Research on the reading habits of the more intellectually inclined young people of Russia shows that their allegiance is to the more serious classics of literature rather than to contemporary popular fiction. Thus, the literary tastes of the older generation of Russian intellectuals are being preserved by the younger generation.


Pancreatic acinar cells play an important role in zinc excretion. We have found that dietary Zn intake regulates the expression of ZnT1 and ZnT2 in the pancreas. The mechanisms with which ZnT1 and ZnT2 mediate Zn efflux in pancreatic acinar cells have not been characterized. Here, we report Zn deficiency caused a significantly lowered Zn concentration in both the cytoplasm and zymogen granule compartments of acinar cells. Western blot analysis also showed a decrease in the association of both ZnT1 and ZnT2 with the purified zymogen granule membrane fraction. In addition, in pancreatic AR42J cells, ZnT1 was found to be tightly regulated by intracellular Zn levels. In contrast, ZnT2 expression was upregulated by dexamethasone, which induces cell differentiation, and increases both secretory organelle development and secretion. Both ZnT1 and ZnT2 were down‐regulated in Zn deficient cell cultures, obtained through the use of Zn chelating reagents, TPEN, DTPA, or dialysis against dipicolinic acid. In ZnT1 over‐expressing transiently transfected AR42J cells, a lower intracellular Zn level and higher Zn efflux rate was found through 65Zn loss. Transient transfection of ZnT2 and over‐expression resulted in more sequestered intracellular Zn, with a normal 65Zn efflux rate. In conclusion, ZnT1 and ZnT2 regulate Zn output through two different pathways in pancreatic acinar cells. Supported by NIH Grant DK 31127.


This paper have proposed a filter design method based on MegaCore functions. Moreover, the design and verification of finite impulse response (FIR) Low-Pass Filter is exhibited based on the Simulink platform from The MathWorks. The optimized implementation of FIR filter provides high quality signal processing at reasonable cost. Firstly, the paper analyzes filter theory and filter design method based on MegaCore functions. Secondly, the paper presents FIR Low-Pass Filter's design and test based on the Simulink platform from The MathWorks.


A 240 W push-pull FET for the base stations of the third generation systems has been developed. The high gain and high efficiency performance and excellent DC behavior under high temperature of the FET chip contributes to realize such a high power operation. The developed FET achieved 240 W (53.8 dBm) output power, 12.0 dB linear gain and 50% power-added efficiency at 2.14 GHz. This is the highest output power device using GaAs FET technology ever reported.


This work introduces the concept language ALC(FM) which is an extension of ALC to many-valued logics. ALC(FM) allows to express vague concepts, e.g. `more or less enlarged'' or `very small''. To realize this extension to many-valued logics, the classical notions of satisfiability and subsumption had to be modified appropriately. For example, ALC(FM)-concepts are no longer either satisfiable or unsatisfiable, but they are satisfiable to a certain degree. The main contribution of this paper is a sound and complete method for computing the degree of subsumption between two ALC(FM)-concepts.


The physical uncertainty associated with fiber-reinforced polymer composites has to be quantified and dealt with for their widespread use to be reliable. Developing probabilistic models based on experimental studies form an important part of this task. In the present paper, such models are developed for glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) composites based on an experimental study on panels obtained from Mondial House, a 32-year-old building demolished in 2006 in London. Having an average size of 1.5 m x 1.7 m and made of chopped strand mat composites, these panels have been exposed to varying ambient conditions, protected only by a fire retardant gel coat for self-cleaning. Tensile and compressive tests are performed to quantify the variability in stiffness and strength properties of these panels. Intra- and interpanel effects and correlations between random variables are studied using statistical methods. A range of probability distributions is tested and suggestions are made with regard to their suitability for modeling different mechanical and geometric properties.


Objectives Studying the status of smoking and smoking control of medical professionals in Kunming,to provide evidence for smoking control. Methods According to stratified cluster sampling method,investigations in 812 medical professionals in one municipal hospital was carried out at 2 community health service centers of Kunming. Results The prevalence of smoking was 12.9%,and the male's smoking rate(43.3%) was much higher than that of the female's(2.0%).The smoking rate of community health service center was much higher than that of municipal hospital;and the smoking rate of the 20~ age groups was obviously lower than of the 30~ age groups.Approximately 90% of medical professionals agree to a comprehensive anti-smoking activities in health care institutions,but only 50% of the population agree to bring smoking status and whether adding smoking control content in their work or not into the assessment of medical staff. Conclusions Male and community health service agencies should be taken as the main point to strengthen the propaganda and guidance,and actively carry out anti-smoking knowledge and skills training,medical professionals need to provide professional anti-smoking service actively.


Second Generation Human Rrights" was accepted by the international in the 1910s.Influenced by Marxism and Russia's socialism, Chinese people incepted the ideal of "Second Generation Human Rights" in the process of human rights struggle at the early time, and tried to transform it to legal rights.And then the movement and theory of human rights in China got rapid progress.The top achievement that Chinese leaders made is the idea of "Second Generation Human Rights" legislation, which was led by the CPC in the Soviet Area.


In this study Multi-Sensor (Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8) based approach is used to investigate natural seepage and manmade oil pollution in the Caspian Sea along the coast of Bakü, Azerbaijan. The processing of the satellite images was carried out using the sentinel application platform (SNAP, 6.0), which is an open source common architecture and oil pollution for different dates was determined. The largest oil seepage was detected on January 19, 2018 that covered almost 465 square km. Sentinel-2 image was also processed by SNAP 6.0 and by using object-based image analysis (OBIA) the polluted areas were determined. ACOLITE software was used for processing however did not provide expected output. As a result of this study, it was determined that multisensor based satellite monitoring is an efficient approach for the collection, visualization and analysis of information on oil pollution in the marine environment.


Innovative modifications of conventional treatments for actinic keratosis (AK) can help patients live with this chronic disease in more comfort and greater safety, and with potentially improved outcomes.


In the last decade, well over $10 billion has been spent on employment programs designed to contribute to peace and stability. Despite the outlay, whether these programs perform, and how they do so, remain open questions. This study conducts three reviews to derive the status quo of knowledge. First, it draws on academic literature on the microfoundations of instability to distill testable theories of how employment programs could affect stability at the micro level. Second, it analyses academic and grey literature that directly evaluates the impacts of employment programs on peace-related outcomes. Third, it conducts a systematic review of program-based learning from over 400 interventions. This study finds good theoretical reasons to believe that employment programs could contribute to peace. However, only very limited evidence exists on overall impacts on peace or on the pathways underlying the theories of change. At the program level, the review finds strong evidence that contributions to peace and stability are often simply assumed to have occurred. This provides a major challenge for the justification of continued spending on jobs for peace programs. Instead, systematic and rigorous learning on the impacts of jobs for peace programs needs to be scaled up urgently.


Based on the experience of dynamic compaction silt displacement method used in the approaching dyke of Nan- hai petrochemical project,this paper presents mainly the parameter choice,comtruction method and result of dynamic compaction silt displacement method.


In these notes we generalize the construction obtained for the deformation of the symplectic group Sp(2) to the case of any N even: N = 2k . We characterize the bialgebras Aq (Sp(k)) by generators and relations. We consider the deformation of the algebra of polynomials on the group Sp(k): Pol(Spq(k)) is a Hopf *-algebra and we build *-representations of it by means of a Verma module construction.


Increasing environmental concerns promotes distributed network operators to set up renewable energy sources (RESs) and energy storage systems (ESSs). These new components together can play vital role in grid performance enhancement. In this paper, operation of an inverter-based RES and a battery energy storage system (BESS) pair are planned coordinately for reducing excess energy waste of renewable and increasing overall performance of network. Charge and discharge activity of BESS is scheduled, as reactive power output of the inverter-based RES is adjusted. A multi-objective optimization problem that minimizes active and reactive power loss as well as voltage deviation in distribution network is solved with a deterministic approach. It has been seen that active and reactive power loses may significantly reduce and voltage profile may improve, and elimination of the active power spillage may be provided by coordinated operation planning of RESs and ESSs plausibly.


