Co nanoparticles were produced by liquid-phase reduction using N2H4 and propylene glycol without any protective agent. Very small, though polydispersed, spherical Co nanoparticles were prepared by Co reduction using N2H4 in a basic ethylene glycol solution. The nanoparticles appeared to be discrete and wellseparated when dispersed in ethylene glycol. However, they agglomerated to submicron-sized particles when precipitated from the solution. It was also inferred that the reduction of Co by N2H4 was generally very slow, though the reaction was enhanced by an elevated temperature, a high N2H4 concentration, and a large amount of Co. On the other hand, larger but monodispersed quasi-spherical Co particles with sizes between 30 nm to 400 nm were produced in propylene glycol and the particle size was tailored by varying the precursor concentration and by adding nucleating agents such as AgNO3, PdCl2, and H2PtCl6. Increasing the amount of precursor, as well as AgNO3 or PdCl2 nucleation ratios, formed smaller Co particles. In the case of samples with Pt, the particle size remained almost constant in all H2PtCl6 nucleation ratios explored. Even so, the smallest Co particles of 30 – 80 nm in diameters were synthesized with Pt. XRD then showed that both methods produced mixtures of HCP and FCC-Co. Room-temperature magnetic measurements revealed that the Co particles prepared in propylene glycol were all ferromagnetic with a single-domain limit of 61 nm. Thermal oxidation of the samples showed that they were not susceptible to oxidation below 200  ̊C due to the passivation of the impurity layer. Beyond this temperature, the impurity layer decomposed and the Co particles oxidized to Co3O4.


Part 1: Overview and Introduction 1. Introduction Part 2: National Context 2. The Operating System of Spatial Transformation 3. Maoist Plan-Ideological Space 4. Post-Mao Market-Regulatory Space Part 3: Development of the Pearl River Delta 5. Economic and Spatial Transformation 6. Rural Industrialization 7. Transport Development 8. Influence of Hong Kong Part 4: Conclusion and Discussion 9. Summary and Prospects References Index


Chvátal and Erdös showed that a k‐connected graph with independence number at most k and order at least three is hamiltonian. In this paper, we show that a graph contains a 2‐factor with two components, i.e., the graph can be divided into two cycles if the graph is k(≥ 4)‐connected with order at least six and independence number at most k. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Graph Theory 43: 269–279, 2003


HE CHAIRMAN OF THE COLON CANCER T Workshop, in opening the meeting, noted that in the United States among both sexes the incidence of large bowel cancer is greater than that of any other cancer. He noted that no significant progress has been made in the treatment of large bowel cancer and that research on the biology and treatment of this neoplastic disease has been minimal. On the other hand, research in the areas of lymphomas and leukemias has been many times greater; there have been major advances made in the management of these diseases. T h e first presentation was made by Dr. John W. Berg. He noted that large bowel cancer is the most common of the major cancers occurring in the United States, and that the incidence of large bowel cancer in the United States exceeds that of all other nations excepting New Zealand. He noted that the incidence of colon cancer among the Japanese living in Japan is very low, whereas among the second and third generations of Japanese migrants to Hawaii or the continental United States the incidence is approximately the same as that of Caucasians living in the United States. H e


The spectra of heavy quarkonia are studied in two approaches: with the use of the Afonin-Pusenkov representation of the Regge trajectory for the squared excitation energy $E^2(nl)$ (ERT), and using the relativistic Hamiltonian with the universal interaction. The parameters of the ERTs are extracted from experimental mass differences and their values in bottomonium: the intercept $a(b\bar b)=0.131\,$GeV$^2$, the slope of the orbital ERT $b_l(b\bar b) =0.50$\,GeV$^2$, and the slope of the radial ERT, $b_n(b\bar b)=0.724$\,GeV$^2$, appear to be smaller than those in charmonium, where $a(c\bar c)=0.381$\,GeV$^2$, $b_l(c\bar c)=0.686$\,GeV$^2$, and the radial slope $b_n(c\bar c)= 1.074$\,GeV$^2$, which value is close to that in light mesons, $b_n(q\bar q)=1.1(1)$\,GeV$^2$. For the resonances above the $D\bar D$ threshold the masses of the $\chi_{c0}(nP)$ with $n=2,3,4$, equal to 4218\,MeV, 4503\,MeV, 4754\,MeV, are obtained, while above the $B\bar B$ threshold the resonances $\Upsilon(3\,^3D_1)$ with the mass 10693\,MeV and $\chi_{b1}(4\,^3P_1)$ with the mass 10756\,MeV are predicted.


QRS fragmentation is visible in the ECG signal as the presence of one or more deflections, notches or slurs in the QRS complex. The presence of QRS fragmentation is strongly related with the myocardial fibrosis or scarrings and has been associated with adverse outcome in patients. Since detection of fragmented QRS complexes is mainly done on a visual basis, its practical use is limited. We propose an automatic method to detect the QRS fragmentation based on Phase-Rectified Signal Averaging (PRSA). The method calculates the PRSA curve, approximates it with a linear fit and derives four parameters related to the slope and linear fit. Analysis of a dataset from the University Hospitals of Leuven with 268 patients shows that all four parameters are significantly different in fragmented channels compared to normal channels (p<0.001). Furthermore, Cohen's d suggests that three out of four parameters have at least a large effect size (d > 0.8).


High quality weather forecasts are essential to minimizing delays in the National Airspace System. The goal of the Collaborative Storm Prediction System for Aviation (CoSPA) is to provide high resolution, rapidly-updating storm forecasts for air traffic management out to 8 hours. To achieve this goal, CoSPA will optimally blend heuristics and numerical weather prediction models into a unified set of aviation-specific storm forecast products with the best overall performance possible. Convective initiation remains a significant forecasting challenge in CoSPA. Satellite data can provide valuable information to aid forecasting of storm formation, particularly in the early portions of the forecast. This paper will present two techniques that address the use of satellite data to initiate convection in CoSPA. The first technique uses visible satellite and radar data to initiate convection in convective lines. The second technique uses infrared convective initiation interest fields from the SATellite Convection AnalySis and Tracking system to initiate convection in situations with little or no pre-existing radar precipitation.


Foam application of finishing chemicals can yield reduced water add-on and energy savings in fabric-finishing operations. Initial work in a study of foam application of chemicals to wool and wool-blend fabrics is reported. The foam application system used is the Foam Finishing Technology (FFT) System developed by Union Carbide Corporation. It was found that the finishing chemicals could be suitably foamed and applied to the fabrics on lab-scale equipment. Laboratory applications of chemicals for shrinkage resistance and water/oil repellency were made on five fabrics (wool or wool blend) at wet pick-ups from 15 to 30%. Wet-on-wet applications were made as well as applications to dry fabrics. Test results on treated fabrics indicate that foam applications of finishing chemicals by FFT to fabrics of this type are feasible.


Over the past few years, the study of the mechanisms to achieve consensus and synchronization in complex networks has attracted the interest of the Scientific Community. Most of the results on synchronization and consensus are obtained under the assumption that some form cooperation occurs between the nodes. Unfortunately, this assumption is not satisfied in many instances of systems from Nature and Technology. For example, biochemical and social networks are often characterized by some form of antagonism between nodes. The same happens for complex networked control systems where agents need to optimize conflicting utility functions. In this paper, we present new conditions for the onset of synchronization and consensus patterns in complex networks. Essentially, we show that if network nodes exhibit some symmetry, then this can be potentially translated into a synchronization/consensus pattern, where two groups of nodes emerge. Interestingly, the symmetry at the node level is also reflected at the network level as the trajectories of the two groups are related with each other via this symmetry. We also show that our results can be turned into a design tool and offer a systematic methodology to address the problem of designing a network controller that drives the network towards a desired synchronization/consensus pattern.


BACKGROUND
Body composition studies in children have great potential to help understand the aetiology and evolution of acute and chronic. diseases.

AIM
To validate appendicular lean soft tissue mass (LSTM) and fat mass (FM) measured using dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the reference standard, in healthy peri-pubertal adolescents.

DESIGN
Peri-pubertal Caucasian children (n = 74) aged 11-14 years were evaluated. DXA LSTM and FM of the mid third femur were measured and skeletal muscle mass (SM) and FM of the same region were measured on the same day by MRI.

RESULTS
There was a strong correlation between MRI SM and DXA LSTM (r2 = 0.98, index of concordance [C] = 0.91). DXA estimation of LSTM exceeded MRI SM by a mean of 189 g, from 6-371 g (p < 0.0001). The discordance between DXA and MRI significantly increased with the absolute value (r = 0.27; p = 0.024). FM was highly correlated (r = 0.98) with a high index of concordance (C = 0.97).

CONCLUSION
This study validates the use of DXA in LSTM measurement in children, confirming its potential in clinical and research roles in paediatric diseases affecting and related to body composition.


The Scientific factors of marathon are a physiological characteristics of runners, overcoming trial of environmental effect, nutritional and psychological approach, ergogenic aid, effective training, shoes and cloths. These scientific approaches for the improvement of running performance have been applied to the pick up of excellent runner, exercise training, and actual running race. Especially, we must consider the specific determinant factors for actual running race. The specific determinant factors can be devided into the internal factors and the external factors. The internal factors were consisted of physique and physical fitness included to physical, technical, and mental factors. And the external factors were consisted of the coaching capacity, team management, and the support system for runner. The scientific approach on the enhancement of performance included to the application and development of an effective training program and the measurement of physical fitness and character. Many indicators of physique, body shape, body composition, and bone growth have been suggested the genetic analysis of exercise performance. Optimal physique and physiological capacity of marathon runners showed a height of 170 ㎝, a lower body fat of 6-10% for the locomotion, higher levels of percentage of slow twitch fibers, VO₂max, and anaerobic threshold, and muscle power. The many number of candidate genes of marathon running performance were considered as critical factor. Muscle fiber composition was the effective factor of the muscular function. The ACE Ⅱ genotype seems to be related to endurance performance, and other endurance performance genes may include CKMM and mtDNA variants. The application of genetic factors on the improvement of sports performance was focused to the progressing of genotype to phenotype through ergolytic program as the effective training program. Therefore we should do the interesting to overcome the limited factors as environmental condition by the theoretical and scientific training program on the basis of genetic characteristics. In, conclusion, we must consider the complicate factors as biological bases, psychological aspects, genetic determinants, and physical limitation of endurance performance for scientific consideration of improvement in marathon running performance.


