protagonists are searching for a now-obsolete modernist form of self in a distinctly postmodern environment. Americana's David Bell acts as a template for DeLillo's later protagonists, as his pilgrimage out west and search for self sets the pattern for DeLillo's later protagonists. The purpose of this novel is not to present the reader with a sense of hope for a better tomorrow; rather, it is to present the reader with a specific moment in the lives of its protagonists that is indicative of their struggle for self-discovery.


We have investigated the crystal structure and ferroelectric polarization of (Bi1/2Na1/2)TiO3–12%BaTiO3 by high-resolution neutron powder diffraction Rietveld analysis and density-functional theory calculations. It is revealed that the sample has a ferroelectric distortion in tetragonal P4mm symmetry along with a large tetragonality c/a of 1.022. The A- and B-site atoms exhibit a cooperative off-center displacement along the polar c-axis, which results in a large spontaneous polarization of 54 µC/cm2.


It stresses that the design process management is a key task in engineering survey and design industry,while the management system of project design process will be the core to build information network for a design institute.The system is so important for a design institute if it wants to effectively control the project planning,manage the design process and quality thus building up a complete and concord environment for design work,normalizing enterprise's management and improving management level of enterprises.


Study of capture fishery biology of skipjack ( Katsuwonus pelamis ) was carried out in western (Zone A) and southern (Zone B) waters of North Maluku Province in April 2012 to March 2013. The study has collected and observed 1200 skipjack samples. Skipjack length – weight equation for Zone A was: W = 0.016  and for Z , where both had isometric growth. Length frequency analysis of skipjack using Tanaka method for fish catched in Zone A and B resulted in 3 age groups having similar size modes or mean lengths for both zones, namely 32.9 cm, 43.9 cm and 51.9 cm. Maximum FL length (L ∞ ) of skipjacks catched in zone A reached 75cm at age of 56 months and in zone B reached 76cm at age of 56 months. Range of FL of skipjacks catched in zone A was 26.0 – 72.0 cm while for zone B was 26.0 – 71.0 cm. Levels of gonad maturity of skipjacks catched in zone A and zone B were found to be in two groups, they were TKG IV (ripe) and TKG V (spent). Value of L m of skipjacks in zone A and zone B or North Maluku waters was found to be 43 cm.


The invention relates to an interconnection structure and a forming method thereof, wherein the interconnection structure comprises a substrate, a first diffusion barrier, a second diffusion barrier and an interconnection line; a through hole is formed in the substrate; a Cu plug is formed in the through hole, and forms a depression at the brim of the opening of the through hole; the depression is covered by the first diffusion barrier, and the substrate, the Cu plug and the first diffusion barrier are covered by the second diffusion barrier; the interconnection line is located on the second diffusion barrier. The interconnection structure provided by the invention can prevent Cu in the Cu plug from diffusing to enter the interconnection line.


2D carbon nitride nanosheets have attracted ever‐increasing interest in photocatalysis due to their unique structural advantages. However, the nanosheets synthesized by the traditional methods, such as post oxidation and liquid exfoliation, have suffered from in‐plane disorder with abundant structural defects, which seriously counteracts their structural benefits for photocatalysis. Herein, it is demonstrated that polymer carbon nitride nanosheets with in‐plane highly ordered structure (PCNNs‐IHO) can be successfully prepared by on‐surface polymerization of melamine on NaCl crystal surface at elevated temperatures. The NaCl crystals with relative high surface energy not only facilitate the adsorption and activation of melamine to undergo condensation reaction, but also function as unique substrates to orientate the assembly of 2D nanosheet structure. In addition, NaCl also acts as a reactant to provide Na+ doping into carbon nitride matrix, affording PCNNs‐IHO with robust structural base sites. Benefiting from this structural basicity, PCNNs‐IHO exhibits superior photocatalytic performance toward CH3SH mineralization under visible light irradiation.


In order to analyze the causation of longitudinal crack in the product of a factory,FLUENT software is used to establish mathematical model of slab crystallizer and simulate the changes of flow field and temperature field in this paper.And a systematic analysis of relationship between molten steel fluid flow process and longitudinal cracks on continuous casting crystallizer is introduced,which provides theoretical direction to the improvement of subermerged entry nozzle.


Medical information systems are going to play an important role in clinically related decisions in future by rendering similar pathological conditions in a medical image and thereby helping physicians view noteworthy images to form improved decisions. In human perception, the Content Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) can be used to replace the conventional method of text based retrieval systems. The image content contains number of dominant important characteristics like color, texture, shape etc. All these features to be analyzed on  the content basis for the classification purpose. These different descriptor or characteristics for the images can form a combined feature vector. Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) consists of retrieving the most visually similar images to a given query image from a database of images. CBIR is used to retrieve images successfully from the databases based on an input query, which could be either an anatomical region or a pathological image. Methods suggested for CBIR include features of low-level image like color, histogram, texture and analysis in the frequency domain. To predict optimum performance characteristics and to minimize the feature dimensionality for making system real-time, for selecting the feature based on Genetic Algorithm (GA) may be used. To improve the system's retrieval performance, multi- feature similarity score is expected. In this work the Neural network and Genetic Algorithm are applied for the classification of images and produces good comparison result in compared with other classification process.