This study assessed clinical and social factors which contributed to length of stay in hospital following an acute admission, and investigated professional and user opinion about the suitability of alternatives to admission. Over a six-month period 154 people admitted to hospital were assessed at admission, at discharge and again at four weeks (if still in hospital). The resources which enabled successful discharge to the community were largely (in 70% of cases) health authority resources. For those people who remained in hospital at four weeks (7% of admissions) very few of their symptoms were significantly reduced. Almost a quarter (9/38) of patients remaining in hospital dichot need to be there according to their psychiatrist. There was limited agreement between carers, patients and professionals about the suitability of specific resources which might have prevented the need for admission, although this finding might indicate that there are a number of alternative options which could be pursued in each...


vidual country's perspective it is interesting to identify the modifications in the trade pattern because they may provide insights on the underlying structural changes in the economy, namely in its structure of production. In addition, the magnitude and the pace of such changes is an indirect indicator of the flexibility of the economy in allocating resources between sectors. Therefore, these elements are relevant to understand the growth performance of the economy. This type of analysis can be enhanced by taking a set of countries as a benchmark, thereby investigating their relative behaviours. In this article, we are particularly interested in understanding how does the relative sectoral specialization of Portuguese exports compare with that of the other initial EU Cohesion Fund beneficiaries (Spain, Greece and Ireland). 2 The article adopts a fact-finding approach, making extensive use of the standard Balassa (1965) index to assess the technological content of these countries' manufacturing exports. The evolution of the sectoral specialization of Portuguese exports naturally depends on aspects that are well identified in international trade theory, such as factor endowments, technologies, consumer preferences, market structures and geographical factors. Nevertheless, the article does not proceed in testing the relevance of these determinants or any specific trade model. Instead, it aims at identifying a set of stylized facts over a long period of time. The results are derived from the CEPII-Chelem database covering the period from 1967 to 2004. The available 120 manufacturing products are grouped together in four main categories following the OECD classification of manufacturing industries according to technology intensity: high-technology, medium-high-technology, medium-low-technology and low-technology. Over the last four decades, the Portuguese export structure converged towards the world structure and, therefore, Portugal showed a reduction in its overall degree of export specialization. However, significant differences against the world average still remain. The same behaviour is found in Greece and, more strongly, in Spain, which is the least specialized country. Conversely, Ireland shows the strongest export specialization and there is evidence of an increase over this period. One striking feature of the evolution of


The dielectric permittivity of A-site ion substituted (Na1/2Bi1/2)TiO3(A=Pb,Sr) solid solutions has been investigated with the aid of structural analysis. As the addition of PT increased, the first order characteristics of the phase transition appeared. In contrast, additions of ST made the solid solution exhibit relaxor ferroelectrics behavior. Microscopic structural analysis revealed that the dielectric properties were determined by cation ordering which controlled the translational symmetry and domain configuration. In the NBT–PT solid solution, A-site cations were randomly redistributed and macrodomains formed. However, the addition of ST distributed A-site cations with local ordering and divided the domains of NBT into micropolar regions. The contrasting effects of the addition of the Pb and Sr cations on the dielectric properties of NBT are discussed in terms of the polarizability and the tolerance factors as they relate to the perovskite structure.


The causes of the escapement of Russians from Ukraine are herein analyzed in connection with mass riots spread in Kiev in November-February of 2013-2014 and crimes committed in the course thereof. An attention is paid to sources, manifestations and consequences of such events as well as to the response of Donbas thereto. The need is justified to curb the vindictive action conducted by the Kiev authorities in this region, which is actually the genocide of the Russian people. The importance of the participation of international justice is proved, both formal and public one.


Abstract : Contents: A variational problem in one-dimensional nonequilibrium gas dynamics; The effect of the radiation entropy layer; The laminar boundary layer on a sphere in a hypersonic flow of equilibrium dissociating air.


Recognition of handwritten characters has been a popular task for the evaluation of classification algorithms for many years. Looking at the latest results on databases such as USPS or MNIST, one could think that character recognition is a solved problem. In this paper, we claim that this is not the case for two reasons : first because the classical databases for digit recognition are realistic but too simple and second because digit recognition is not a real-world task but only a part of it. In this paper, we contribute to a better understanding of these two aspects with new results. In a first part, we compare three state-of-the-art recognizers on a digit recognition task extracted from a real world application and show that the error rates on this database can not be extrapolated from MNIST. Then, in a second part, we present and evaluate a system designed for an industrial application based on character recognition : document identification with floating field recognition.


Treatment of the cisoid-capped complex [Pt(4)(micro-OCOCH(3))(6)(kappa(4)-N(4)-DAr'Bp)] (), which was obtained from the reaction of [Pt(4)(micro-OCOCH(3))(8)] (1) with Na(2)D(t)BuPhBp (D(t)BuPhBp = 1,3-bis(para-tert-butylphenylbenzamidinate)propane), with an equimolar amount of 1,1'-ferrocenedicarboxylic acid undergoes a stereoselective self-assembly to afford an indented-quadrangle tetramer [Pt(4)(micro-OCOCH(3))(4)(kappa(4)-N(4)-D(t)BuPhBp){Fe(C(5)H(4)COO)(2)}](4) as a single diastereomer.


Molecular dynamics calculations are used to study the effect of temperature on the interchain packing in solid n‐alkanes. The model used consists of infinite chains initially arranged in a centered orthorhombic structure with the lateral packing found in the low temperature phase of n‐alkanes with an odd number of carbon atoms. An atom–atom interchain potential is employed and the chains have flexible backbones. The problem of equilibrating the inter‐ and intramolecular motions is overcome using the technique of massive stochastic collisions proposed by Andersen. The calculated isobaric lateral thermal expansion of the orthohombic a and b cell parameters is in excellent agreement with experimental data over a wide temperature range. For T> 250 K translational (jump) diffusion is observed along the chain axis (c direction) without any accompanying rigid body chain rotation. At higher temperatures, the diffusion becomes liquid‐ like and rotational diffusion sets in between four well defined sites. Possible ...


The tunneling model is studied on the basis of the perturbation expansion using pseudo fermion operators for spins. Effects of short-range order on its dynamical properties are investigated in the case where the perturbation expansion becomes "1/z expansion". The effects on a pseudo-spin are taken into account in a kind of a mean field approximation for fluctuation field of the order parameter. It is shown that the relaxational mode appears in the corresponding Green's function on account of effects of short-range order and is linearly coupled to the soft mode. This relaxation mode can be regarded as a longitudinal one along average directions of local spins which is realized when pseudo-spins align locally in space and time clue to the short-range order. The clamping of the relaxational mode is shown to be of the order of that of the soft mode and to be very small for typical case,;. This leads to a sharp central peak in the dynamical form factor.


One of the non-destructive methods used for the identification and verification of metals is by the energy-dispersive X-ray fluorescence (EDXRF) technique. EDXRF analysis provides several important advantages such as simultaneous determination of the elements present, enable to analyse a very wide concentration range, fast analysis with no tedious sample preparation. The paper shows how this technique is developed and applied in the identification and verification of different grades of stainless steels. Comparison of the results obtained from this analysis with certified reference standards show very small differences between them.


As a contribution to the study of alkaline iron (III) monophosphates, we recently investigated the A 3 PO 4 -M 3 (PO 4 ) 2 -FePO 4 (A: alkali metal; M: divalent cation) using both the flux method and the solid state reaction. This investigation led to the synthesis and structural characterization of twelve new compounds. Their structural analysis showed them to be constructed by PO 4 tetrahedra and FeO x polyhedra (x = 6, 5, 4). The Fe polyhedra are either isolated or forming finite units of corner- or edge-sharing, or infinite chains of edge-sharing octahedra. The resulting Fe structural units are linked by the PO 4 tetrahedra via corner or edge-sharing, giving rise to mixed covalent frameworks which can be either bi- or three-dimentionnel. The alkali cations occupy the interlayer space or tunnels and cavities.