.................................................................................................................. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................. iii LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................... v LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................... vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................................... vii DEDICATION .............................................................................................................. ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................


OBJECTIVES
The relationships between alpha-tocopherol, pro-oxidant and antioxidant enzyme status, and radiation toxicity were studied in stage II, III, and IVA oral squamous cell carcinoma patients. The low levels of malondialdehyde and increased activities of antioxidant enzymes were correlated with decreased oxidative stress by alpha-tocopherol in oral cancer patients treated with radiotherapy. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effect of alpha-tocopherol on oxidant-antioxidant enzyme status in oral squamous cell carcinoma patients treated with radiotherapy.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The study included three groups with histologically confirmed oral squamous cell carcinoma patients (untreated), and they were further divided into two groups, viz., one consisting of patients who underwent radiotherapy alone (radiotherapy was given at the dosage of 6000 cGy in five fractions per week for a period of 6 weeks); and the other group treated with radiotherapy plus alpha-tocopherol supplementation (alpha-tocopherol was supplemented at a dosage of 400 IU/day) for the entire period of radiotherapy.

RESULTS
A significant decrease ( P < 0.001) in malondialdehyde levels and increase in activities of antioxidant enzymes ( P < 0.001) in hemolysate were noticed in patients treated with radiotherapy and simultaneously supplemented with alpha-tocopherol when compared to radiation-treated patients.

CONCLUSION
It was seen that alpha-tocopherol played a role in protecting against the damage caused by irradiation in oral squamous cell carcinoma patients treated with radiotherapy, by enhancing the antioxidant enzyme status and reducing the pro-oxidant status.


This study examines a series of records made on mating flight activity of species of the Labidus genus in a forest reserve at Vicosa, Minas Gerais State, Brazil, in the dominium of the Atlantic Forest. Due to an exhaustive sampling effort over 18 years, the males of three species of Labidus were collected at light traps: Labidus coccus, Labidus nero and Labidus praedator, showing that they are the only three species of Labidus existent in the locality. The occurrence of the males of L. nero, as well as two records of L. mars workers were recently made in the same place, let us conclude that Labidus nero (Santschi 1930) is in fact a junior synonym of Labidus mars (Forel 1912).


We demonstrate wet thermal oxidation of an AlAsSb layer lattice matched to an InP substrate. Oxidation in an InGaAs/AlAsSb/InGaAs structure proceeds in a lateral direction, producing an oxide layer embedded between two layers of InGaAs. Auger analysis and Raman spectroscopy indicate conversion of the AlAsSb into an aluminum oxide with an elemental antimony layer at the top oxide‐InGaAs interface. Scanning electron microscope cross‐sectional views of partially and fully oxidized samples are also presented.


According to one embodiment of the invention, according to the rated voltage of the battery is provided with a non-contact electric power, the voltage level of the output power of the variable power reception device, one non-contact power power reception device according to an embodiment of the present invention is a power in a non-contact manner the faucet can charge coil; Rectifying the received power according to the control and optionally rectification / object distributed to a multiple of the voltage level of the rectified power; And according to the selection signal, and a control unit for selectively controlling the operation of the multiplication performed rectifier or rectifying / distributing body.


Background: Legumes are plants that contain edible seeds and belong to the family Leguminosae with varying nutritional benefits to humans and animals. This study aimed to detect and identify toxicogenic molds on some legumes purchased from two local markets in Ho Municipality, Ghana.
Methods: A total of 36 samples, including cowpea (n=9), soybean (n=9), brown bean (n=9), and Bambara bean (n=9) were randomly obtained from 2 local markets in the Volta region of Ghana. Culturing of the legume seeds were done on mycological media using serial dilution technique. Fungal species occurrence was also determined. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26 was used to analyze the data.
Results: Fungal counts on cowpea, soybean, brown beans, and Bambara beans ranged between 1.91 and 2.84 log Colony Forming Units (CFU)/g on both media. There were no statistically significant differences (p>0.05) in the samples from the different vendors. The Moisture Content (MC) ranged between 6.74 and 12.15%, pH ranged between 6.27±0.03-6.53±0.02. A total of 13 fungal species belonging to 7 genera were isolated on SDA and OGYEA media; Aspergillus species (A. niger, A. terreus, A. flavus, A. fumigatus, A. ochraceus, A. parasiticus), Fusarium species (F. oxysporum), Trichoderma harzianum, Rhizopus species (R. stolonifer), Penicillium species (P. digitatum, P. verucosum), Rhodotorula mucilaginosa, and Mucor racemosus were recorded on the legumes.
Conclusion: The presence of some mycotoxigenic fungi in legumes examined in this study showed the potential health hazards in the local people of Ho, Ghana.


Identifying sentiment polarity of a document is a building block of sentiment classification and natural language processing tasks, it aims to automate the prediction of sentiment orientation in a document. In general, recently fast-growing Deep Neural Networks(DNN) method has been extensively used as a sentiment learning approach. But the dominant approach for sentiment classification tasks are recurrent neural networks, in particular LSTM, and convolutional neural networks. However, these architectures are rather shallow in comparison to the Residual Neural Networks(ResNet) which have pushed in computer vision. We present a model using ResNet for high-level document representation, and attention mechanism to capture the crucial components for document. The experimental results show that using up to 2 ResNet block and attention mechanism achieve state-of-the-art performance on three public sentiment classification datasets. Keywords—sentiment classification; attention mechanism; ResNet


Over the past 2 decades, considerable strides have been made in the prevention of mother-to-child HIV-1 transmission. Effective interventions are now available that can reduce in utero and intrapartum mother-to-child HIV-1 transmission even in resourcelimited settings. However, a significant challenge in such settings is transmission of HIV-1 through breast-feeding. In sub-Saharan Africa, where 90% of HIV-1–infected children live, acquisition of HIV-1 through breast milk accounts for as much as 40% of new infections—more than 150,000 new infections annually. The only method to eliminate the risk of breast-feeding–associated HIV-1 transmission is not to breast-feed; this is recommended in settings in which infant replacement feeding is affordable and sustainable, clean water is widely available, hygiene and sanitation conditions are good, and deaths due to diarrhea and other infectious diseases are relatively uncommon. However, this approach is not feasible or safe in many resource-limited countries because of cost, inadequate replacement foods to meet the nutritional needs of the infant, unsafe water supply, and/or low acceptability due to stigma associated with no breast-feeding. In such resource-limited settings, infants of HIV-1–infected mothers who are not breast-fed are at high risk for mortality and morbidity, which can outweigh the risk associated with HIV-1 infection itself. Thus, there has been a critical need to identify strategies to prevent HIV-1 transmission by breast-feeding. Exclusive breast-feeding has been shown to lower the risk of postnatal HIV-1 transmission compared with mixed feeding but does not eliminate risk. Two potential prevention strategies under study in resource-limited settings are provision of antiretroviral drugs to infants exposed to HIV-1 during breast-feeding and provision of combination antiretroviral therapy to lactating women. Several open-label observational studies have provided important suggestive evidence that infant prophylaxis is safe and may reduce breast milk HIV-1 transmission. The Mitra study in Tanzania, published in this issue of Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, evaluated the provision of a short regimen of zidovudine (AZT) and lamivudine (3TC) regimen to the mother from 36 weeks gestation to 1 week postpartum, combined with 1 week AZT/3TC to the infant, followed by administration of daily 3TC to the infant during breast-feeding for a maximum of 6 months. The cumulative infection rate was 3.8% at 6 weeks and 4.9% at 6 months of age. The authors note that the infection rate at age 6 months in the Mitra infants was significantly lower than that observed in breast-feeding infants enrolled in an earlier perinatal trial, the Petra study, in which the same AZT/3TC regimen was given to mother and infant but without extended infant 3TC prophylaxis (overall transmission was 11.9% at age 6 months in Petra). However, the populations are not completely comparable as the median duration of breast-feeding in infants in Mitra was only 18 weeks, whereas the median duration of breast-feeding in the Petra study was


Introduction Full-thickness laparoendoscopic excision could offer an innovative solution for endoscopically irresectible early colonic neoplasia that would otherwise require colectomy. However, accurate preoperative characterisation is needed. This study evaluated the accuracy of CT colonography (CTC) when assessing key anatomical considerations concerning safe laparoendoscopic excision: polyp location in relation to mesenteric vascular supply ('mesenteric versus anti-mesenteric border of colonic wall'), proportion of colonic circumference involved and polyp diameter. Method National ethics committee approval was obtained. Between 2006–2014 consecutive patients undergoing CTC examination prior to colonic resection for complex benign polyps or UICC stage 1 cancer were selected from a colorectal database for retrospective review. CTC examinations were interpreted in consensus by two experienced gastrointestinal radiologists, blinded to postoperative histopathological findings (reference). The percentage of cases accurately located was recorded. Kappa statistic (κ) and Spearman's correlation coefficient (r) were used to compare circumferential involvement and polyp diameter. Results 20 patients with 20 early colonic neoplasms (2 polyps and 18 UICC stage 1 cancers (median diameter 32.5 mm, range 15–80)) were included. 15 were located on the mesenteric border and 5 on the anti-mesenteric border. All 20 polyps were correctly categorised (mesenteric vs antimesenteric). Consensus agreement on interpretation of proportion of wall circumference involvement was good (17/20 cases, κ 0.76). There was excellent correlation for polyp diameter between radiology and reference (r 0.926). Conclusion CTC can accurately define local characteristics of colon polyps and early cancers. This is likely to assist in selecting colonic polyps that are suitable for full-thickness laparoendoscopic excision. Disclosure of interest None Declared.