Angular distributions and excitation functions were measured for the C/ sup 12/(He/sup 3/,n)O/sup 14/ (ground state) and the s between 6.5 and 11 Mev. Angular distributions of both protons and neutrons show strong forward peaking at all energies. At small angles the data can be fitted with the predictions of a simple plane-wave direct-interaction theory using a fixed value of R = 5.0 f. At larger angles the measured differential cross sections are bigger than those predicted by the simple theory although they are mostly much smaller than the O deg cross sections observed at the same energies. Excitation curves were obtained at 10 deg by the simultaneous measurement of the yields of neutrons and protons from the same target. A strong energy dependence was observed in each case. The ratio (d sigma n/d sigma p)/sub 10 deg was found to be nearly constant at the value 2 over the entire energy range. The same ratio is given by the isotopic spin factor for the reaction, but what significance should be attributed to the agreement is not completely clear. It was concluded that the reactions proceed mostly through a direct-interaction process, but that the simple planewave form of the theorymore » is insufficient to account for all the results. (auth)« less


Mesial temporal lobe epilepsy(MTLE)expresses itself through epileptic seizures originated in mesial structures of the temporal lobe with or without hippocampus sclerosis.With the exploitation and application of new techniques, imaging examination plays an important role in diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy.Arterial spin labeling(ASL)is known as a kind of noninvasive MRI technology.Recent basic researches and progresses in clinical application of ASL in MTLE were reviewed in this article.


ART A TOOL FOR TEACHLNG ENGLISH TO ESL LEVEL 1 STUDENTS Allison G. Duvall Master of Art Education Virginia Commonwealth University 2006 Dr. Pamela G. Taylor, Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Art Education Today's classrooms are filled with an ethnically and linguistically diverse population of students. In order for Limited English Proficient (LEP) high school students to be academically successful and meet the goals of No Child Left Behind 200 1, they must learn academic English. As an art teacher, I understand the importance of art in a student's general education. However, could a high school art class, also, act as a tool for teaching LEP students the English language'? My goal, through the use of action research, is to find an effective way to set up an English as a Second Language (ESL) Level 1 art class, thus, giving students the benefits of art while furthering their English language development.


The applications of Procedural Content Generation (PCG) are widespread, and their success has been demonstrated in both commercial games and research alike. Despite this, there are many areas that PCG is yet to cover comprehensively. This paper covers the possibilities of applying the paradigm to generating story plots, and the difficulties associated with such content. An existing technique which takes advantage of the power of Answer Set Programming (ASP) is implemented. The resulting plots are examined and tested in order to evaluate the use of ASP in the context of automated story generation for games. This implementation is built using the design space approach – as coined by Adam Smith and Michael Mateas – and it's components make up The Mystery Machine (TMM). This project finds that ASP and the design space approach provides great potential in application to the procedural generation of plots for games, ensuring that each plot remains a high degree of coherency without sacrificing variety. The implementation confirms Smith and Mateas' claims that the approach provides a powerful means for designers and story writers to become more heavily involved in the development of generators. Additionally, several weaknesses of the technique are found, and potential solutions are suggested.


REZUMAT Multivariate analysis of the 3D composites based on nickel microparticles This paper presents multivariate analyses of the experimental parameters obtained in the scientific experiments on eight sample fabrics of 100% cotton with electrically conductive properties and electromagnetic achieved through traditional treatments such as padding with antistatic agents, and direct printing or scraping with a polymeric paste based on nickel (Ni). Textile printing was obtained using polymers such as polyethylene glycol (PEG), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), polyacrylate, ammonium salt, carboxylic acid Copolymer polyester, and Ni microparticles. For the eight samples that have been analyzed, the morphology of the surfaces using SEM (scanning electron microscope) with magnification 2000–8000x and electronic magnification microscopy with 4x, assessed the resistance to wet rubbing and dry the resistance of the surface after treatment in the solution of alkaline and acid sweat. Also, the samples above referred have been analyzed by spectrophotometry to evaluate the transmittance, and reflectance of the electromagnetic waves. It can specify that after treatments in acid or alkaline sweat solutions, the resistance of the surface has decreased by 103–105. It has been observed that for samples treated with acid or alkaline sweat, the reflectance was increased in comparison with the reflectance obtained for the original samples. The multivariate analysis provided refers to the study of some physic-chemical and optical parameters, of the samples collected, such as thickness, pH, reflectance, and transmittance.


Abstract Challenging critic Pramatha Chaudhuri's claim that Bengali women authors lacked a genuinely feminine voice, the writer Radharani Devi embarked on a literary experiment – adopting a nom de plume, "Aparajita Devi," she started writing poetry in a markedly "feminine" style about women's experience of everyday domestic life. Aparajita's language, buoyancy, and humor introduced a new esthetic into Bengali poetry. And her poems were wildly popular. This paper makes a two-fold examination: First, it demonstrates Aparajita Devi's originality by addressing how her narrators' vocalization of everyday worlds, delivered in ordinary language voicing common people and circumstances, blew a gust of fresh air over the serene, decorous landscape of Bengali women's literature. And second, it asks what makes her poems so compellingly feminine. While Aparajita was applauded for restoring the feminine to women's writing, did it come instinctively to women writers or was it a persona that any writer could adopt? Radharani Devi's artistic concerns frame the question of the authentic feminine voice against the wider issue of the sources of the poetic impulse in the modern writer.