The aim of this study was to isolate and identify Bradyrhizobium japonicum strains on the basis of molecular characteristics. From root nodules of different soybean cultivars were obtained 56 isolates, characterized according to morphological, cultural, and biochemical properties. Among these isolates, 33 isolates showing resemblance with Bradyrhizobium sp. were further subjected to molecular identification. Following DNA extraction, a partial 16S rDNA gene sequence from the isolates was amplified by PCR using universal primers fD1 (27F) and rP3 (1492R). Purification and sequencing of the amplified fragments were done in the biotechnology company Macrogen, Seoul, South Korea. Sequences were analyzed using the program FinchTV and BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) and compared to sequences in GenBank and the Bradyrhizobium ID-database for identification. Comparison of the sequences with the Bradyrhizobium ID-database showed that all tested isolates were identified as Bradyrhizobium japonicum. Each isolate was deposited in the NCBI GenBank database under a unique accession number. Identification of Bradyrhizobium species from root nodules of soybean is of great importance because the symbiosis between rhizobia and legumes are a cheaper and usually more effective agronomic practice for ensuring an adequate supply of nitrogen for legumes, while preserving and improving fertility and productivity of soils.


Simple Summary This review article describes an overview of the developed advanced neural in vitro systems and the discovery of brain organoids including the recently developed improvement of this innovative technology. We also mention the main disease modeling applications of brain organoids and their potential impact in biomedical applications. Abstract Neurological disorders are among the leading causes of death worldwide, accounting for almost all onsets of dementia in the elderly, and are known to negatively affect motor ability, mental and cognitive performance, as well as overall wellbeing and happiness. Currently, most neurological disorders go untreated due to a lack of viable treatment options. The reason for this lack of options is s poor understanding of the disorders, primarily due to research models that do not translate well into the human in vivo system. Current models for researching neurological disorders, neurodevelopment, and drug interactions in the central nervous system include in vitro monolayer cell cultures, and in vivo animal models. These models have shortcomings when it comes to translating research about disorder pathology, development, and treatment to humans. Brain organoids are three-dimensional (3D) cultures of stem cell-derived neural cells that mimic the development of the in vivo human brain with high degrees of accuracy. Researchers have started developing these miniature brains to model neurodevelopment, and neuropathology. Brain organoids have been used to model a wide range of neurological disorders, including the complex and poorly understood neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders. In this review, we discuss the brain organoid technology, placing special focus on the different brain organoid models that have been developed, discussing their strengths, weaknesses, and uses in neurological disease modeling.


Despite the increase in the number of females incarcerated, there is a paucity of research concerning female life-sentenced inmates in the United States. Using a nationally representative data set containing the largest known sample of this population, the present research examines the pre-incarceration traumatic experiences of female life-sentenced inmates. The results indicate that these women are more likely to experience traumatic events, in particular abuse, than either male life-sentenced inmates or female inmates in general. Logistic regression analyses reveal a significant association between abuse and a life sentence in both gender-specific models.


Nowadays moreandmoreshipmotion control systems areapplied invarious ships. Amongship motions, roll motion causes serious damages totheequipments ofshipanditsperformance, many efforts havebeenmadetoinvent orcreate someequipment toweaken these badeffects. However, few types ofequipment havehadthesameimpact onroll stabilization astheactive finstabilizers. Inrecent years muchresearch hasbeenconducted toimprove thefinstabilization systems. Some results onfinstabilizers havebeenobtained byanalyzing theclassical roll motion model. Inparticular, based onthis classic motion model, recently wehaveinvestigated issues ofdynamics lift ofshipfin stabilizers byusing towing tank test results offinmodel. Asship roll parameters haveheavy uncertainties, wemustdeal withtheminfinstabilizer designs. In fact thebiggest difficulty inthedesign ishowtodealwiththeuncertainties. Somecontrol theories, suchasadaptive control androbust control, areusedtosolve theproblem andachieved success insome control systems. Buttheycannotdeal withuncertainties ofshipstabilizer control well. Thedifficulty ofuncertainties existed infinstabilizer design also happed inother ship motion control system designs. Somenewopinions about design methods offin stabilizer andship motion control areproposed. Toimprove theperformance ofthefinstabilizers, lift feedback finstabilizers arethendesigned. In this talk, weanalyze defects ofangle feedback finstabilizer caused bythehydrodynamic coefficient andshowthecontrol principle ofthelift feedback finstabilizer system. Because thelift ismeasured


Background: Several renal function tests (RFTs) are used to detect renal dysfunction. Their relative reliability in detection of renal dysfunction in metabolic syndrome (MS) is unknown. Objective: To compare different renal function tests for detection of renal dysfunction in patients with MS. Material and Methods: The material comprised 279 adult patients with MS diagnosed according to NCEP: ATP-III criteria. RFTs done in all patients were serum creatinine, serum urea, creatinine clearance, eGFR and urine protein. Results: Serum creatinine and serum urea were above normal in 32.26% of patients. Patients with eGFR below normal were 73.84%. Creatinine clearance was below normal in 61.29%. 18.99% of total subjects tested positive for urine protein. Conclusion: Prevalence of renal dysfunction was high (73.84%) in patients with MS. eGFR appeared to be the best indicator of renal dysfunction.


Objective To explore the effect of photodynamic therapy(PDT) on advanced esophageal cancer and the nursing methods concerned. Methods Having received intravenous injection of PSD-007 at 5 mg/kg for 4-8 h,33 patients of advanced esophageal cancer were irradiated with semiconductor laser for which a cylindrical fiber through the endoscopy channel was utilized.The laser applied had a wavelength of 630 nm,power density of 100-150 mW/cm2,energy density of 180-270 J/cm2 and irradiation length of 30-90 minutes.Treatment and nursing were provided to the patients before,during and after the PDT respectively.Endoscopy examination and questionnaire were conducted to evaluate the effect 4 weeks after the PDT. Results Four weeks after the PDT,30 patients came back to the hospital for further examination.While no progress being found in 2 cases(6.7%),complete remission occurred to 4 patients(13.3%),and partial remission to 24 patients(80.0%).Seven patients(26.9%) were completely relieved from dysphagia,14 patients(53.8%) partially relieved and 5 patients(19.2%) unrelieved.As to the symptom of retrosternal pain or discomfort,complete remission happened to 9 patients(42.9%),partial remission to 5 patients(23.8%),and no response to 7 patients(33.3%). Conclusions PDT is one of the effective treatments for advanced esophageal cancer,and the perioperative care and nursing during PDT is essential to the success of the treatment as well.


Recently, the use of wireless (or contactless) 3D integration has been proposed as a low-cost method of stacking disparate processing and sensor dies into singular, small form-factor ICs. Whilst such devices would be ideally suited for the Internet of Things (IoT), in the IoT, maintaining low-power consumption is of paramount importance. Contactless intertier links use significant energy when forming a magnetic field which can penetrate multiple silicon dies, and hence are often criticised for their poor power efficiency when compared to wired alternatives such as through silicon vias (TSVs). To address this, in this paper we present a novel, neuro-inspired, inductive transceiver (for transmitting data between tiers of a 3D-IC) that maintains low power consumption by encoding frames of data in terms of the latency between pulses, thereby reducing the number of transmit pulses and energy required per bit. The proposed approach is validated using commercial electromagnetic and electrical circuit simulators in 65nm CMOS technology. Results demonstrate an energy consumption of 0.79pJ/bit, representing a reduction of 31% when compared to existing state-of-the-art transceivers, or an increased communication distance of up to 1.8× for the same energy budget.