The objective of this research was to verify the resistance response of eight Brazilian commercial tomato rootstocks to the nematode Meloidogyne mayaguensis. The studied rootstocks were: 'Guardiao', 'Helper-M', 'Anchor-T', 'Dr. K', 'Kagemuscha', 'TMA 809', 'Magnet' and 'He-Man'. The experiment consisted of 9 treatments (8 rootstocks and 'Rutgers' used as susceptible control), with 6 replication. Each plot was constituted by 1 plant per pot, maintained in green-house. The plants were inoculated with 5,000 eggs and second stage juvenile of M. mayaguensis. The experimental design was completely randomized. The evaluation was 60 days after inoculation, when the root weight, gall and egg mass index, nematode number in soil and in root and reproduction factor were evaluated. All studied rootstocks were susceptible to M. mayaguensis.


【Task】 A flotation apparatus is provided, comprising a carrier mounted on the hull, the carrier and the first cover channel portion, and a second cover channel portion, a first air bladder retention slots, the second bladder and has a holding slot. Space is defined between the cover of the elongated having a carrier and a first edge and a second edge, the first edge is freely accepted detachably to the first cover channel portion , second edge is freely accepted detachably to the second cover channel portion. Cover off bladder is freely received within the space and secured to the carrier. Flotation bag is freely received within the space and secured to the carrier. Cover Disconnect bladder and the expansion mechanism that is connected to the flotation bag is inflated both bladders, that the first edge of the cover to substantially expand the are disengaged flotation bag from the first cover channel portion of the carrier it can.


India's unorganized labour force contributes about one third of the total labour sector. The scenario is even worse in the Indian automotive industry which employs a little over 7% on a permanent basis. Problems get exaggerated due to the outdated labour laws, ironically established to support and protect workers. The disappointing areas in the labour contract act and labour laws have led to unfair wage practices and a hostile work environment, giving way to labour discord. This research paper discusses the key issues of labour dissonance in the Indian automobile industry using a Bayesian network analysis. Real-life case-study examples from the Indian automobile industry were considered to identify the rationale behind labour unrest. Bayesian analysis of a set of 250 responses helped us to understand the associations among key attributes of labour dissatisfaction.


In tsarist Russia, the musical legacy and views of Vladimir Ivanovich Rebikov (1866–1920) — the "father of Russian modernism" — were often perceived with irony and misunderstanding, being called quackery and pretentious. In Soviet times Rebikov and his music were simply ignored for a long time, being categorically attributed to musical decadence. Interestingly, the British press spoke of Rebikov in a positive way. The publication of sheet music and frequent concert performances of the composer's music in London, in particular at the Proms in autumn 1916, laid the interest of the British audience in the composer, which lasted throughout the 20th century. And in general, the fate and work of Rebikov turned out to be full of unexpected twists, profound and beautiful, and the looming image of the composer is quite different from the usual one. The analysis of academic publications, as well as viola transcriptions of the distinguished British violists Lionel Tertis and Watson Forbes, hitherto unknown in Russia, is based on archival collections from British libraries.


Pressurised shaft kilns were developed in the 1950s and first introduced to the magnesia industry, in answer to demands for lower fuel consumption, and high burning temperatures and product quality from the calcining process. Martin Grunberger explains how such kilns have developed over the last 50 years, and how, by adopting this technology, bauxite producers can expect to benefit from the same cost and quality benefits experienced by the magnesia industry. Further potential may also exist to extend the use of pressurised shaft kilns to other medium temperature applications, and to minerals such as the sillimanite group and kaolin.


I'm Neither Here nor There, by Patricia Zavella, and A Nation of Emigrants: How Mexico Manages Its Migration, by David Fitzgerald, both focus on Mexican migration and migrants, but their interpretive frames and some of their substantive concerns differ. Four Generations of Norteños, edited by Wayne Cornelius and Scott Borger along with Fitzgerald, elaborates on the perspective and substantive issues addressed in Fitzgerald's book. Zavella focuses on Mexican migrants in Santa Cruz County, California. She draws on life histories, focus groups, participant observation, a survey, and an analysis of performances by cultural activists. She views the migration experience through a neoMarxist feminist lens, highlighting class, gender, and racial forces and overarching power relations that serve to keep migrants impoverished. In particular, she addresses what she calls the new nativism and the racialization of the immigrant experience in constricting migrant opportunities. In this context she describes anti-immigration politics such as the infamous California Proposition 187, which banned unauthorized migrants from access to education and most health services, and other propositions in the late 1980s and 1990s that contributed to criminalization and policing of immigrants, deportations, and militarization of the U.S.-Mexican border. She suggests that the new nativism rests on an "investment in whiteness" reinforced by racial profiling in immigration enforcement since 9/11. She points to contradictions in U.S. immigration policy and to the fact that the 1986 immigration act, designed to reduce immigration, had the unintended effect of fueling first new authorized migration through family reunification and then new unauthorized migration against the backdrop of a downturn in work opportunities in Mexico. Politics aside, in her view there is an underlying economic


This study was conducted in plastic pots to study the effect of organic fertilizer, mineral fertilizer and humic acid on the presence of carbonate minerals in the rhizosphere and bulk soils during the period of plant growth (40, 70 and 100) days after planting for the maize plant. The experiment was designed according to the Complete Randomized Design (C.R.D). The experimental treatments included mineral fertilization (250) kg.N.h-1 for the yellow corn, symbolized by the symbol (M) and organic fertilization (poultry waste) at level (10) tons.h-1 and symbolized by the symbol (O). Humic acid was applied at the level (450) kg.h-1 symbolized by the symbol (H). Yellow corn seeds (Zea mays L.), an American variety (DKC 6120) were planted in plastic pots on the 13th of July 2018. The results present that fertilizer type (mineral, organic and humic acid) plays a big role in the percentage of total carbonate minerals. After the 40-day of planting date in, mineral fertilization was the most effective in reducing the percentage of carbonate minerals compared to other treatments into the rhizosphere area. Its value is statistically greater than the comparison treatment, while the organic matter and humic acid had a role in increasing these minerals. After 70-day of the planting date, the percentage of carbonate minerals with the treatment of humic acid decreased significantly as compared to the treatment of mineral fertilization and the MO and HO treatments. There were no significant differences with the organic fertilization treatment. After 100-day of the planting date in the maize rhizosphere, it is found that the lowest values of the percentage of carbonate minerals were with thetreatment of organic fertilization and with significant differences than the treatments for mineral fertilization and humic acid. The lowest values were with the MO treatment. The results also showed that the percentage of total carbonate minerals decreased as the increase in plant growth times and the highest values were in bulk soil.


EDITOR,—J M McGregor and A R Young highlight important concerns about the ability of sunscreens to prevent skin cancer.1 A further problem with sunscreens may be inappropriate application. We conducted a questionnaire survey of 656 parents of schoolchildren in Glasgow in …


With limited power levels of communication devices, minimizing communication latency is a critical and practical problem in communication networks as it targets to reduce energy consumption thereby prolonging networks' overall lifetime. Particularly, the minimum latency problem for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) has been studied extensively. Also, some approaches for WSNs have been applied to IoTs, considering WSNs to be identical to Internet of Things (IoTs), which is a misnomer. As WSNs are special cases (subsets) of IoTs, existing approaches for specific WSNs can address only the corresponding special cases. Therefore, it is desirable to design optimization algorithms that can adapt not only special cases, but also more general and realistic IoT environments. We discuss the distinction between WSNs and IoTs, and show that the widely used conventional antenna and interference models for WSNs cannot be directly applicable to the general IoTs. Also, we establish new antenna and interference models that opt for IoTs. Furthermore, we comparatively overview and discuss the problems of minimizing latencies of schedules in WSNs and IoTs for four group communication patterns, namely broadcasting, gossiping, data collection, and aggregation. Finally, we conclude with the future research directions.


This thesis examines different aspects of international migration and return migration among Swedish engineers – particularly to and from the United States between 1880 and 1940. The social, geogra ...