The extended black-outs that have occurred in the near past, have stimulated a renewed interest in the assessment of power system vulnerability. Accurate post-mortem analyses of the causes involved in a major black-out have shown that, in most cases, the outage of a line or a generator is the initiating event of cascading faults that may rapidly lead to a catastrophic failure. The role of hidden faults has been emphasized, but a systematic screening of the protection system in search for hidden faults remains a formidable and almost impossible task for today power engineers. The aim of the present paper is that of carrying out a more effective screening of single and multiple contingencies looking for those situations which are likely to jeopardize system security and to expose possible hidden faults. The problem of finding the worst branch or generator outages is recast in the form of a linear programming problem with mixed (real and binary) variables which is solved by efficient branch-and-bound techniques implemented in the CPLEX optimization package. Tests carried out with reference to the Italian EHV network and to the European UCTE system, confirm the effectiveness of the proposed contingency screening approach.


1 To investigate the effect of experimental diabetes on the P2y purinoceptor responses of pancreatic β‐cells and vascular bed, we used adenosine‐5′‐O‐(2‐thiodiphosphate) (ADPβS), a potent and stable P2y agonist. This work was performed in the isolated perfused pancreas of the rat. 2 Diabetes was induced by streptozotocin (66 mg kg−1, i.p.). Five weeks after the induction of diabetes, on the day of pancreas isolation, the animals displayed marked hyperglycaemia (37.6 ± 2.7 mm). Age‐matched rats were used as controls. 3 Insulin response to a glucose stimulation from 5 to 10 mm was completely lost and stimulation of insulin release by the sulphonylurea, tolbutamide (185 μm), was drastically impaired in the diabetic pancreas (maximum responses were 1.5 ± 0.4 and 7.0 ± 1.4 ng min−1 for diabetic and age‐matched rats respectively). 4 In contrast, in the diabetic pancreas ADPβS (15 μm), infused in the presence of glucose 5 mm, elicited an immediate and significant insulin release similar to that observed in the age‐matched pancreas (maximum responses were 7.6 ± 1.5 and 6.7 ± 1.3 ng min−1 respectively). This ADPβS stimulating effect occurred independently of the glucose concentration (5, 8.3 and 28 mm) in the diabetic pancreas. On pancreatic vascular resistance, ADPβS induced a similar vasodilatation in diabetic and age‐matched rats. 5 In conclusion, ADPβS retains its insulin stimulatory and vasodilator effects in experimental diabetes; P2y purinoceptors could therefore be considered as a new target for the development of antidiabetic drugs.


The books provide a platform for writers from all over the world to discuss and debate critical issues that underlie higher education locally and globally. Subjects such as governance, reform, rankings, sustainability, futures, and many more are dissected and analysed. Because the results would eventually and inevitably affect higher education policies in the region, specifically in Malaysia, the series serves as a valuable resource for researchers, policymakers, administrators, and practitioners. The matters discussed would be a reflection and a sounding board for all parties involved in higher education.


A strain that can utilize nitrobenzene as sole source of carbon at low temperature was isolated from activated sludge of the aeration tank and the chloramphenicol production wastewater collection pond in a northeast pharmaceutical factory.The strain,named cc-2,has a high degradation rate for nitrobenzene.According to its morphological characteristics、physiological and biochemical characteristics and 16S rDNA,strain cc-2 was identified as Acinetobacter baumannii.Study on its growth and degradation characteristics showed that the optimal inoculum was 10% 、temperature 15℃ and pH 7 for strain cc-2 utilizing nitrobenzene.Strain cc-2 can grow in medium with less than 400 mg.L-1 of nitrobenzene.The degradation rate of cc-2 in 48 h was 66.84% when the initial concentration of nitrobenzene was 200 mg.L-1.


Laminar flow control is a technology with great potential for aircraft drag reduction. Stabilization of laminar boundary layers became known as natural laminar flow (NLF) and research led to the development of NLF airfoils. Research was also conducted on stabilization by suction, referred to as laminar flow control (LFC). Experiments demonstrated that extensive laminar flow could be achieved in flight. However, there remained doubts regarding the practicality of producing, with the technology then available, wing surfaces sufficiently smooth and wavefree to meet laminar-flow criteria and maintaining the wing surface quality in normal service. In 1976, the Aircraft Energy Efficiency (ACEE) program was begun by NASA to develop fuel-conservative technology for commercial transports. The progress of the ACEE program is discussed. Attention is given to LFC wing structures, and LFC leading-edge systems.


The second‐order pressure derivatives of the elastic moduli of a machinable glass ceramic have been determined. The latter were evaluated from the change in the velocity of longitudinal and shear sound waves over a pressure range of 0–2 GPa. The two second‐order pressure derivatives are both negative, analogous to the behavior of crystalline solids. From the pressure derivatives, the first‐ and second‐order Murnaghan equations of state were calculated, as well as the volume derivatives of the Gruneisen gammas and Gruneisen constant. The latter values are appreciably higher than those of crystalline solids, but of the same order as those of fused quartz.