A new method for the isolation of glucose repression‐insensitive mutants in the methylotrophic yeast Pichia pinus was developed. The method is based on screening of small suspension samples derived from 2‐deoxyglucose‐resistant colonies for alcohol oxidase activity. Alcohol oxidase activity was evaluated by determination of formaldehyde excreted by cells. Mutants with glucose non‐repressible alcohol oxidase and catalase synthesis were obtained. All mutants grew poorly on D‐xylose compared to the wild type, whereas growth on L‐arabinose was similar to the wild type. Changes in the glucose transport system were suggested to be responsible for altered growth characteristics and defective glucose repression.


This piece of research addresses a systematic quantified investigation of a challenging and interesting educational issue concerned with environmental learning creativity phenomenon. Herein, that presented creativity issue considered the interactive behavioral learning of human and non-human creatures. At one hand, for long time ago and till recently, educationalist and psychologists have been cooperatively interested in systematic searching for the interdisciplinary analysis, evaluation and improvement of students' academic achievement in classrooms. Therefore, a novel approach associated with realistic Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) modeling and simulation of quantified learning creativity has been adopted . At the other hand, by referring to the Swarm intelligence as a relatively new discipline that deals with interesting aspects of self-organizing social insect behavioral processes in both natural and artificial systems. A specific attention is given to the ecological behavioral learning of swarm intelligence agents (Ants), during performing foraging process. Finally, the announced simulation and modeling results seemed to be valuable and promising for the future more elaborate and systematic research work investigating. Comparative analogous study of learning creativity phenomenon considering natural environments associated to modeling of both Neural Networks' leaning, Swarm Intelligence Modeling.


Refrigerator is a appliance for everyday use in both households and industries. Most of these works on vapor-compression cycle, which use CFC based refrigerants to cool the enclosed space. More or less all these refrigerants all global-warming agents. Thus we focused on searching an alternative and eco-friendly cooling system. Peltier cooling is one of them, It's free from refrigerants, portable, and can be used as alternative of conventional cooling. Our project aims to design and fabricate such a refrigeration system using peltier cooling. In this project, we successfully created a temperature difference of 9.2 °C using two peltier module in parallel. With some modifications, this system could find it's application in case of power failure, or where AC supply is not available to use conventional refrigeration.


With the development of computer and network technology,radical changes have taken place in the academic publication environment,and the academic publication system on the basis of network is coming into being and developing.There are four forms of our Chinese network academic publication: 1.the academic document data bank established on the basis of digitization of paper document;2.the academic website built by researchers and academic research organizations; 3.the individual Blog of scholars;4.the data bank of electronic pre-printing copy.At present,there are also some problems with network academic publication: 1.the problem of enquiry and storage;2.the problem of copyright reserved;3.the problem of identity acknowledgement.Thus the author suggests building up a comprehensive network academic information-exchanging platform that is open to deposit and withdrawal.


A method for calculation of the diagrams of steel deoxidation and modification by calcium, magnesium, aluminum and boron was developed. The coordinates of the liquidus surfaces of the oxide systems B2O3–Al2O3–MgO, B2O3–Al2O3–CaO, B2O3–MgO–CaO were found at 1873 K. The energy parameters were determined for the theory of subregular ionic solutions of the studied oxide systems. The coordinates of the solubility surfaces for the systems Fe–Mg–Al–B–O, Fe–Ca–Al–B–O, Fe–Mg–Ca–Al–B–O were calculated. The effect of the total pressure on solubility of magnesium and calcium in liquid iron was studied. The activity of the components of the metallic melt was calculated using the first-order interaction parameters (Wagner's theory). The activities of the components of solid solutions (oxides and spinels) were equated with their molar fractions. It was shown that during extensive refining of metal from the oxygen, only a small fraction of boron oxidizes and these oxides form fraction of the oxide melts. The major non-metallic oxide inclusions were magnesia spinel, calcium bialuminate and liquid oxide formations. The "free" boron was dissolved in liquid metal in amounts which were in equilibrium with oxide phases.


Adolescent drug use is a major public health problem because of the proportion of the population using drugs and because of the multiple effects of adolescent drug use on adolescents, their families, and their communities. In 1993 an estimated 87 percent of high school seniors reported use of alcohol, 35 percent had used marijuana, and 6 percent had used cocaine sometime in their lifetime (Johnston et al. 1994). High school senior data are considered lower bound prevalence data because the sample does not include an estimated 20 percent who dropped out of school, a subset with higher rates of drug use than the students surveyed (Johnston et al. 1994). Particularly disturbing is the proportion of drug users with preadolescent onset of use, with 24 percent of students reporting that they used alcohol by sixth grade (Gleaton and Adams 1990).


To represent and reason about preferences over elements of a combinatorial domain it is necessary to have a compact preference model. One of the most extensively studied models for that setting is the conditional preference network (CP-net). A major problem with CP-nets is that some tasks that are crit- ical to decision making are computationally hard if the preference ordering is given by a CP-net. To overcome this diffi- culty we propose to approximate CP-nets with other concise preference models that are equally intuitive but have better computational properties. In this paper, we focus on approximations of CP-nets using modified lexicographic preference models (LPMs). We show an acyclic CP-net's dominance relation can be approximated in polynomial time and present several results on the accuracy of the approximation.


It has already been mentioned in the previous chapters that violence against women is one of the major functional social realities surrounding the Indian society which many contemporary Indian playwrights have chosen to represent in their writings. But this area has not been adequately explored in the past by researchers working on contemporary Indian theatre. Most Indian playwrights (both men and women) have made a concentrated effort to voice the various manifestations of violence experienced by women both in their private and public lives. In this context, the plays written by Vijay Tendulkar, Mahesh Dattani, Girish Kamad, Mohan Rakesh, Manjula Padmanabhan, Dina Mehta, Poile Sengupta, Mahasweta Devi and Usha Ganguli to name a few, are of wider contemporary relevance. Their dramatic writings tend to represent the various social evils along with the issue of violence against women. ~ 'As the primary focus of my dissertation is on various forms of violence experienced by women in Indian society, this chapter would particularly discuss the selected woman conscious plays written by Vijay Tendulkar and Mahesh Dattani. Also given the constraints of space, it would be difficult to include all the above mentioned dramatists who have scripted plays about women and violence in contemporary India. Therefore, I have restricted my selection to the plays of Mahesh Dattani and Vijay Tendulakar whose plays follow the genre of Western realist


Tidworth's wet wipes belong in the bin 2017-03-27 Tidworth residents are being urged to bin their wet wipes after a spate of drain and sewer blockages in the town. We have been called to more than 40 sewerage incidents in less than a year in the small area we cover in north Tidworth in Wiltshire,


The tide of the Internet age is quietly changing the habit of consumers and the mode of market. Coconut Know takes health and sugar-free as its core selling points and applies internet innovative thinking to open up the situation in the coconut beverage industry. With the fiercer competition in this newborn market, the future of Coconut Know might not be as bright as it is now. The purpose of this paper was to discover the correct way for sustainable development. This paper applied Marketing Mix Theory to analyze the current situation of Coconut Know, meanwhile combining it with the SWOT analysis to evaluate the condition comprehensively, focusing on the long-term development and the challenges faced by the ever-expanding market. This research concluded that high-quality products, effective pro-motions, rising consumer power, positive policies, and the industry outlook are the strength, and strong opponent, single placements, and substitutability is the weakness. Thus, Coconut Know should seize the opportunity, meanwhile, watch out for the threats that opponents may bring.


The technology of wavefront reconstruction based on knife-edge test was proposed for large aperture and long focal length optical surface measurement,which could improve the performance of traditional Foucault test.Integrating the traditional Foucault test with CCD camera,the technology adopted digital image processing to eliminate the disruption of draught,and data processing software to extract characteristic parameters of the shadow.After processing to these parameters,wavefront map of optical surface being fabricated could be gained,which might reflect the optical surface error straightforwardly.The experimental results show that contour map of gray scale and wavefront map reflect surface error satisfactorily,and the technology can be used to direct the fabrication of optical surface in the stage of grinding and initial stage of polishing.