Load reducer is a subsurface tool in the oil well.The load reducer can reduce sucker rod stress and polished rod load of pumping unit horse head by hydraulic pressure.The power characteristics and the balance of sucker-rod pumping system were changed with the reduced force produced by the load reducer.According to the system motion law and the balance principle,the pumping system and the counter weight was analyzed with theory.The theoretical calculation combining with the actual working condition,the system balance was adjusted by the result of numerical analysis again.As a result,the energy consumption of rod pumping system is reduced,the production cost is saved and the economic efficiency is improved.


and compare the reactions of various groups. For example, in answer to the statement, "Microforms will be replaced by a form of computerbased or computer-generated technology," a law dean commented, "Optical digital storage will probably replace microforms." Law librarians had a different view: "Microforms as back-up copies should not be replaced," said one; " ... [O]ptical disk technology still has a lot of bugs and computer time is expensive," noted another. Another statement that drew a range of responses: "In the future, intelligent terminals, software, or other forms of computer technology will be used to analyze and channel queries to appropriate databases for information." A scientist commented, "Only stupid people believe in 'intelligent' terminals." A law dean remarked, "But this makes me nervous-as does using a digest," while a law librarian stated the belief that ..... the human mind will never be replaced." For those of us investigating the merits of new services such as EasyNet-which claims to permit the user to query hundreds of databases with a single command language-the remarks are provocative and timely. A twenty-page selected bibliography is included, covering the years 1982-1987, and building on the references given in two previous studies, The Impact of a Paperless Society on the Research Library of the Future by F. W. Lancaster, et aI., published in 1979, and Automation in Libraries: A UTA Bibliography, 1978-1982, compiled by Anne G. Adler, et aI., and published in 1983. Betty Taylor and her colleagues are to be commended for this interesting study. As everyone in law librarianship knows, Ms. Taylor has long been at the forefront of law library automation, and she brings a wealth of experience to her latest effon. The Twenty-First Century is recommended reading for anyone who is interested in the future of academic libraries. Academic law librarians will be particularly intrigued by the re ponses of law deans, whose opinions may indicate topics in the budget debates of the future.


: Since the 21st century, scientific and technological innovation, Talent Gathering and knowledge economy have become the main support of economic and social development. With the accelerating pace of China's reform and opening up, the problem of lack of high-level talents has become increasingly prominent in the economic development. This paper mainly studies the specific measures of Dalian to introduce overseas high-level talents, sorts out the problems and bottlenecks faced by Dalian to introduce overseas high-level talents, and explores new feasible and more localized countermeasures for Dalian to introduce overseas high-level talents.


This document contains three supplemental appendices for the main text. Supplemental Appendix A presents additional theoretical results. Supplemental Appendix B contains some numerical analysis for the econometric procedures proposed in the main text. Supplemental Appendix C contains all proofs. JEL classification: C51, C52, G12. ∗Department of Economics, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708; e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com. †Department of Finance, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208; e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com. ‡Department of Economics, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708; e-mail: email@example.com. Supplemental Appendix A: Additional theoretical results SA.1 Inference when some jumps arrive at deterministic times In this subsection, we extend the results in the main text to a setting where a subset of jump times can be identified using prior information. Examples of such jump events are the ones caused by pre-scheduled macro announcements (Andersen, Bollerslev, Diebold, and Vega (2003)). In a liquid market, one may expect that price jumps "immediately" after the announcement, so that the announcement time can be used to locate the jump time. Pre-scheduled announcement times are deterministic, which, technically speaking, are excluded from model (2.1) that features random jump arrivals. That being said, inference procedures in this paper can be extended straightforwardly to accommodate fixed jump times as we now show. Here, we use the specification test as an example for a detailed illustration. Modifications to other inference procedures are essentially the same and, hence, will be omitted for brevity. Formally, we denote with Nt the number of pre-scheduled announcements before time t. We then extend model (2.1) as follows


Securities analysts' prediction has been a conception which is paid attention to in recent years' concern to the industry and academics, including the relationship between securities analysts' prediction and their characteristics. This paper is aimed to research how securities analysts' prediction influences the market. It is found that the impact capacity is generally weak in the market of China, and the consistency index of all the forecast accuracy indexes is especially important in determining the accuracy and the ability to predict the market.


In this paper the possibilities of modern speaker verification systems have been described. One of the most important tasks is a proper definition of feature vectors. The long-term spectra vector has been chosen as the background for text-independent verification system. The proposed method permits to compare specific features of the current speaker voice with the computer base containing stored vectors of known speakers. As the results, the distances between the vector of unknown person and the vectors of the persons inclined in the base have been obtained. The possibility of hardware realization of some voice processing components has been also discussed.


We present recent results on the effect of crack/pore aspect ratio on seismic wave velocities. Our comparative studies of experimental and theoretical investigations show that the crack/pore aspect ratio may be an important reservoir parameter in fractured and porous rocks. For low-porosity rock, the effect of aspect ratio on velocities at low effective pressure is greater than that of porosity. We found that the change of wave velocities with effective pressure may well be modeled by an extented Biot's theory with the following relationship between aspect ratio and effective pressure: + where is effective pressure, is the initial aspect ratio at zero effective pressure, is the terminal aspect ratio, and is a constant for a given rock. We determine these model parameters for 4 rocks: granite, limestones (Bedford and Leuders), sandstone, having porosities from 0.65% to 21.7%. Variations in velocity with differential pressure correspond with aspect ratio changes from 0.0015 to 0.125. In low-porosity Casco granite, Vp increases with pressure from 3.3 km/s to 6.4 km/s and is associated with more than an 80 fold increase in aspect ratio from 0.0015 to 0.125. The Bedford limestone is populated with fractures and cracks of aspect ratio 0.0085; the Leuders limestone has an average aspect ratio of 0.03. Gulf Coast sandstone has an average aspect ratio of about 0.05. The model results can be used for high-resolution forward modeling and inversion of reservoir properties and to estimate in situ porosity, fluid content, and pore pressure from seismic data.


In a 1982 ruling Right To Choose vs Byrne the New Jersey Supreme Courtn determined that the right to Medicaid funding for necessary abortions is guaranteed by the state constitution. This case exemplifies the growing need for plaintiffs to turn to state constitutions for vindication of rights that have been denied or are likely to be denied by the US Supreme Court where the trend toward expansion of federal constitutional protection for individual rights has slowed in recent years. In deciding Right To Choose as it did New Jersey joins the handful of states that have explicitly found protection for fundamental rights of procreative choice under their own constitutions after federal constitutional protection has been rejected. However 2 important areas of New Jersey jurisprudence equal protection and freedom of religion were not developed by the state supreme court in its analysis of the main issues of the case. The plaintiffs argument regarding equal protection was that the states restriction on the providing of funds only for abortions necessary to protect the life of a pregnant woman was inherently discriminatory. Regarding the matter of freedom of religion the plaintiff centered upon establishing that the belief that life begins at conception is by definition religious in nature reasoning that this was the orginal concern behind criminal abortion statutes. The plaintiff also contended that some women believe that abortion is compelled on religious grounds under certain circumstances. The outcome of this case is laudable but only to the extent that it recognizes the basic inequity resulting from discriminatory funding of health preserving procedures related to pregnancy. What proves troublesome is not the ultimate result reached by the court but its approach to equal protection and religious guarantees by the state constitution.


The main purpose of this research is to look into not only how users evaluate two major databases(BIST and SATURN) of the scientific and technical literature in Korea, but also what users expect from scientific and technical information services in general. The result of the user evaluation shows that there is a very little difference between two databases in database quality. It was found that BIST is better than SATURN in terms of accuracy, customer support, searching capability, and currency, whereas SATURN is preferred to BIST for completeness and the average number of retrieved items. User expectation for scientific and technical information is also investigated by surveying its user community. Among three user groups, there is notable disagreement in language uses to search non-korean literature. Each group also shows different demands for translation of original literature. This study attempted to evaluate the quality of the scientific and technical information (BIST and SATURN) and simultaneously to investigate users demands in general. By doing so, the specificity implied in quality evaluation of specific information services as well as the generalization of the users behaviors in scientific and technical community were accommodated in this study.


This article reviews the current state of music education in Victoria in terms of both past and present issues. It is argued that many of these issues are the result of change and stasis that have occurred over the past 150 years of school music in Victoria. The principal issues that confront the present generation of music educators and policy makers are the role and place of music in school education and the provision of music teachers for government schools. Both of these issues are discussed in terms of the historical development of music in Victorian schools and it is demonstrated that many of the problems associated with these issues are either cyclical in nature, or have been endemic and simply never adequately addressed. It is suggested that one of the principal challenges to be faced in the government school sector at present is to retain the integrity of music as a discrete subject area in face of the current trend towards a generically-based arts curriculum. There is often a tendency in education to adopt an overly critical and even pessimistic approach to what are perceived as long-standing and seemingly insolvable problems. However, a counter-balancing factor is the rich heritage of Victorian music education which provides the basis for a more optimistic outlook. An important aspect of this heritage is the example of many outstanding music educators in Victoria and elsewhere. It is argued that a knowledge of such past achievements as well as a fuller appreciation of the historical development of music education policies and practices should provide a more informed and rational basis from which to decide the future course of music education in Victoria.


In this papet,the problems of using the ZSM1756A-type linear vibrating screen are discussed and researched,and in which find a way to solve them.After the technical transformation,a good result has been achieved in practice.


In this study, a method that was developed for the solution of the problem that is faced in the subject of spatializing of quarters in Ottoman cities is handled and the trial of this method in Kayseri is put into practice. In this context, firstly, the case of Ottoman cities and quarter was handled, then the method that was developed for the solution of the problem that was come across in spatializing of quarters was presented and lastly the trial of this method was put into practice in Kayseri city. Therefore, the quarters of Kayseri belonging to the years 1500, 1543, 1655 and 1872 got a locality


In previous work we demonstrated discrimination of natural background and manmade objects using low resolution synthetic aperture radar imagery is possible using singular value decomposition (SVD) methods applied to magnitude only imagery. For this work we use a subset of the multiscale autoregressive (MAR) model coefficients, and a subset of eigenvectors, all from complex imagery as features for target discrimination. The "optimal" set of features used to classify a region as "background clutter only" or "target region" is automatically chosen by a standard suboptimal feature selection algorithm. Additionally we use a support vector machine (SVM) for target discrimination and present preliminary results.