Objective: Aside from oral anticoagulation in patients with intracardiac thrombus, current guidelines and scientific evidence do not support specific therapeutic interventions for most other TEE fi...


Many software reliability growth models (SRGMs) have been developed to estimate some useful measures such as the mean value function, number of remaining faults, and failure detection rate. Most of these models have focused on the failure detection process and not given equal priority to modeling the fault correction process. But, most latent software errors may remain uncorrected for a long time even after they are detected, which increases their impact. The remaining software faults are often one of the most unreliable reasons for software quality. Therefore, we develop a general framework of the modeling of the failure detection and fault correction processes. Furthermore, it is assumed that a detected fault is immediately removed and is perfectly repaired with no new faults being introduced for the traditional SRGMs. In reality, it is impossible to remove all faults from the fault correction process and have a fault-free effect on the software development environment. In order to relax this perfect debugging assumption, we introduce the possibility of imperfect debugging phenomenon. Finally, numerical examples are shown to illustrate the results of the unified approach for integration of the detection and correction process under imperfect debugging.


A
 reversible linear master equation model is presented for pressure- and temperature-dependent bimolecular
 reactions proceeding via multiple long-lived intermediates. This kinetic treatment, which applies when the reactions
 are measured under pseudo-first-order conditions, facilitates accurate and efficient simulation of the time dependence of the populations of reactants, intermediate species and products. Detailed exploratory calculations
 have been carried out to demonstrate the capabilities of the approach, with applications to
 the bimolecular association reaction C3H6+H⇌C3H7 and the bimolecular chemical activation reaction
 C2H2+1CH2→C3H3+H. The efficiency of the method can be dramatically enhanced through use of a diffusion approximation to the master equation, and
 a methodology
 for exploiting the
 sparse structure of the resulting rate matrix is established.


In the light of a public dissatisfaction with organizational practices associated with new public management, new organizational forms and processes are sought after. In a Swedish municipality, aim ...


According to the new teaching theory-----activity theory, the essay discusses the popular task-based teaching model in nowadays foreign language teaching and its differences with traditional language teaching . It also mainly discusses how to apply this teaching model in college English teaching and the aspects to which teachers must pay attention during the course.


The form of the electrode-skin impedance is presented and represented by an equivalent circuit model. The effect of an electrode's gel on skin hydration and electrode-skin impedance is investigated and interpreted. The electrical performances of "wet" gels and hydrogels are assessed and compared in vivo. It is found that hydrogels are less effective at hydrating the dry epidermal layer. The electrode-skin impedance is therefore large and relatively sensitive to sweat gland activity and hence to psychophysiological effects. As hydrogel electrodes tend to have large sensor areas, their actual impedances are comparable to the smaller sensor area, 'wet' gel electrodes.


The government is being 'politically dishonest' in introducing local pay for nurses, RCN director of labour relations Phil Gray told a rally of almost 300 nurses and members of the public in Leeds last week.


It is not my claim that the 'Löwenheim-Skolem paradox' is an antinomy in formal logic; but I shall argue that it is an antinomy, or something close to it, in philosophy of language. Moreover, I shall argue that the resolution of the antinomy—the only resolution that I myself can see as making sense—has profound implications for the great metaphysical dispute about realism which has always been the central dispute in the philosophy of language. Hilary Putnam: Models and Reality


The aim of this research was to evaluate the impact of the soil use change of the Cocoa Agroforestry System (CAS) on soil organic carbon (SOC) levels and other indicating soil chemical fertility properties (apparent density ρb, cation exchange capacity CEC, total soil N TSN), when a soil use change occurs from CAS to grassland (GL). For this, in order to be selected was recorded, considering different time intervals (1-5, 6-10 y 11-20 years). However, a CAS of 20-35 years was considered as a reference. In addition, soil samples were taken at -30 cm depth to determine the contents of SOC, TSN, CEC, ρb, soil organic matter (SOM) and the soil C/N relationship. Consequently, an in situ resistance to soil penetration was evaluated. The results indicated the change in soil use from CAS to GL, did not cause a significant decrease in the amount of stored SOC (0-30 cm) during the considered time with respect to CAS. However, if only the first -10 cm of soil is sampled, a significant soil compaction is observed throughout a decrease in the CEC value in the long term (20 years).


ABSTRACT Capsule: Forb-rich and diverse, annually mown vegetation is the preferred Corncrake Crex crex breeding habitat in floodplains. Aims: To identify habitat preferences of female Corncrakes and characteristics of breeding sites in floodplain habitats and derive recommendations for management. Methods: We tracked six female Corncrakes and compared vegetation characteristics at 78 male calling sites with regard to breeding records and diurnal call activity of males, because we expect the latter to indicate female occurrence. Additionally, we analysed how practice and timing of land use in the preceding year affected vegetation structure. Results: Females preferred areas with high cover of forbs and a distinct relief heterogeneity, which was associated with overall vegetation diversity. All calling sites with breeding records and diurnal call incidence of males showed high forb and low sedge cover, low litter heights and a close location to ditches. Favourable conditions were best provided by mowing in the preceding year. Conclusion: In eutrophic habitats, female Corncrakes preferred a vegetation structure created by annual mowing. Because nests and unfledged chicks are threatened by mowing operations, we recommend an alternating management regime based on the identification of breeding sites using male diurnal calling activity.