The nonlinear formulation using the principle of virtual work-energy for free vibration of a large-sag extensible catenary riser in two dimensions is presented in this paper. A support at one end is hinged and the other is a free-sliding roller in the horizontal direction. The catenary riser has a large-sag configuration in the static equilibrium state and is assumed to displace with large amplitude to the motion state. The total virtual work of the catenary riser system involves the virtual strain energy due to bending, the virtual strain energy due to axial deformation, the virtual work done by the effective weight, and the inertia forces. The nonlinear equations of motion for two-dimensional free vibration in the Cartesian coordinate system is developed based on the difference between the Euler's equations in the static state and the displaced state. The linear and nonlinear stiffness matrices of the catenary riser are obtained and the eigenvalue problem is solved using the Galerkin finite element procedure. The natural frequencies and mode shapes are obtained. The results are validated with regard to the reference research addressing the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed nonlinear formulation. The numerical results for free vibration and the effect of the nonlinear behavior for catenary riser are presented.


The High Performance Computing Act of 1991 provided several hundred millions of dollars in funding for "Grand Challenge" problems in science. None of the examples of Grand Challenge problems cited in the legislation are from social science and none mention geographic information systems (GIS) specifically, despite the fact that some of the examples involve spatial data analysis of environmental issues. This paper speculates on the reasons for this paradox by discussing the shortcomings of GIS for spatial data analysis and the corresponding enhancements needed. It is suggested that the best chances for funding under the Grand Challenge banner for GIS in social science applications include (1) improving access to large, archival databases; (2) developing and using interactive statistical analysis and numerically-intensive techniques; and (3) providing real time decision support in transportation-related problems (where time is a critical factor in the decision). Keywords: Geographic information systems, high-performance computing, Grand Challenges, spatial data analysis.


Case series Patients: Male, 65 • Male, 63 • Female, 35 Final Diagnosis: CMV pneumonia Symptoms: Respiratory failure Medication: — Clinical Procedure: Excepting diagnosis Specialty: Pulmonology Objective: Unusual clinical course Background: Cytomegalovirus (CMV) pneumonia is common in immunocompromised patients with hematological malignancies. Although the spectrum of illness caused by CMV is well-documented in immunocompromised patients, the clinical course and evolution of lung changes after initiation of antiviral therapy remain unclear. Case Report: We present the cases of 3 patients with leukemia who developed CMV pneumonia following cord blood transplantation and who presented with distinctive features on chest computed tomography (CT). In all patients, chest CT showed central peribronchial changes with severe lung volume loss. Furthermore, the patients were refractory to high-dose steroids, and the lung volume loss rapidly progressed, leading to death from respiratory failure. Conclusions: We observed central peribronchial changes with severe lung volume loss after the acute phase in 3 cases of CMV pneumonia. While our diagnosis was made on the basis of exclusion, it is important to bear in mind that lung involvement in CMV pneumonia may be refractory to various treatment modalities and can lead to a fatal clinical course.


Layout decision is an important issue in electronics manufacturing process. A good layout with better arrangement of assembly machines will increase overall efficiency and throughput. It is not uncommon that many industrial companies in Hong Kong do not use systematic layout planning methods for their layout decisions. This paper aims at developing a simulation model to analyze the best layout decision for an electronics manufacturing company. Finally, a simplified fuzzy PERT network framework is proposed to model a Surface Mount Technology (SMT) production line for calculating the fuzzy throughput time of the SMT line under fuzzy processing parameters.


Ethnoarchaeology is a key source of analogy for use in constructing and justifying the interpretations archaeologists make of the patterns found in excavated samples of ancient material culture. In this introductory essay, our guest editor for this issue discusses the core issues that confront this hybrid discipline in the eastern Mediterranean and Near East.


Abstract Background and Aims: Various types of infertility are associated with uncontrolled hyperglycemia and diabetes. Development of oxidative stress is one the most important factors in the alteration of spermatogenesis in diabetic conditions. Consequently, the reduction of oxidative stress with antioxidant compounds can be effective in the reduction of tissue alterations. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of coenzyme Q10 in improvement of spermatogenesis in adult diabetic rats. Material and Methods: 32 adult rats were divided into four groups of control and treatment. Coenzyme Q10 (10 mg/kg body weight - b.w.) was administrated to one control and one diabetic (intraperitoneal injection of 45 mg/kg b.w. of Streptozotocin) groups. Blood concentrations of FSH, LH and Testosterone were measured. Histology of testicular tissue and sperm analysis were considered for evaluation of spermatogenesis. Results: Administration of Coenzyme Q10 led to increase of pituitary gonadotropins levels in diabetic rats. Testosterone levels were not changed significantly. Testicular morphology, spermatogenic indices and sperm analysis were improved in treated diabetic rats. Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that the use of Coenzyme Q10 has positive effects in reduction of spermatogenic alterations following induction of experimental diabetes in rats.


Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) now require seats in new aircraft to be tested under simulated impact conditions. In addition to the structural integrity of the seat, the result of the tests must satisfy requirements to provide protection from serious injuries to the occupants head, spine, chest, and legs. These regulations are in effect for small aircraft, large transports, and rotorcraft. In an aircraft accident, head injury can occur due to impact of an occupant's head with interior surfaces such as the instrument panel, forward row seat backs, and wall structures in the cabin. This article addresses research being done at FAA's Civil Aeromedical Institute (CAMI) in Oklahoma City on a variety of methods that provide head protection for passengers seated behind walls in aircraft.


Recently the description of protein S deficient families with thromboembolic episodes identified a new cause of hereditary thrombophilia (1, 2, 3). By measuring proteinS, we identified the cause of thrombophilia in a Hungarian family that has been studied and treated by us in Budapest for more than a decade. The proposita, K. T., now a 28 year-old woman, suffered her first thrombotic episode at the approximate age of 5. At the age of 5 years abdominal pains emerged with splenomegaly and other clinical signs of portal hypertension. At the age of 10 years an exploratory laparotomy was performed following recurrent episodes of melena and hematemesis that developed on the basis of bleeding varices in the esophagus, but no sign of cirrhosis was found; the cause of portal hypertension was an extrahepatic occlusion of the portal vein. A mesenterico-caval shunt was created, but after disappearance of the gastrointestinal bleeding, a deep vein thrombosis developed in the right leg. After a shortterm anticoagulation the patient was discharged from the hospital. The next decade passed with the patient suffering multiple episodes of thrombosis of the superficial veins, until the age of 23 years, when a long-term oral anticoagulant treatment was instituted and maintained. Protein S antigen was measured as described earlier (1) and found to be 25% of normal for the proposita when she was taking oral anticoagulants. Subsequently, the coumarin therapy was discontinued by the proposita and her grandmother and replaced by Ca-heparin (5000 I. U. two times a day). One month after discontinuation of oral anticoagulant therapy, protein S antigen of the proposita was 35% of normal, whereas that of the mother and maternal grandmother was 55% (normal range± 2 S.D. is 62% ·to 134% of pooled normal plasma). Thus, this family is proteinS .deficient and the heterozygous deficiency in this family appears to be autosomally dominant. The laboratory studies showed normal prothrombin antigen levels in the proposita and the grandmother.