The switching properties of the ZrO2-based RRAM device are investigated. The endurance distributions can be improved by inserting a ZnO thin film with the non-stoichiometric property between top electrode and ZrO2 layer. The ZnO/ZrO2 double layer device with the 2 nm ZnO layer exhibits good memory performances, such as stable DC endurance up to 10 4 cycles , good retention ability (>10 5 s) at temperature of 150 o C with a memory window higher to 150 times.


This paper reports on the first stage of an ongoing research project: how three Canadian adult education programs, which share the common mission of providing access to the study of the liberal arts for non-traditional adult learners, have evolved over the past few years. We consider both the commonalities and variances across the programs to understand how each iteration's socio-political context has informed their interpretation of the common mission. Introduction For the past seven years, from September to May, adult learners from the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver have taken the bus twice a week to the University of British Columbia (UBC) to learn about such topics as the Philosophy of Plato, Art History and Canadian Literature. During these same months, Eastern Religions or the History of Southern Alberta might be the focus for learners who study twice a week through a program sponsored by the Mustard Seed street agency and St. Mary's University College in Calgary. Finally, twenty to thirty students come together in a University of Ottawa classroom and in the basement of First Baptist Church in downtown Ottawa to grapple with courses such as Contemporary Issues in Ethics or Critical Thinking Skills. These adult learners have widely varied characteristics that often include the following: an experience with homelessness, low-income, social isolation, long-term physical or mental illness and/or past negative experiences with the formal learning environment. While they share the common challenge of living below the poverty line, the majority of them have the ability to read a newspaper and most importantly they all have deep-seated passion for learning. For many of these learners this first taste of university is life changing. The course stoked Sharpe's thirst for learning. He devoured assignments, prowled the computer lab and university library stacks. As his confidence grew, Sharpe began to regain a foothold on his life. He started a running club in the Downtown Eastside and pressed Humanities 101 administrators to help him enter UBC as a regular student. (Pfeiff, 2003, p.122) For Tom, his dreams changed. He has an identity again. He is a student and that's really important. Before he had no hope, no dreams, and he spiraled downward. Now he has an identity, a future and he is beginning to trust. At Storefront 101 in Calgary, "these people care about me and I was beginning to trust"(Participant transcript). Three Canadian programs, Humanities 101 in Vancouver, Storefront 101 in Calgary and Discovery University in Ottawa, all grew from an idea that was developed by journalist and social critic Earl Shorris (1997). After researching the underlying causes of poverty in the United States, he became passionate about the pathway the studies of the liberal arts provided for those disenfranchised adults within our society. Because Shorris was so convinced about the link between access to the liberal arts and an inclusive just society, he developed an inaugural course, entitled the Clemente course, in downtown New York, which focused on Plato and Philosophy. His philosophical premise is demonstrated in the following statement: "The humanities are a foundation for getting along in the world, for thinking, for learning to reflect on the world instead of just reacting to whatever force is turned again you. I think the humanities are one of the ways to become political ... if you want real power, legitimate power, the kind that comes from the people and belongs to the people, you must understand politics. The humanities will help" (Shorris, 1997, p. 6). His motivations as well as his reflections on launching this first course were profiled in an article Shorris wrote for Harper's magazine in 1997 launching a proliferation of programs both in the United States and internationally. Across Canada, news of Shorris' Clemente program struck a chord and there were those who were so moved they felt compelled to create such a program in their own community. Two students at UBC, a community developer with the City of Calgary and a minister and a few members in a downtown church in Ottawa felt a common compulsion to rectify the imbalance of access to the study of the humanities believing in its radical nature to empower learners. This study reports on the first stage of an ongoing research project: how three programs, while sharing a common purpose, commenced and evolved independently over the past few years. We consider both the commonalities and variances across the programs to understand how each iteration's socio-political context has had an impact on the interpretation of the common mission: providing access to post-secondary education for non-traditional learners. Review of the Literature The over-arching philosophy of the Clemente program, common to all iterations in this study, is its orientation toward critical theory in working toward radical societal change. "Program planners influenced by radical education seek social, political and economic change in society or in their organization." (Rothwell and Cookson, 1997, p. 71). Iterations of the Clemente program represent a broader discourse in adult education; the challenge to move beyond the instrumental provision of programs. In her critique of adult education Cunningham (1993) compelled us to reach beyond the vocational thrust of our field where, "learning for earning is the goal" (p. 3) and to focus on education that creates a "strong civil society, which promotes the full participation of its citizens" (p. 6). However as already indicated, despite the common agenda of societal change, these three iterations of the Clemente program represent the socio-political contexts of their respective communities. Indeed, as Cervero & Wilson (1994) indicated, adult educators always plan programs in context defined by a concrete set of power relationships and associated interests. Like Cervero & Wilson (1996) we believe that an educational program is never produced by a single planner acting outside of an institutional and social context. Rather these programs are produced by people with multiple interests working in specific institutional contexts that profoundly affect their context and form. By locating each of the iterations of the Clemente program within its social context, we are able to map and compare the complex world of human and institutional interests (Habermans, 1971). Emphasizing the contextual dimensions (Sork, 2000) of each program assist us in understanding the socio-political context of each iteration of the Clemente program. Such dimensions include organizational or social settings in which planners work; the sociopolitical environment; economic values and priorities; physical facilities; the policy framework; history and traditions; the role of education; and cooperative and competitive relationships (p. 181). Research Design Case study methodology was chosen for this research because it is complex and multilayered and is particularly useful for its rich description and heuristic value (Yin, 1994). In addition, "when more than one case is studied, the researcher can conduct cross-case analyses for comparison purposes" (Rossman & Rallis,2003, p. 104-105). As a case study inquiry, this project relies on a variety of techniques for data gathering including a demographic survey instrument for students across the three programs, document analysis, individual interviews and focus groups with a variety of participants within each of the programs. While the complete process of data collection is occurring over a two-year period, this paper reports on phase one of the research project. Phase one involved documenting the three regional programs' history, values, mandates, contexts, clients and program delivery. Program documents were reviewed and key informants, such as coordinators, committee members, tutors and learners were interviewed In developing both the profile of each program and the initial cross-program analysis, we used two program planning approaches. "A Question Based Approach to Planning" by Sork (2000) served as our central framework. As we focused on Sork's first question, "what is the context and learning community?" we incorporated the first component of Caffarella's (2002) "Interactive Model of Program Planning." This component, examining the organizational and wider context for programs, provided us with the necessary scope and depth to locate each program within its socio-economic context. In the following we present our preliminary thematic analysis.


1 alpha,25-Dihydroxyvitamin D3 [1 alpha,25 (OH)2D3] has antiproliferative, differentiation and apoptosis-inducing effects on many malignant cells. These properties have raised the possibility of its use as a therapeutic agent in cancer. Our recent studies using stereoisomers of the A-ring of monohydroxylated 19-nor or 2-methyl substituted 1 alpha,25 (OH)2D3 have clearly demonstrated that the A-ring analogs that contain 1 alpha-hydroxy or 3 beta-hydroxy group are potent inducers of HL-60 cell differentiation. In contrast, the A-ring analogs that contain 1 beta-hydroxy or 3 alpha-hydroxy group are potent stimulators of HL-60 cell apoptosis. It was interesting to note that the analogs could induce differentiation or apoptosis of HL-60 cells on the basis of the stereochemistry of both hydroxy groups at positions 1 and 3 of the A-ring. To further elucidate the possible roles of both the hydroxy groups in regulating cell differentiation and apoptosis, we have synthesized all possible diastereomers of the A-ring of 1 alpha,25 (OH)2D3 and examined their molecular mechanism of differentiation and apoptosis-inducing actions of HL-60 cells in vitro. This study shows that differentiation and apoptosis of HL-60 cells are strictly controlled by the stereochemistry of both hydroxy groups at positions 1 and 3 of the A-ring of 1 alpha,25 (OH)2D3, and the proteins responsible for the regulation of cell cycle and mitochondrial membrane potential are the major targets of 1 alpha,25 (OH)2D3 analogs. These findings provide useful information not only for structure-function studies of 1 alpha,25 (OH)2D3 analogs but also for the development of therapeutic agents for the treatment of cancer.


ABSTRACT This qualitative study explores the possibilities of reframing multicultural teacher education in the context of critical cosmopolitanism. I examine the ways in which 34 pre-service and in-service teachers learn to teach diversity and multicultural issues in their curriculum. I use three sets of coursework materials, including course discussions, small group presentations, and midterm and final papers to investigate their conceptualisations of diversity and equity issues in education. I present two salient themes as they reframe to teach diversity by reviewing both local and global conflicts: (a) analysing the frame of recognition and (b) revisiting the notions of self-other and interrelationality. Butlerian theory of recognisability provides an important theoretical and pedagogical approach for exploring the conditions of recognition as liveable life, rather than focusing on what works best for increasing teachers' cosmopolitan awareness. Teacher education programmes could benefit from critical cosmopolitanism when implementing a theoretical and pedagogical strategy for teaching diversity within a global context.


Image segmentation is a low-level processing operation; it is the basis for many applications such as industrial vision and medical imaging. Segmentation provides a partition of the image by gathering pixels with similar grey levels in the same class. The main problem of this algorithm is that it does not take into account the image topology; it is based only on the pixels values. Thus, it is very sensitive to noise and inhomogeneities in the image moreover, it remains dependent on the initialization of the cluster centers. In general the clustering algorithm chooses the initial centers in a random manner but the cluster centers initialization, using "Expectation Maximization" algorithm allows an optimal choice of these centers. To account for the topology of the image, the statistical parameters of a window around the pixel are considered. These a priori are used in the optimization of the cost function. The application to MRI images from the Brain Web public database, with different noise levels, shows the performance of the proposed approach.