Objective - This study aims to examine the factors that influence the success or failure of the Malaysian Sustainable Palm Oil (MSPO) certification among independent smallholders.
Methodology/Technique – We analysed 67 respondents from the Kedah region between February and March 2021. Our curiosity is piqued, about how awareness and sustainability practices influence the certification or non-certification among independent palm oil smallholders.
Finding – Based on our survey, the finding shows that most of the respondents are aware of, and understand, the value of MSPO certification and use relevant sustainability practices on their farm. However, the result of the regression analysis suggests that sustainable practice is insignificant in explaining the failure in having the MSPO certification. The finding also shows that awareness is crucial in assisting independent smallholders to accept MSPO certification.
Novelty – This study would provide insight into the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) because it is one of the country's most important bodies for addressing environmental and social concerns voiced by both local and international organizations and consumers.
Type of Paper: Empirical
JEL Classification: Q01, Q56
Keywords: MSPO certification; Independent smallholders; Sustainability; Awareness; Palm oil industry
Reference to this paper should be referred to as follows: Ahmad, N; Shahar, H.K; Azhari, A. (2022). Exploring Into the Awareness Level and Sustainability Practice among Palm Oil Independent Smallholders towards MSPO Certification, GATR-Global J. Bus. Soc. Sci. Review, 10(3), 180–189. https://doi.org/10.35609/gjbssr.2022.10.3(7)


A field study to identify the role of environmental certification and design factors that influence sustainable purchasing of Chilean consumers decisions, was made. A mixed quantitative and qualitative environmental communication strategy was designed and applied in to a product packaging prototype, testing it on a comparative survey. Result defined that, the use of environmental believable quantitative information mixed with a qualitative governmental certification, combined with the use of an ecological packaging were effective, increasing the sustainable purchasing on Chilean consumers.


Studies conducted at the Pacific N¬orthwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Washington, have focused on developing and evaluating the reliability of nondestructive examination (NDE) approaches for inspecting coarse-grained, cast stainless steel reactor components. The objective of this work is to provide information to the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on the utility, effec¬tiveness and limitations of ultrasonic testing (UT) inspection techniques as related to the in-service inspec¬tion of primary system piping components in pressurized water reactors (PWRs). Cast stainless steel pipe specimens were examined that contain thermal and mechanical fatigue cracks located close to the weld roots and have inside/outside surface geometrical conditions that simulate several PWR primary piping configurations. In addition, segments of vintage centrifugally cast piping were also examined to understand inherent acoustic noise and scattering due to grain structures and determine consistency of UT responses from different locations. The advanced UT methods were applied from the outside surface of these specimens using automated scanning devices and water coupling. The low-frequency ultrasonic method employed a zone-focused, multi-incident angle inspection protocol (operating at 250-450 kHz) coupled with a synthetic aperture focusing technique (SAFT) for improved signal-to-noise and advanced imaging capabilities. The phased array approach was implemented with amore » modified instrument operating at 500 kHz and composite volumetric images of the specimens were generated. Re¬sults from laboratory studies for assessing detection, localization and sizing effectiveness are discussed in this paper.« less


Weeds are among the most harmful factors limiting crop production in savannah zone of Africa. However, they are crucial for biodiversity and ecosystems sustainable management. A field experiment was conducted in savannah zone of Senegal to determine the effect of organic and mineral fertilization on weed flora in peanut crop. The experiment was laid out in randomize complete block design with four replicates and four treatments (Control, Cattle manure, Compost, and Mineral fertilizer). Our findings show that weed density was not significantly affected by the type of fertilization. However, dry matter of grasses and broadleaf weeds was significantly affected by the treatment respectively in forty and sixty days after treatment. The highest dry weight of grasses was observed in forty days after sowing in cattle manure treatment followed by inorganic fertilizer with respectively 23.7 and 15.2 g/m2. In sixty days after sowing, the highest dry matter of broadleaf weeds was recorded in cattle manure treatment with 4.5 g/m2. It was noticed that Digitaria horizontalis and Mesosphaerum suaveonlens were the dominant species in all treatment. The biodiversity indices were not significantly influenced by the type of fertilization but the highest values of Shannon-Webber and Simpson indices was recorded in cattle manure treatment. Moreover, the linear correlation between grain yield and diversity indices revealed that Shannon index is highly correlated with the peanut yield.


The autochthonous local genotypes of sweet cherries, which represent a very
 important genetic potential for future breeding programs. Understanding of
 the molecular basis biodiversity is one of the most important factors for
 the proper conservation, management and use of plant genetic resources.
 This paper investigate the genetic variability of 14 genotypes of sweet
 cherries using 26 SSR markers. The study included eight autochthonous
 genotypes of sweet cherry taken from four different location and six
 virus-free reference varieties of sweet cherry. The average genetic distance
 between them was 0.43. The number of alleles per locus ranged from two to
 eight. The minimum number of two alleles of polymorphic loci showed EMPa003
 and EMPa002, while the highest number of eight loci alleles had PceGA34 and
 UDP97-402. Results of genetic analysis that were done show that between
 autochthonous genotypes of sweet cherries ?Biljur-Bjelica?, ?Barevka? and
 ?Aslamka? (Kriskovci) there was no difference, it is to have the same
 genetic profil, which indicates that is the synonym, it is the same identity
 group. Also the autochthonous genotype ?Crveni Hrust? and ?Nordwunder?
 cultivar had the same SSR profile on microsatellite loci tested. The
 remaining autochthonous genotypes of sweet cherry had a unique genetic
 profile.