Objective To evaluate the efficacy and safety of the compound felodipine sustained-release tablets in mild to moderate Chinese essential hypertensive patients.Methods This was a randomized,double-blind and double simulation,positive drug parallel control study.One hundred and thirty-five patients from 367 cases with mild to moderate essential hypertension were screened(115 cases in the control group,117 cases of experiment group) randoly into a period of 8 weeks treatment.The experiment group received the compound felodipine sustained-release tablets(enalaprilat maleate 5 mg+felodipine 2.5 mg fixed formulation,1 piece/d) and felodipine simulation agents(2 slices/d),and the control group took the felodipine sustained-release tablets(2.5 mg/plate,2 slices/d) and the compound felodipine simulation agents(1 piece/d).If their blood pressure were still not reached the required standard after 4 weeks treatment,the double dose treatment was initiated.Finally 220 patients completed the test and met the requirements of the trial(111 cases in the control group,109 cases of experiment group).Results The primary efficacy index,change of the diastolic pressure values after therapy in the control group and the experiment group were respectively(-9.3±7.7) and(9.0±8.3) mm Hg after 8 weeks treatment,respectively.Secondary outcome measures included:the sitting systolic blood pressure changed(-7.8±8.9) and(-8.1±9.28)mm Hg respectively,and the sitting diastolic blood pressure changed(-6.0±5.7) and(-5.7±6.4) mm Hg after 4 weeks treatment respectively,the sitting systolic blood pressure changed(-12.3±11.5) and(-11.7±12.9) mm Hg after 8 weeks treatment in the control group and the experiment group,respectively.Control rate of the blood pressure in the control group were 20.9% and 53.9% respectively,and those of the experiment group were 16.2% and 48.7% after 4 and 8 weeks of treatment respectively,and there was no significant difference(P=0.37 and 0.41) between the two groups.The adverse reaction rates of the control group and the experimental group were 5.2% and 10.3% respectively(P=0.22),mainly for the elevation of transaminase and cough.The important adverse event rates of the control group and the experimental group of were 4.3% and 6.8% respectively(P=0.57).Conclusion Compound felodipine sustained release tablets in the treatment of mild to moderate essential hypertension was effective,safe in Chinese hypertensives.


Random forest Input L1, L2, L3, or all three layers concatenated Trained with (and without) temporal aggregation of �ames 500 trees in forest [1] S. Sigtia and S. Dixon, "Improved music feature learning with deep neural networks," ICASSP, 2014. [2] P. Hamel and D. Eck, "Learning features �om music audio with deep belief networks." ISMIR, 2010. Table of GTZAN classification accuracy from [1]:


This paper put forward a new power grid fault trace method based on big data platform. It extend the data source to transformer substation and deal with the fault date by the technology of Spark. This method can solve the problem of mass data processing. This paper analyses fault information by data mining and trace the malfunction of protection or circuit breaker by decision tree. It can give the reason of fault and optimize the function of fault diagnosis system. Compared with the traditional fault diagnosis system, which based on alarm messages, this method can use every monitoring data in substation and give the reason of fault.


[Objective] To investigate the effect of one-stage bilateral hip replacement in the treatment of late stage of hip joint ankylosis.[Methods]Ninteen patients(38 hips)with hip ankylosis were taken as research samples.Patients underwent biologically total hip replacement with posterolateral incision and acetabular plastic repair after second osteotomy.The ankle between acetabulum and femoral body was modulated according to the pre-operative deformation.A larger artificial prosthesis was installed.Early functional exercises were taken after operation.[Results]All cases were given a mean follow-up of 5.5 years(1~8 yrs).Dislocation was found in 2 cases and recovered after manual reduction.Slight fissure fractures were found in 2 hips and no special management was given.Slight heterotopic ossification was found in 6 hips,with grade Ⅰ in 3 hips,grade Ⅱ in 3 hips according to Brooker Classification.No obvious functional influence was found.The flexion-extension range increased from 0° pre-operation to average 81°(65°~115°)and the mean moving range reached 160°(110°~230°).[Conclusion]Bilateral hip replacement is a good method to reconstruct the hip function,promote the living standard.Artificial joint damage in the traditional two stage operations was avoided.It also has advantages of less medical expenses for patients and less pain after surgery.Functional exercises could be started earlier.It is a satisfactory method for the treatment of hip joint ankylosis.


"The of this paper is to illustrate the methodology of timeflexible interactive business games. The importance of the work is to illustrate how to develop time-flexible interactive computer simulations so that more people are able to use their own computer games of this type in the classroom. A time-flexible interactive business game offers the student a more realistic environment than the fixed- tine format business game. This characteristic, referred to as verisimilitude, means that the participants experience a business environment that has the appearance of being true and real. This is the salient characteristic that makes this type of computer simulation mandatory for use in the classroom while making the fixed-format games obsolete in comparison. The methodology utilized by this paper to accomplish the above stated purpose will be to: 1) define the nature of timeflexible interactive simulation, 2) present a file access and modification example, and 3) in a very basic way, elucidate the technical aspects of the programming. "


This paper describes the constructed mathematical model of the controlled object of the automated system for controlling the displacement volume of the manipulator pump. The change in pump displacement volume is performed in order to save energy by minimizing the fluid drain through the overflow valve. The use of the considered manipulator is intended in the process of automated supply of blanks to the working area of a press used in forging and hot stamping processes. The reactive forces acting on the moving parts of the mobility modules from the fixed parts of the manipulator are determined. Conversion of the useful power of the pump into the useful power of hydraulic motors is performed. This takes into account the losses using efficiency. An equation describing the mathematical model of the controlled object is obtained. This equation is represented in relative variables. The derivation of this equation and the determination of the reactive forces are made on the basis of the assumption that all transport degrees of freedom are translational. This limitation is caused by the peculiarities of the working area of the press used in technological processes of forging and hot forming of blanks. The working zone is a deep horizontal tunnel, the movement of the working object in which is possible only with translational degrees of freedom.


The present invention relates to a tire, comprising a crown reinforcement, said crown reinforcement formed of at least two working crown layers of reinforcement elements, a first layer of rubber mixture C disposed in said at least two working crown layers at least between the end portion and the crown reinforcement comprises at least one layer of circumferential metal reinforcing elements. According to the present invention, the first layer C elasticity at 10% elongation of a tensile modulus of less than 8MPa, and said first layer C with a maximum tan tan (δ) max represented by ([delta]) value of less than 0.100.


Abstract This study aimed to synthesize Melphalan (MEL)-loaded PEGylated nanoliposomes and evaluate their cytotoxic effects on ovarian cancer A2780CP and SKOV3 cells. For this purpose, MEL-loaded PEGylated nanoliposomes were prepared by the reverse-phase evaporation method. They were then characterized, and the results showed that the size, size distribution, and zeta potential of the nanoformulation were 129.1 ± 5.5 nm, 0.240 ± 0.13, and −18.9   0.31 mv, respectively. Also, the encapsulation and loading efficiencies of MEL in the nanoparticles were determined to be 98.3 ± 2.1% and 5.2 ± 1.3%, respectively. Also, the drug release pattern was evaluated using a dialysis bag method, and the results demonstrated that 20.5% of MEL was released after 48 h from the nanoparticles, which was 2.7-fold slower compared to when the standard drug was used. In addition, the effects of the standard drug and nanoformulation on cell viability was assessed using a 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay, and the results showed that nanoformulation had 1.4-fold more toxicity than the standard drug. Moreover, the extent of apoptosis was investigated using the Annexin- propidium iodide kit and flow cytometry method. The results showed that MEL-loaded PEGylated nanoliposomes increased the apoptotic cells compared to the control group.


This paper analyses the role of wealth in the National Institute model of the World Economy (NIGEM). It also addresses the issues of fiscal solvency and the rote of the government budget constraint. We start with a brief theoretical and empirical overview of wealth and consumption functions. We then describe the introduction of public sector blocks into the model and summarise our approach to the determination of wealth. The paper then reports on a set of diagnostic simulations using NIGEM. We analyse the effects of a permanent fiscal expansion and its implications. We also discuss the importance of solvency constraints on the government in the solution of a forward looking model without Ricardian equivalence. We then analyse the effects of a change in equity prices in one country relative to those in the rest of the world.