Hematopoiesis is the body's way of making the cellular constituents of blood. Oxygen transport, response to infections, and control of bleeding are among the functions of diierent mature blood cells. These speciic functions are acquired as cells mature in the bone marrow. Stem cells are the \master cells" at the top of this pedigree, having within them the capacity to reconstitute the entire system. While the latter stages of hematopoiesis are fairly well understood, the functioning of stem cells and other multi-potential cells is currently a matter of intense research. This paper presents a statistical analysis providing support for the clonal succession model of early hematopoiesis. J. L. Abkowitz and colleagues at the University of Washington have developed an experimental method for studying the kinetics of early hematopoiesis in a hybrid cat. The essence of the method is to analyze G6PD, an enzyme linked to the X-chromosome. The G6PD type of a cell forms a binary marker that is passed down to all its descendant cells. Data record time series of proportions of one G6PD type in cells from the bone marrow, providing information about the number and lifetime of unobservable stem cells. Studies were performed after the autologous transplantation of G6PD heterozygous cats with limited numbers of hematopoietic stem cells. Preliminary analysis of the observed proportions indicates that under these circumstances the proportion of cells with one type of G6PD is not constant over time. A simple stochastic model is used to quantify the relationship between observed proportions and unobserved stem cell populations. The model has a hidden-Markov structure. We develop parameter estimates, conndence sets, and goodness-of-t tests for this model. For our simple model, a recursive updating algorithm allows computation of the multi-modal likelihood functions. A similar algorithm produces estimates of the realized Markov process. The parametric bootstrap is used to calibrate likelihood-based conndence sets and to perform simple 1 goodness-of-t tests. We address the question of whether stem cells have a constant proliferative potential between cats, and we discuss criticisms of the simple model. The bone marrow of humans and other vertebrata contains a relatively small number of remarkable cells, the hematopoietic stem cells. Through replication and diierentiation, these cells produce all the diierent kinds of blood cells: red cells which transport oxygen throughout the body; white cells which form the immune defense; and platelets which initiate clotting. A human creates 3-10 billion platelets, red cells, and …


Introduction: Social media are being used as spaces for political debate with the purpose of enhancing interaction and participation between political actors and society. This article analyses the construction of such political narratives on Facebook from the perspective of the concept of "Engagement 2.0". Methods: Quantitative and qualitative approaches are used to explore the new political storytelling on Facebook, focusing on the discourses published on Facebook by Pablo Iglesias and Íñigo Errejón during the second Podemos citizen assembly, also known as Vistalegre 2, and the reactions expressed by citizens through the comments they made on this social network. Results and conclusion: The results suggest the emergence of a political narrative where the citizen, in addition to changing its traditional role, powers new flows of information under the sender-receiver formula, becoming the true protagonist in these new digital political narratives. RLCS, Revista Latina de Comunicación Social , 72 – Pages 849 to 860 Research| DOI: 10.4185/RLCS, 72-2017-1196| ISSN 1138-5820 | Year 2017 http://www.revistalatinacs.org/072paper/1196/46en.html Página 850


Structural engineers and asset managers rely on measurable parameters developed by researchers to predict residual load-bearing capacities of corroding in-service RC structures as well as to assess repair-effectiveness. Unfortunately, laboratory research that was used to develop these measurable parameters varied between researchers and in most cases, did not represent in-service conditions. As a result, they found different relations between measurable and non-measurable parameters which are unsafe and/or engineers find difficult to apply to in-service structures. A holistic research that emulates in-service conditions was therefore developed. Its objectives were to provide structural engineers and asset managers with moreuseful measurable parameters for performance of corroding and repaired RC structures. Parameters that were looked at were corrosion crack widths and longitudinal strains together with their derivatives. To best represent in-service conditions, two sequential corrosion processes were used; firstly accelerated corrosion by impressing an anodic current followed by natural steel corrosion, mostly after repairs. Accelerated corrosion was divided into two processes; one with four-day wetting cycles with salt solution followed by two-day drying cycles and another where four-day drying cycles were used instead. Large mass losses of steel were found when long drying cycles were used. Since it is more representative of in-service conditions, it was recommended that laboratory tests on steel corrosion should entail long drying cycles. Natural steel corrosion after FRP repairs had a maximum rate of 66 μA/cm. However, no further corrosion was found after patch repairs. Load-bearing capacity reduced with an increase in the level of steel corrosion. It was related to maximum mass loss of steel instead of average mass loss. It was shown that 1% mass loss of steel reduced load-bearing capacity by 0.8%. Patch repairs did not significantly increase the capacity of corroded beams. However, a significant increase (up to 50%) in load-bearing capacity was recorded after FRP repairs. From results on natural steel corrosion and load-bearing capacity of repaired beams, it was recommended that repair of corroded RC structures should entail combined patch and FRP repairs.


We consider electric conductance through a narrow nanochannel in the thick-double-layer limit, where the space-charge Debye layers adjacent to the channel walls overlap. At moderate surface-charge densities the electrolyte solution filling the channel comprises mainly of counterions. This allows to derive an analytic closed-form approximation for the channel conductance, independent of the salt concentration in the channel reservoirs. The derived expression consists of two terms. The first, representing electromigratory transport, is independent of the channel depth. The second, representing convective transport, depends upon it weakly.


This paper describes two methods for constructing word graphs for large vocabulary continuous speech recognition. Both word graph methods are based on a time-synchronous, left-to-right beam search strategy in connection with a tree-organized pronunciation lexicon. The first method is based on the so-called word pair approximation and fits directly into a word-conditioned search organization. In order to avoid the assumptions made in the word pair approximation, we design another word graph method. This method is based on a time conditioned factoring of the search space. For the case of a trigram language model, we give a detailed comparison of both word graph methods with an integrated search method. The experiments have been carried out on the North American Business (NAB'94) 20,000-word task.


Abstract The kinetics of the consecutive H–D exchange reactions between methane and deuterated acid FAU- and MFI-type zeolites was studied with on-line mass spectrometric product analysis, in the temperature range 450 to 550°C. On both zeolite types, the rate constant of H–D exchange increases with decreasing Al content. At the same Al content, the reaction rate constant of MFI is ca. three times larger than that of FAU, showing that chemical composition and structural effects are important in determining the rate of exchange. The apparent activation energy is in the range 122–150 kJ/mol, independent of the Al content and structure type. A kinetic isotope effect of approximately 1.7 was found, which is in disagreement with the earlier proposed concerted reaction mechanism (G. J. Kramer, R. A. van Santen, C. A. Emeis, and A. K. Nowak, Nature 363 , 529, 1993).


Introducti on: The 1433 – protein gro up is formed by seven isotope signal molecules. The exact functi on of these molecules is not known yet. Detecti on of the ßsubunit of the 1433 protein in cerebrospinal fl uid is one of the most important paraclinical markers in sporadic Cre utzfeldtJakob dise ase (sCJD) di agnostic procedure. This marker is not specifi c and its specifi city and sensitivity are infl uenced by the timing and technical aspects of sampling and especi ally by proper indicati on. Methods: Protein 1433 detecti on was performed by a standardized method using western blot with chemoluminiscent detecti on of ßsubunit in cerebrospinal fl uid samples from pati ents with clinical suspecti on of CJD. Results: 57 cerebrospinal fl uid samples were 1433 – positive and 20 were we akly positive from all 280 samples in total. From the total number (275) of pati ents, 62 were examined ne uropathologically (22%) post mortem. In 25 cases and in six we akly positive cases of 1433 positivity, pri on dise ase of CJD type was proven on a utopsy. In other 18 CJD a utopsy proved cases, nevertheless, the 1433 protein was evalu ated as negative. In two cases of 1433 positivity and in two we akly positive cases a different ne uropathological substrate than pri on dise ase was fo und. Conclusi on: Our results correspond to previ o usly published data, where a predictive value in ßsubunit of protein 1433 detecti on in CSF is discussed. In comparison to recent publicati ons both sensitivity and specifi city of 1433 protein detecti on for CJD di agnosis is signifi cantly lower in o ur pati ent gro up. This observati on can be infl uenced by o ur small pati ent gro up. Nevertheless, a positive fi nding of protein 1433 in the cerebrospinal fl uid is one of the requirements for CJD di agnosis according to WHO di agnostic criteri a. Beca use of its relatively low specifi city it is important to consider the relevance of 1433 positive test in e ach particular clinical case. R. Matěj, J. Nováková, J. Fiala, F. Koukolík, R. Rusina 1 Národní referenční laboratoř pro diagnostiku lidských prionových chorob při Oddělení patologie a molekulární medicíny, Fakultní Thomayerova nemocnice s poliklinikou, Praha 2 Neurologická klinika IPVZ a Fakultní Thomayerova nemocnice s poliklinikou, Praha MUDr. Radoslav Matěj, Ph.D. Národní referenční laboratoř lidských prionových chorob Oddělení patologie a molekulární medicíny Fakultní Thomayerova nemocnice s poliklinikou Vídeňská 800 140 59 Praha 4-Krč e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com Přijato k recenzi: 14. 8. 2008 Přijato do tisku: 18. 9. 2008 Klíčová slova protein 1433 – pri onová onemocnění – Cre utzfeldtovaJakobova nemoc – ne uropatologi e – di agnostika


The direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation model of this brief is based on deviation compensation model with input noise, and the performance of the traditional Least mean square (LMS) adaptive algorithm shows poor performance. Instead, total least squares (TLS) algorithm is widely used in models which contains input noise. Therefore, we present TLS algorithm for DOA estimation, which is used to update weight coefficient by searching the peak of the spatial spectrum to estimate the direction of the angle of arrival. Due to the unsatisfactory DOA estimation performance on fixed step algorithms, a variable step-size gradient descent total least-squares (VSS-GDTLS) is proposed. The variable step size strategy is derived by applying the instantaneous augmented weight vector and the estimated signal power. Moreover, the convergence of the proposed algorithm is analyzed. Finally, simulation results show the superiority of the VSS-GDTLS algorithm than GDTLS and the other adaptive algorithms.