Osteoporosis is a silent disease that causes bones to become thin, weak and increases the risk for broken bones. Osteoporosis prevention has several aspects including health education, nutrition, exercise, lifestyle modification and early screening. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of osteoporosis prevention program based on health belief model among working women in Toshiba Factory. Design: A quasi-experimental design was used in carrying out this study. Setting: The study was conducted in Toshiba Factory at Benha City. The sample: A simple random sample composed of working women. Tools: Three tools were used I) an interviewing questionnaire, II) Anthropometric measurement tool and III) Osteoporosis Health Beliefs Scale (OHBS). Results of this study showed a significant positive effect of the prevention program on knowledge and practices of the studied women. The average scores of susceptibility to osteoporosis, seriousness, benefits of exercise, benefits of calcium (Ca) intake and health motivation were significantly increased post program. Also, low level of perceived barriers of exercise and barriers to Ca intake were significantly improved post the implementation of the program. Conclusion: Health belief model had significantly increased the knowledge, improved health practices and enhancing the health belief for prevention of osteoporosis among the studied women in the Factory. Recommendations: Further studies should have more comprehensive interventions on the structures of calcium intake benefits and barriers and use other behavioral change theories and further research should be done to study the correlation between demographic characteristics and behavioral, social barriers in calcium intake in different cultural


© BMJ Publishing Group Limited 2020. No commercial reuse. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. DESCRIPTION A 58yearold man with diabetes, hypertension and immunocompetence presented with diminution of vision in the right eye (RE) for 1 week. His bestcorrected vision in the RE was hand movements. RE anterior chamber examination revealed three positive cells with keratic precipitates. Significant vitritis with asteroid hyalosis and circumferential large retinitis lesions (figure 1A–C) were noted on fundus examination. There was a cherryred spot seen hazily at the macula suggestive of an acute central retinal artery obstruction (CRAO). His left eye examination was unremarkable. Optical coherence tomography of the RE passing through the fovea showed the presence of hyperreflective inner layers suggestive of CRAO (figure 1D). A clinical diagnosis of RE acute retinal necrosis (ARN) with CRAO was made and the patient was started on oral valacyclovir (1 g three times per day) with topical steroids. Intravitreal ganciclovir injection with anterior chamber paracentesis under topical anaesthesia was advised due to the extensive retinal involvement and coexisting CRAO. Systemic investigations revealed nonreactive HIV with controlled blood sugars, normal complete blood counts, erythrocyte sedimentation rate and renal function tests. Within a week of starting therapy with oral valacyclovir and having received two intravitreal ganciclovir injections, there was a reduction in the anterior segment inflammation, vitritis and gradual resolution of retinitis. At 3 weeks, there was further improvement (figure 2A–D) noted along with areas of central clearing in the superior quadrant (figure 2B). Simultaneous gradual resolution of cherryred spot and retinal whitening were noted. ARN has been associated with central retinal vein occlusion, optic neuropathy, CRAO and CRAO with cilioretinal artery sparing. Systemic association of HSV meningitis has also been described in association with bilateral ARN with CRAO. It may be prudent to note that these occlusions may develop either prior to the occurrence of retinitis lesions of ARN or simultaneously. 4 Although extensive vasculitis in patients with ARN has been described, the exact mechanism of the occurrence of occlusive vasculopathy with ARN is unclear. However, various authors have proposed the possibilities of direct spread of the virus from adjacent retinitis lesions, spread via sensory nerves or an immunemediated response leading to deposition of inflammatory debris within the vascular wall. 7 Another risk factor for the occurrence of vascular occlusions with ARN is preexisting vasculopathy secondary to systemic comorbidities. To conclude, in eyes with ARN, increased awareness of the involvement of Figure 1 (A–C) Fundus photographs of the right eye showing media haze due to vitritis along with the presence of peripheral retinitis patches and a cherryred spot at the macula; (D) Optical coherence tomography passing through the fovea of the right eye shows the presence of hyperreflective inner layers suggestive of acute central retinal artery obstruction. Figure 2 (A–D) Fundus photographs of the right eye of the patient at a 3week followup on oral valacyclovir and post two intravitreal ganciclovir injections showing resolution of retinitis lesion seen along with areas of central clearing in the superior quadrant.