Discerning psychology and habits are a fascinating subject. It is important to understand the basic human behavior and attitudes. Since, human attitude and behavior takes shape in early childhood, therefore, a special attention is paid to the positive upbringing of children. And this is only possible when we are well acquainted with the psychology and habits of children. In this regard, the prophet Muhammad (PBUH) has enlightened the ummah with the basic and fundamental psychological principles that can be abided to create a positive attitude in children. The aim of this research paper is to discuss and analyze these principles.
Keywords: Child Psychology, Qur'an, Sunnah, Seerah, Psychological principles


Objective To observe the dynamic changes of the binding and ingestion of the photoreceptor outer segments (POS) by retinal pigment epithelium(RPE),and then provide evidence to prevent and cure the diseases related to RPE.Methods FITC-POS suspension was added to the nearly confluent third generation of cultured new born bovine RPE,and then the binding and ingestion of the POS by RPE after incubated 1 hour,2 hours,3 hours,4 hours,5 hours,6 hours were observed,respectively.At the same time,the amount of integrin receptor-αVβ5 participanting in binding phase of the phagocytosis expressed by RPE was detected.Results After incubated 1 hour,no obvious phagocytosis occurred.After incubated 2 hours and 3 hours,the total amount of phagocytosis increased rapidly,then increased slowly until reached an stable condition.Otherwise the amount of ingested POS was nearly 0 during the first two hours,then increased rapidly from the third to the fifth hour,and then reached a stable condition in the sixth hour.RPE also expressed abundant amount of αVβ5 integrin receptor.Conclusion During the cycle of phagocytosis of new born bovine RPE,the second and the third hour after incubation is mainly the binding phase,and from the third to the sixth hour is mainly the ingesting phase.This suggests that the new born RPE has already had the ability to phagocytose POS.


Ten years after its completion, the controversial Aswan High Dam's hydrologic and human consequences are clearer because of a joint US-Egyptian interdisciplinary study. Water supply and distribution is emerging as a major world resource problem with the recognition that unsafe drinking water and inadequate sanitation contribute to health problems. Dams provide water supplies, but they also create conditions favorable to the spread of water-borne diseases. The Aswan Dam solved problems of flooding and drought by opening 2.5 million acres to year-round irrigation, although some of the reclaimed land has been lost to urban expansion and shoreline erosion, and provides hydroelectric power. The negative effects include increasing soil salinity, changes in the water table, excessive downstream water plant growth, and diseases such as schistosomiasis and other intestinal parasites, and the social impact on the Nubians, whose homeland was flooded. Planners must use the information gathered in this study to see that the benefits outweigh the human costs. 22 references, 7 figures.


Technology- and product-oriented movements (TPMs) are mobilizations of civil society organizations that generally include alliances with private-sector firms, for which the target of social change is support for an alternative technology and/or product, as well as the policies with which they are associated. TPMs generally involve "private-sector symbiosis," that is, a mixture of advocacy organizations/networks and private-sector firms. Case studies of nutritional therapeutics, wind energy, and open-source software are used to explore the tendency for large corporations in established industries to incorporate the products and technologies advocated by the TPM. As the incorporation process proceeds, the alternative technologies undergo design transformations that make them more compatible with existing products and technological systems. As the technological/product field undergoes diversification, "object conflicts" erupt over a range of design possibilities, from those advocated by the more social movement–oriented organizations to those advocated by the established industries.


The Space Interferometry Mission (SIM) is expected to make precise astrometric measurements that can be used to detect low mass planets around nearby stars. Since most nearby stars are members of multiple star systems, many stars will have a measurable acceleration due to their companion, which must be included when solving for astrometric parameters and searching for planetary perturbations. Additionally, many of the stars with one radial velocity planet show indications of additional planets. Therefore, astrometric surveys like SIM must be capable of detecting planets and measuring orbital parameters in systems with multiple stellar and/or planetary companions. We have conducted Monte Carlo simulations to investigate how the presence of multiple companions affects the sensitivity of an astrometric survey such as SIM. We find that the detection efficiency for planets in wide binary systems is relatively unaffected by the presence of a binary companion, if the planetary orbital period is less than half the duration of the astrometric survey. For longer orbital periods, there are significant reductions in the sensitivity of an astrometric survey. Additionally, we find that the signal required to detect a planet can be increased significantly due to the presence of an additional planet orbiting the same star. Fortunately, adding a modest number of precision radial velocity observations significantly improves the sensitivity for many multiple planet systems. Thus, the combination of radial velocity observations and astrometric observations by SIM will be a particularly valuable for studying multiple planet systems. Subject headings: planetary systems – techniques: interferometric Miller Research Fellow


A zero-crossing-based (ZCB) switched-capacitor technique is presented for operation under low power supply voltages without gate boosting. Voltage ramp generators maintain common-mode level at each integrator output. Correlated level-shifting is used to increase the effective output impedance of gated current sources. The technique was used to design a single-bit 4th-order delta-sigma analog-to-digital converter for audio applications. The prototype ADC was implemented in 0.13 pm CMOS and achieves 11.9 ENOB for 60 kHz input bandwidth while dissipating 1.2 mW power. Thesis Supervisor: Hae-Seung Lee Title: Professor of Electrical Engineering


For linear differential operations the author studies the connection between the general notion of a correctly posed boundary value problem, given by Hormander, and its description in terms of the boundary conditions. It is shown that, knowing one correctly posed problem and the kernels of operators that are maximal for the original and adjoint operation, it is possible to describe all correctly posed problems. Examples of explicit realization of this construction are presented. For operators with constant coefficients in a compact domain the author establishes the existence of correctly posed problems with poor regularity properties for the solutions, as well as problems in whose graph there is no dense set of infinitely differentiable functions.Bibliography: 8 titles.


Compaction bands can reduce the permeability of rocks dramatically.This phenomenon plays an important role in some fields,suchas oil and gas reservoirs,aquifer management.A relatively new but increasingly important application is geological sequestration of carbon dioxide,which is very significant to mitigate harmful effects on the climate.So it becomes a subject of focused research in rock mechanics and physical geography.Rudnicki and Rice (1975) (RR theory) attempted to model the onset of localized deformation as a bifurcation or non-uniqueness from homogeneous deformation.RR theory established a most general form of a rate-independent,elastically isotropicplastic constitutive relation to predict the bandangle of localization deformation bands.Builiding upon the RR theory, 01sson(1999),Issen and Rudnicki (2002) proposed a two yield surface constitutive model to study the compaction bands.This article introduced the experiment study,field observation and theoretical analysis and suggestd the direction of compaction bands.


We study the critical level statistics at the many-body localization (MBL) transition region in random spin systems. By employing the inter-sample randomness as indicator, we manage to locate the MBL transition point in both orthogonal and unitary models. We further count the nth order gap ratio distributions at the transition region up to n = 4, and find they fit well with the short-range plasma model with inverse temperature β = 1 for orthogonal model and β = 2 for unitary. These critical level statistics are argued to be universal by comparing results from systems both with and without total S z conservation. We also point out that these critical distributions can emerge from the spectrum of a Poisson ensemble, which indicates the thermal-MBL transition point is more affected by the MBL phase rather than thermal phase.


With rapid economic development, the total acreages of fruit trees, vegetables and various ornamental plants in China are greatly expanded, now ranking number one in the world. Plant tissue culture techniques have been extensively applied in horticulture, such as clonal propagation combined with virus-free technique in potato, banana, grape tree, apple, pear and different ornamental plants, and embryo rescue technique for obtaining hybrid plants in kiwi fruit and peach. For plant molecular biology and transgenic techniques, main priority has been placed on rice, since it has small genome and its importance in agriculture, that makes rice a major model species. Until Aug. 2003, 1044 applications were accepted for evaluation of biosafety, and 777 were approved for field trials, covering over 30 plant species, such as rice, maize, cotton, rapeseed, potato, soybean and poplar tree. Transgenic tomato (delaying ripening and virus resistance), petunia (changing flower color), sweet pepper (virus resistance) and cotton (insect resistance) have been released for field production. Total acreage of transgenic plants reaches 2.8 million ha in 2003. More genes of agronomic significance were cloned, and molecular markers identified, those would be very useful to plant breeding.