FIELD: radio engineering, communication. SUBSTANCE: relay module comprises a receiver, a first transmitter connected to a wireless relay network a second transmitter connected to an internet-accessible wireless communication, and a controller. The controller determines whether the internet-accessible wireless communication network is accessible. If accessible, then medical device data are transmitted to a remote device over that network using the second transmitter. If not accessible, then the first transmitter is used to transmit medical device data to another wireless relay module over the wireless relay network. Additionally, the controller analyses the medical device data to determine whether a critical condition exists, and transmits the medical device data to an emergency service if such condition occurs together with location data for an associated medical device. EFFECT: high rate of data transmission. 18 cl, 8 dwg


The availability of huge amounts of data in recent years have led users to being faced with an overload of choices. The outcome is a growth on the importance of recommendation systems due to their ability to solve this choice overload problem, by providing users with the most relevant products from many possible choices. For producing recommendations, things like a user's psychological profile, their browsing history and movie ratings from other users can be considered. To determine how strongly two user's behavior are related to each other, a Pearson correlation coefficient value is often calculated. In this paper, we study the recommendation system on a proposed cloud based environment to produce a list of recommended movies based on a user's profile information. Based on the Software-as-aService (SaaS) model implemented, we discuss the concepts such as collaborative filtering and content-based filtering. Given a MovieLens data-set, our results indicate that the proposed approach can provide a high performance in terms of precision, and generate more reliable and personalized movie recommendations, when given a greater number of movies rated by a user. An evaluation was done under minimal known data, which commonly leads to the cold-start problem. KEywoRdS Collaborative Filtering, Content Filtering, Pearson Correlation Formula, Recommendation Systems


Summary Preben Lindoe, 'Entrepreneurs or Social Change Agents? Findings from a Socio-Economic Development Programme', Forum for Development Studies, No. 1–2, 1994, pp. 249–268. The article discusses the implementation and effects of a socio-economic programme, designed for 'Out-of-School Youth'. The main intention is to strengthen the productive sector so as to improve living conditions for the poorest inhabitants in the Philippines. The programme model is first described, followed by reports and analysis of the experiences with the programme implemented in three Philippine regions. The programme has had an impact not only in developing entrepreneurs and micro-enterprises, but also in promoting social entrepreneurs as agents of change in the society. The case shows the need to focus on the contextual situation, the complexity in the goal-setting process, the ethical dilemmas and the redesign phase.


With the rapid development of Electrical and Computer Engineering Technology, there is a lag for the traditional laboratories to keep up with the modern industry requirement. Although there are many applications of new technologies such as MultiSim, Xilinx, and etc. that have been introduced to classroom, they may only influence one or two courses. The lack of consistent in learning creates new problems in the curriculum. To address this concern, four faculty members in the Engineering Technology department at Prairie View A&M University proposed to revamp the current Engineering Technology undergraduate lab courses with LabVIEW, aiming to improve the delivery of laboratory and corresponding lecture contents through virtual instruments and graphical tools, inspiring students' interests in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subject by accessing the latest innovations, and strengthening their marketability upon graduation. LabVIEW is a powerful industrial standard graphical development environment developed on a novel concept of virtual instrumentation, which utilizes computer technologies in combination with flexible software and modular hardware to create interactive computer-based instrumentation solutions. Also NI provides a standard academic educational product of ELVIS. With such a multi-functional platform, as well as many third-party compatible products, the same platform can be used in a wide variety of subjects including circuit, electronics, digital logic, network analysis, digital hardware, robotics, control, microcontroller, and DSP. Based on the consistent platform of ELVIS and LabVIEW, a sequence of lab courses in both Computer Engineering Technology and Electrical Engineering Technology programs can be developed, from freshmen, sophomore level courses, all the way to junior and senior level courses. Totally there are eleven courses to be revamped, including DC Circuit Lab, AC Circuits Lab, Electronics I Lab, Basic Electronics II Lab, Digital Logic Circuits Lab, Network Analysis Lab, Robotics Lab, Digital Hardware Lab, Control System Lab, Microcontroller Lab, and DSP lab. Through such a plan, all the students will receive enough training on the latest innovative equipment. Also the undergraduate curriculum of Engineering Technology department at PVAMU will be strengthened by the according lab courses.


ABSTRACT: Tire tread wear is a key issue in the tire development process and for tire customers. In order to measure the wear performance, tire manufacturers usually proceed to wear tests and calcu...


The thermal simulation compression tests of 7A04 aluminum alloy were conducted at 350-450℃ with the strain rate of 0.01-10s-1 on the Gleeble thermal simulation test machine.Based on hyperbolic sine relations of peak stress,the thermal deformation activate energy Q of 7A04 aluminum alloy was determined.Based on Sellars model and work hardening rate θ,the critical strain constitutive model of dynamic recrystallization was established.The results show that comparisons between the simulated and experimental results are satisfactory and the constitutive model of critical strain could be used for indicating the beginning of dynamic recrystallization for 7A04 aluminum alloy.


Indirect adaptive control problem in closed loop time-varying linear system is addressed. Small random test signals are added to the plant's inputs in order to identify and track its parameters. The noise is assumed to be unknown but bounded. It may not have good statistical properties which is the case in many applications. Simulation example of non minimum-phase plant of second order is provided.


Lyophilized YAG gel, synthesized by the coprecipitation technique, has been sintered to transparency by spark plasma sintering method at 1500°C. Whereas conventionally dried gels show large agglomerates, over 1 µm, powders from lyophilized gels show no agglomeration with an average particle size below 100 nm. The absence of agglomerates affects on the optical properties of the sintered materials: conventionally dried powders are opaque after sintering, whereas 0.8 mm thick transparent YAG materials with in-line transmittances close to 60% at 680 nm and over 80% in the infrared range have been obtained for the lyophilized gels.


WAR as a vehicle and Sport Is War as a conceptual metaphor (CM) seem inadequate to account metaphorically for SPORT. To cater for an inclusive vehicle/CM, we selected WIN and LOSS lexicon from the news coverage of Brazil's football team loss to Germany and tested them through the Corpus of Contemporary American English. Then, the data were studied through the 3 stages of metaphor research. In the identification stage, the metaphorical use of the WIN and LOSS lexicon was determined through metaphor identification procedure. In the interpretation stage, the metaphors were revealed to be recontextualized from discourses like war, earthquakes, floods, landslides, and the like. Then, on the basis of a generic source for such discourses, TERRITORY as a vehicle and A Sport Field Is a Territory as a CM were proposed. Finally, in the explanation stage, the ideological implications of the proposed vehicle/CM were argued on the discourse reproduction of Brazil's problems.


I n his experimental and ambitious essay collection, Black Gay Man, Robert ReidPharr details what is means to be a Black gay man in the late twentieth century in the context of historical, ideological, and professional realities that often constrain minority life in the United States. In the midst of evaluating the social significance of intimate relations, he makes the assertion that I use for the epigraph of this essay: "I have acquired this ill-fitting masculinity at considerable cost." Reid-Pharr describes his masculinity as "ill-fitting" because it moves beyond the accepted boundaries of gender expression for men by overlapping with and being connected to feminine expression. He chronicles a masculinity aligned with femininity. In his assessment, this connection to femininity can feel liberating because it encourages the process of "creatively refashioning one's humanity"—his refusing to limit his body to one kind of expression; but it also makes him vulnerable to negative attention, in public and in private. Those who transgress the traditional lines between masculinity and femininity often incur the wrath of others— even though those lines are always ill defined. In describing his sense of his own identity, Reid-Pharr reveals a recurring backand-forth between the possibility of freedom and the risk of injury that the proactive linking of masculinity and femininity yields for some gay men. I refer to this experience of dual possibilities as queer contingency; it describes a constant state of uncertainty that derives from the transgression of the protocols of gender expression. Reid-Pharr points to the vulnerability that queer men who align with femininity often face, but he also recognizes how it can be empowering at times. Non-normative identities and means of expression make possible feelings of liberation, but they also introduce risk for individuals in the social world and at home. The simultaneity of vulnerability and empowerment, and the uncertainty of which will prevail at any given moment, constitutes the terrain of queer contingency. In this essay, I focus on the lives and cultural productions of Sylvester and RuPaul to advance this concept of queer contingency. I argue that we can look to their lived experiences and art to understand both the costs and benefits of constructing masculinity with and through femininity. Through these artists, we see the manifestation of queer contingency. Like the cultural critic Reid-Pharr, Sylvester and RuPaul articulate a masculine identity that refuses the presumed division between masculinity and femininity on stage and in their everyday encounters. In addition, these performers also demonstrate how those who exhibit feminine-aligned masculinity occupy a space that is unpredictable in terms of trajectory of experience. In his assessment of the challenges of queer life, cultural critic Phillip Brian Harper explains, "because [racial and sexual] minority


Loss of pancreatic β cell mass, identity, and function contribute to the development of diabetes. Here, we show that the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) calcium sensor, stromal interaction molecule 1 (STIM1), is critical for the maintenance of β cell function in female mice. When mice with β cell-specific deletion of STIM1 (STIM1Δβ) were challenged with high-fat diet, β cell dysfunction was observed in female, but not male, mice. Impaired glucose tolerance was accompanied by reductions in β cell mass, a concomitant increase in α cell mass, and significant reductions in the expression of markers of β cell maturity, including MafA and UCN3. Mechanistic assays demonstrated that the sexually dimorphic phenotype observed in STIM1Δβ mice was due in part to loss of signaling through the noncanonical 17-β estradiol receptor, GPER1. Together, these data suggest that STIM1 orchestrates pancreatic β cell function and identity through GPER1-mediated estradiol signaling.