Online social networks are groups of actors formed by computer-mediated social interaction. These interactions are capable of establishing new forms of groups and communities. Based on a discussion over several concepts of community and virtual community we propose the virtual community as a specific form of online social network. This theoretical debate is brought to the field studying the system named Fotolog during 2005 and 2006. Fotolog (www.fotolog.com) is a web service that allows for its users to post photographs or images with an associated text and other users may comment on each other's posts. From the collected data, we propose a typology for communities found in these networks, based on their structure (network) and composition (social ties and social capital). We define three types of communities as associative virtual communities, emergent virtual communities and hybrid virtual communities. We further discuss this proposal according to our theoretical review, pointing out weaknesses and limitations of the study. We finish the paper with our major points in the study and some suggestions for future works.


This experiment was carried out to study the variations among vetch landraces (Vicia sativa and Vicia ervilia) collected from Jordan. During April and May, 2007, a survey was carried out to collect vetch landraces from rainfed areas with diverse eco-geographical variation of Jordan. Twenty six landraces were assessed in the field during 2008/2009 growing season at three experimental sites (Faculty of Agriculture Research Station, Ghwier Agricultural Research Station and Rabbah Agricultural Research Station). Results showed that there were significant variations among the three experimental sites. Grain, biological and straw yields gave the highest CV values when grown at Jubaiha experimental site. These differences could be attributed to differences in rainfall received during the growing season. The highest values for biological, grain and straw yields were obtained for accessions collected from Madaba. This variability among collection sites for the studied parameters will assist plant breeders to focus their collection of germplasm to the areas where the maximum diversity for the target character is present. There were highly significant correlation coefficients between grain yield and biological yield, straw yield, number of secondary branches per plant and number of pods per plant. Selection for these characters would improve grain yield. Cluster analysis showed that V. ervilia is mostly used by farmers from Karak region compared to V. sativa which is used in the middle and north parts of Jordan. This can be attributed to the fact that V. sativa needs higher rainfall than V. ervilia. Therefore, V. ervilia is grown in the low rainfall areas. Meanwhile, V. sativa is grown in the higher rainfall areas.


In the fast socio-economic development and an increased in standard of living, many consumers are demanding more organic food and hence causing the organic food market to grow dramatically to serve the need of the consumers. More than three-fourth of consumers perceive that the level of attitude towards organic food products is at medium level and the results reveal that there is significant difference between socioeconomic characteristics of consumers and their attitude towards organic food products. Organic food products are still an emerging thought in Hyderabad and Secundrabad cities, but it has great potential for both marketers and consumers, if the consumers are made to be aware of environmental issues and advantages of organic food products. Therefore, improving consumers' attitudes towards organic consumerism will enhance their willingness to purchase organic food products.


Our obligation as the professional group most concerned with communications systems is to help stimulate the organization of the necessary efforts, the circulation of the existing information, the definition of the problems that must be solved, and the anticipation of the equipment needs. As a necessary step in this direction we call for contributions to the organization of special issues of the TRANSACTIONS on areas of special concern. Three areas have been singled out for immediate work: Problems of Space Communication, Problems of Digital Data Transmission, and Problems of Communications Nets. Suggestions for organization of these issues and contributions in these areas are earnestly solicited. In order to secure an adequate "backbone" for each issue, special review papers are invited and will be sought from likely contributors. Coordination will be effected through the advance publication of outlines of the desired issues in this editorial section of the TRANSACTIONS. An important parting remark is in order. These special issues will not replace regular issues of the TRANSACTIONS. In order to keep up with our fundamental obligation to publish timely contributions that do not fall in these special areas, we shall publish the "special issues" as major sections of regular issues.


Most existing gait recognition methods are appearance-based, which rely on the silhouettes extracted from the video data of human walking activities. The less-investigated skeleton-based gait recognition methods directly learn the gait dynamics from 2D/3D human skeleton sequences, which are theoretically more robust solutions in the presence of appearance changes caused by clothes, hairstyles, and carrying objects. However, the performance of skeleton-based solutions is still largely behind the appearance-based ones. This paper aims to close such performance gap by proposing a novel network model, GaitMixer, to learn more discriminative gait representation from skeleton sequence data. In particular, GaitMixer follows a heterogeneous multi-axial mixer architecture, which exploits the spatial self-attention mixer followed by the temporal large-kernel convolution mixer to learn rich multi-frequency signals in the gait feature maps. Experiments on the widely used gait database, CASIA-B, demonstrate that GaitMixer outperforms the previous SOTA skeleton-based methods by a large margin while achieving a competitive performance compared with the representative appearance-based solutions. Code will be available at https://github.com/exitudio/gaitmixer


A diploid Solanum clone 9507-04 was used to grow anther-derived plantlets that were putatively monoploid. Sixteen RAPD primers were used to observe the RAPD profiles from anther-donor and anther-derived materials. A total of 56 RAPD markers were scored and each marker was identified according to the primer's designation and size (kilo base pairs) of the amplified fragment. Of 56 RAPD markers assayed, 44.6% did not follow the expected 1:1 Me ndelian segregation (χ 2 >4.26, P<0.05) in the anther-derived progeny. The selected six morphological traits also segregated in anther-derived plants including the nine that retained 3-4 of the parental leaf characters. The 12 distortion–causing RAPD markers (χ2=8.89-17.64, P<0.003) with above 84% presence in the progeny were retained in all above nine plants. Such preference of parental markers in potato anther-derived progeny may indicate a linkage with androgenesis.