Reading the local newspapers in Amargo and Evergreen City did not help citizens make connections between politics and everyday life, did not help them learn about the art of political debate, and inadvertently discouraged them from speaking out in a public-spirited way. Far from the sober gray world of national news, the world of local news is simultaneously lurid and down-home. The news in local Amargo and Evergreen papers was a rushing stream of unpredictable, curious, and scary events that happen to other people, usually elsewhere – lost children in other states, Siamese twins some-where who ride a bicycle built for two, freak poisonings, the random, and the weird – and advice about cholesterol, dogs, yard care, consumer advice on brands of cough drops and local shopping. That is, the local papers were mainly tabloids with tamer headlines (Bird 1990) plus consumer gazettes. Still, they did cover many local events, using serious local reporters, and they devoted two pages per issue to national and international news. And they were most people's source of news, aside from TV – everybody I met who read newspapers read either the Amargo Herald or the Evergreen Country Times . Every now and then, a few activists and cynics read nearby city newspapers, but those papers rarely had news about suburbs. No one read national newspapers such as The New York Times, Washington Post , or Los Angeles Times .


Phototriggered bond cleavage has found wide application in chemistry as well as in biology. Nevertheless, there are only a few methods available for site‐specific photochemical induction of DNA strand scission despite numerous potential applications. In this study we report the development of new photocleavable nucleotides based on the photochemistry of o‐nitrobenzyl esters. The light‐sensitive moieties were generated through introduction of o‐nitrophenyl groups at the 5′C position of the nucleoside sugar backbone. The newly synthesized, modified nucleosides were incorporated in oligonucleotides and are able to build stable DNA duplexes. In such a way modified oligonucleotides can be cleaved site‐specifically upon irradiation with >360 nm light with high efficiency. Furthermore, we show that these modifications can be bypassed in DNA synthesis promoted by Thermus aquaticus DNA polymerase.


A diene synthesis using 2,6-xyloquinone as dienophile and boron trifluoride as catalyst does not follow the normal orientation rules and leads to a facile synthesis of ring A-aromatic steroids. A tetracyclic adduct prepared by a similar reaction and containing the steroidal C19-methyl group is also reported.


Bali as a world tourism destination, currently builds sport tourism. Golf is one of sport tourism that is increasingly attracting foreign visitors to Bali. Classified to a prestige sport, golf tourism may change the paradigm of Bali tourism from mass tourism towards quality tourism. This paper aims to elaborate on the antecedents of golfers" satisfaction and their loyalties to the destination. A hundred and thirteen foreign tourists who playing golf while their visit to Bali was surveyed and asked to fulfil the self-administered questionnaire with a 5-point Likert scale. The intrinsic as well extrinsic motivation was positioned as the exogenous constructs in a structural model with the satisfaction and tourists loyalties as the endogenous ones. In addition, their trust for the golf operators was placed as the mediator. Applying variance-based SEM, we found both motivations have a direct effect on their trust, but we did not find a significant effect of these motivations on their satisfaction. However, by the mediation of their trust towards the golf operator, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation showed their significant influences. In addition, their satisfaction in enjoying golf while traveling in Bali showed a significant effect on their loyalties to the destination.


This section includes the abstracts of some of the PhD-Dissertations submitted in Spain during the 2015–2016 academic year as well as some others not published in earlier volumes of Ardeola. They are in alphabetical order by University where they were presented and, then, by year and alphabetical order of the author's surname. For the first time, this section includes a link to access the full version of the reviewed thesis when available.


The second-order e-expansion calculations of Appendixes D and F were repeated by V. Dohm, using the fieldtheoretic method developed by De Dominicis and Peliti. Dohm found a discrepancy with our evaluation of the universal ratio R&, in Eqs. (D29) and (3.65). Dohm's result, in his Eq. (4.51) was confirmed in Eq. (3.103) of De Dominicis and Peliti. We have reexamined our calculation, and now agree with the results of Refs. 1 and 2. Specifically, Eq. (DS) should have been written


higher education popularization is characterized by the diversity of schools,disciplines of study and training objectives,as well as a marked change in the students in terms of common characteristics.Consequently,it has outgrown the assessment system of academic atmosphere and discipline for elite higher education and this paper explores ways to cultivate new academic atomsphere and discipline geared to the new situation.


Lα x-ray production cross sections have been measured for thin solid targets of 60Nd, 67Ho, and 79Au (pt<12 μg/cm2) for 1.86 MeV/amu 199F and 2814Si, and 1.8 MeV/amu 3517Cl ions as a function of the incident charge state. From the projectile charge state dependence of the cross sections, both direct ionization and electron capture contributions were extracted for a comparison to Coulomb ionization theories. The data provide supporting evidence for the theory of electron capture with a reduced binding effect.


Abstruct- The paper attempts to answer the question of whether to use load cells or dancer roll regulation systems in modern-day paper machinery. A computer model based on an existing off-machine coater that has both systems integrated will be used as the basis for this research. The two systems will be analyzed, considering the stability of the system and its dynamic response. Practical results based on measurements made on site will be included.


Abstract: The Organization of Islamic Cooperation has a unique influence in the global governance, such as Middle East issues and International Islamic development, and has become the most active international multilateral platform for Islam. Based on the context of the establishment of the organization and its development process, particularly, the agenda items and resolutions of the organization since 2000, this study clarifies the path of the OIC to advance agenda items and exert political influence on Islamic countries; this study also tracks the history of both official and civil exchanges between China and the OIC, proposes to seize the historic opportunity of the "Silk Road strategy", and build a model of cooperation between China and the Arab-Islamic countries as the "natural partners of the Silk Road" and the "Silk Road Community".


: A green solvent-free approach was used to produce grey colored Ag/AgNO 3 functionalized SBA-15. This easy to handle powder was then used to extract molecular Iodine from cyclohexane by simple addition and filtration. The resulting yellow powder was examined by UV-Vis, FT-IR, XRD, TGA and SEM/TEM. It was found that nanosized AgI particles were now present on/in the porous silica support. Despite numerous washing steps with a range of solvents (ranging from cyclohexane to water) no leaching was observed. The sorbent proved highly efficient extracting 0.46 moles of I 2 for every mole of silver, almost 1:1 Ag:I. Finally, TGA demonstrated an increased melting point for AgI indicating a degree of protection from the silica support. This is important when considering transformation into the final waste form. Although produced in relatively small quantities by the nuclear industry, the extraction and storage of radioactive iodine is important due to its biological sensitivity and long half-life (10 7 years). 1,2 Separately, the upswing in shale gas


SUMMARY This research investigates the environmental impact of funerals in the Netherlands. There are multiple reasons for this research. First of all, there is interest from civilians, the funeral sector and governmental authorities. Furthermore, there


This paper has made a comparative study of using for wordsof 'name of medicine' based on data which is 'medical books translated into Korean' from fifteenth century until seventeenth century. It can be showed about how much human medical science developed at that time from 'medical books translated into Korean', because it was published for diffusion to a benefit of medical science with policy of a government. The 'name of medicine' increased to appearance specific gravity and kind of them and there are lots of change in word formation immediate seventeenth century. Especially it can be looked sudden change not only different aspect to diachronic perspective but also different of distribution to each data, so It could consider to character of data from 'name of medicine'.


This paper describes a way to manage the modeling and analysis of Scheduled Maintenance Systems (SMS) within an analytically tractable context. We chose a significant case study having a variety of interesting features like a heavily redundant architecture and a test and maintenance policy whose execution is made on-line without halting the system. We apply a methodology we previously developed based on the Deterministic Stochastic Petri Net (DSPN) approach where the underlying stochastic process is Markov regenerative (MRGP) solved in our setting with efficient analytical solution method. The model construction and its analysis have been carried out with the help of a tool for the modeling and the dependability evaluation of the Phased Mission Systems (PMS). We exercise our methodology with such case study, to check whether it can master real and complex SMS problems and compare its efficacy with traditional approaches (fault trees). At the same time the paper investigates the problem of the optimal tuning of a maintenance program, giving a useful decision support tool to evaluate the system performance since the early design stage.


The report deals with issues and problems relating to families. It includes an analysis of queries on family matters presented to Citizens Information Centres (CICs)2 during May 2004 identified by information workers as having a policy dimension. Queries to CICs are an important source of feedback to Comhairle, which can be used to advise government on aspects of social policy and on the development of the social services. A number of other voluntary and statutory agencies working with families were consulted during the preparation of the report and their views and perspectives are included in the analysis of issues.


In their recently renamed theory, situated expectancy-value theory (SEVT), Eccles and Wigfield (2020) emphasized the importance of situations in influencing individuals' motivational beliefs and academic choices. Adopting a novel approach—network analysis—this study aimed to examine how situations may impact the associations among expectancies, subjective task values, and achievement from a holistic perspective. In this study, situations were operationalized as grade levels (i.e., 6th –9th grade), subject domains (i.e., language arts and math), and countries (i.e., Finland and Germany). Adolescents from Finland (N = 4,062) and Germany (N = 449) were included in the study. Results showed that, overall, the networks are mostly subject bound, yearly varied, and country specific, supporting the situative nature of SEVT. We also found that expectancies were consistently the closest motivational beliefs to achievement, whereas utility values were the least close, implying that expectancies, not utility, might be the most desirable intervention targets for achievement improvement.