Global Assessment of Functioning using intraclass correlation coefficients [15] for the therapist and the independent evaluator, ICC (2,1), were 0.51 before and 0.64 after treatment. To reduce bias, the ratings of the independent evaluator were used in the analyses. In the self-reports, target complaints were formulated in operationalized, interpersonal terms and rated on a 0–5 scale. The IIP-C [16] is comprised of a list of 64 interpersonal problems, offering 8 subscales situated around the circumplex: domineering, vindictive, cold, avoidant, nonassertive, exploitable, overly nurturant and intrusive. Cronbach's  before therapy was 0.92. The Symptom Check List-90-R [17] is a 90-item self-report measure of general psychiatric symptomatology with 9 subscales: somatization, obsessivecompulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation and psychoticism. The GSI score is the mean of all items. Cronbach's before therapy was 0.96. The dependent variables were IIP-C and target complaints, residual gain scores. The predictors were 5 variables on 'initial severity' (Global Assessment of Functioning, GSI, and the depression, anxiety and interpersonal sensitivity subscales of the Symptom Check List-90-R) and 11 variables representing 'personality/ interpersonal problems', which are considered to be traits not so amenable to change (presence of any personality disorder or from clusters A and B and IIP-C with 8 subscales). Our selection of potential moderators was motivated by trends in the existing literature of interaction effects in group psychotherapy ( table 1 ). We used hierarchical multiple regression, entering the variables in the following way: patient characteristic, treatment duration and interaction term (patient characteristic ! treatment duration). Thirty-two hierarchical regression analyses were carried out, i.e. the relationship between 16 patient characteristics measured at baseline and 2 outcome variables. We found 8 statistically significant interaction effects (p ! 0.05), which is well beyond what could be expected by chance alone, indicating that patients with severer values on these characteristics would need longer time in treatment in order to change. The interaction links explain 10–27 and 6–9% of the variance (R 2 change) with IIP-C and target complaints as dependent variables, respectively. Cohen [18] defines a standard for effect sizes in linear correlation (r 2 ) and designates an effect size of 0.01 as small, 0.09 as medium and 0.25 as large. Thus, most of the effect sizes in this study are moderate to large, indicating strong interaction effects. Depression seems to be a strong moderator of treatment outcome in interaction with time, meaning that patients with a higher degree of initial depression need a longer time in therapy to change. GSI and interpersonal sensitivity also interact strongly with time, and patients with higher initial distress will need longer time in treatment to improve on interpersonal problems (IIP-C). Patients with a personality disorder in the A and/or B cluster(s) (16 in this sample) also need longer treatment. This is consistent with previous findings that serious personality disorders are difficult to treat and need more time [e.g. 19 ]. All the subscales of the IIP-C that moderate the effect of treatment over time (higher levels of 'nonassertive', 'exploitable' and 'intrusive' require longer therapy to accomplish improvement) The significance of the time factor in psychotherapy is a part of the more general challenge of generating knowledge about patient suitability for different kinds of psychotherapy, both in the individual and the group formats. It is also an aspect of therapy where little research has been done. In a review of group psychotherapy predictor studies from 1952 to 1992, Piper [1] found that 23 out of 83 studies were interaction studies. The patient characteristics studied were different trait-like aspects of personality, like coping style, psychological mindedness, locus of control, ego strength, interpersonal sensitivity [2–6] , and different aspects of symptoms or psychopathology [7–9] . The interacting variables were aspects of the treatments (e.g. desensitization vs. insight, high vs. low structure, interactional vs. coping skills) or therapists (e.g. conceptual levels, attitudes). Except for 1 study that included a long-term therapy [10] , all the studies were on group therapies of very short duration. We also searched psycINFO for group interaction studies from 1992 to 2006 but found no reports of interactive effects of treatment length and patient characteristics. We have previously demonstrated statistically significant change in this sample of 69 outpatients during long-term psychodynamic group psychotherapy [11] . Initial distress and treatment duration were strong predictors of outcome [12] . The aim of this study is to explore interaction effects between treatment duration and patient characteristics. The patients had a mean age of 36 years, 54% were women, 55% single, all employed, and the mean education was 14 years [7–19] . All except 2 had a DSM-III-R diagnosis on axis I, mostly affective (major depression, single episode or recurrent) or anxiety disorders (panic, social phobia, generalized anxiety disorders), and 68% had diagnoses on axis II (2 cluster A, 14 cluster B, 17 cluster C and 14 mixed). The mean pretreatment Global Assessment of Functioning score was 57.5 (4.3), the Global Severity Index (GSI) score 1.13 (0.55) and the Inventory of Interpersonal ProblemsCircumplex (IIP-C) score 1.50 (0.52). The patients were treated in 3 slow-open groups (6–8 members) that met 1.5 h weekly. One male therapist participated in all the groups, and a female cotherapist participated in one of the groups. Group analysis is a psychodynamic approach with focus on intrapsychic and interpersonal events [13] . Members are encouraged to be active and the role of the therapist is de-emphasized. Interventions, including interpretations, are directed to the group as a whole, subgroups or individual members. The patients were diagnosed by 2 evaluators on DSM-III-R, axes I and II [14] , after consensus. The interrater reliability estimates for Published online: July 25, 2008