This paper aims to establish that the Correspondence
 between Marguerite d'Angouleme and Guillaume Briconnet, an exchange of letters
 which lasted four years (1521-1524), is in fact one of the first involvements by
 a woman in the male theological discourse of the sixteenth century. Through a
 strategy based on the use of metaphors, Marguerite is able to engage in a debate
 which had specifically excluded female writers until then.


The international increased competition of the steel industry requires modern construction solutions to save material and thus labour costs. Combined with architectural trends to lightweight structures, the development of high strength steels, with steel grades exceeding a yield strength of 460 MPa, is a logical solution. These materials are not fully covered yet in the European Design Standards, especially in regard to stability issues. As the difference of high strength steel and mild steels lies mainly in the deviating plastic behaviour, the focus of the study at hand lies firstly on local buckling, where local plastifications might influence the ultimate load of a structural element. In the respective Eurocode 3-1-5, the resistance curve used to represent the reduction factor of plated elements due to local failure is based on the so-called Winter-curve, which was derived by George Winter using a semi-empirical approach in 1947. This design curve reproduces the mean reduction values achieved in the experiments conducted by Winter and other researchers at that time. More recent tests on welded, squared box sections from steel grades S275 up to S960, and also the 34 experiments conducted within this study, showed the un-conservativeness of the Winter-curve with increasing local slenderness, independently of steel grade. The evaluation of test results revealed a considerable scatter, which is partly attributed to the stability failure mode, but could be also found to be originated from lack of information concerning unintended eccentricities in the experimental test setup. Therefore, the data set was divided into two sets, one consisting of all data, and one including only tests where these information were available and thus had reduced scatter. A new reduction curve was derived, which represents the mean function for all test data available in the whole slenderness range. To ascertain a defined level of failure probability, the mandatory safety concept of EN 1990 was applied on the existing and the newly proposed resistance definition, to derive the corresponding safety factor γ M . The procedure is thereby based on assumptions regarding the material and geometric property-specific Coefficients of Variation (CoVs). Standard values often given in literature, although correct for their specific applications, cannot be simply adjusted when including high strength steel material. In the study at hand, it was thus focused on weighting the impact of different properties like e.g. yield strength, and show where the safety concept has to be adapted. Different approaches and variations are presented and discussed in this work, leading to scientifically justified γ M -values. After clarification of the local buckling resistance, the interaction with global buckling was focused on. While there are precise analytical models available to assess the calculation of critical and ultimate load for global and local buckling separately, the interaction of both modes prove to be difficult as membrane effects and imperfections are of major impact. In an experimental programme, 13 tests on columns with high b/t-ratio were carried out on squared, welded box sections made of S500 and S960 steel material, varying the global slenderness. The experiments were re-calculated with the Finite-Element-programme ANSYS. The calibrated numerical model was subsequently used for parametric studies. iii In these studies it was aimed to cover a range of both local and global slenderness up to 2 and load patterns including bending. The interaction design check in Eurocode 3-1-1 is based on the Ayrton-Perry format using linear-elastic assumptions, which allow for separate assessment of local effects, axial forces and bending. Several additional correction factors are thereby to calculate. The study at hand provides an analytic approach to determine a slenderness depending reduction factor under an early combination of axial forces and bending such that additional factors can be neglected. This approach, subsequently denoted as "generalised slenderness approach (gs)" is still orientated on the Ayrton-Perry format. Local effects are not included by omitting parts of the cross-section in the gs-approach, but by adding an additional equivalent global imperfection. The magnitude of this imperfection is based on the earlier derived new reduction curve. Design charts for box sections were developed to ease the application.


Dehydrated cultures of tubercle bacilli suspended in olive oil promptly loose their acid-fastness upon incubation, and the subcutaneous or intraperitoneal injection of these non-acid fast cultures into guinea-pigs sensitizes to the intracutaneous administration of old tuberculin.1 The purpose of this paper is to present a series of results obtained by treating guinea-pigs with the non-acidfast cultures before and after inoculating them with living tubercle bacilli.


In this work, we present a stochastic approach to shallow parsing. Most of the current approaches to shallow parsing have a common characteristic: they take the sequence of lexical tags proposed by a POS tagger as input for the chunking process. Our system produces tagging and chunking in a single process using an Integrated Language Model (ILM) formalized as Markov Models. This model integrates several knowledge sources: lexical probabilities, a contextual Language Model (LM) for every chunk, and a contextual LM for the sentences. We have extended the ILM by adding lexical information to the contextual LMs. We have applied this approach to the CoNLL-2000 shared task improving the performance of the chunker.


This report summarizes a method of design for drilled shaft sound wall foundations. The purpose of the research was to investigate the accuracy of the sound wall foundation design method used by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), and to develop ways to make the process of designing these foundations, and the process of checking designs, more efficient for VDOT engineers. Field tests were performed on drilled shafts at five sites in Virginia, and laboratory tests were performed on the silty and clayey soils from the sites. These data were used to develop and to verify the accuracy of the method of design described in this report. In the procedure described in this report, the calculations are automated through use of an Excel spreadsheet named LCAP101 (3.5-in. floppy disk included with this report). Basic data defining wall geometry, soil conditions and wind load are entered in the spreadsheet, and the required lengths of drilled shafts are calculated by the spreadsheet for diameters ranging from 18 to 54 in. (46 to 137 cm). The volumes of concrete and maximum moments are also calculated for each of these sizes. A suitable diameter and percentage of longitudinal reinforcement can then be selected by reference to a chart, table, or formula. Ground line deflections under design load conditions can be estimated using another table. Use of the spreadsheet, tables and charts improves the efficiency of the process and reduces the likelihood of computational errors.


This paper was prepared as the result of work funded by the California Energy Commission, the California Environmental Protection Agency, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, California Department of Transportation, and the California Ocean Protection Council (collectively "the funding agencies"). It does not necessarily represent the views of the funding agencies, their respective officers, agents and employees, or the State of California. The funding agencies, the State of California, and their respective officers, employees, agents, contractors, and subcontractors make no warrant, express or implied, and assume no responsibility or liability for the results of any actions taken or other information developed based on this paper; nor does any party represent that the uses of this information will not infringe upon privately owned rights. This paper is being made available for informational purposes only and has not been approved or disapproved by the funding agencies, nor have the funding agencies passed upon the accuracy, currency, completeness, or adequacy of the information in this paper. Users of this paper agree by their use to hold blameless each of the funding agencies for any liability associated with its use in any form. This work shall not be used to assess actual coastal hazards, insurance requirements or property values, and specifically shall not be used in lieu of Flood Insurance Studies and Flood Insurance Rate Maps issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). FI AL P AP ER


Tangshan is an important eastern coastal resource-based city.Its industrial structure remains the "second third first"style.Long-term dynamic equilibrium relationship between three industries and economic growth is analyzed in this paper;optimal model is established based on the cointegration theory.At last,adjustment path of Tangshan industrial structure is proposed.


The phenomenological structure of the combined Higgs-boson--slepton sector of the alternative left-right-supersymmetric model introduced by Ma is explored. Constraints upon and relations between Higgs-boson and slepton masses are derived and a tightly constrained mass spectrum is found. In general, one neutral Higgs boson is never heavier than 98 GeV, one neutral Higgs boson is always nearly degenerate in mass with the extra neutral gauge boson {ital Z}{sub 2}{sup 0}, and the charged Higgs boson can in principle be as light as 22 GeV. Further constraints require large ratios of Higgs vacuum expectation values, strongly favor the {ital W}{sub {ital R}} mass above {similar to}423 GeV, predict one Higgs-boson mass to be always very close to 98 GeV, and masses of the other Higgs bosons and the sleptons to be bounded from above and preferably not much above the {ital Z} mass. In addition, the possibility of detecting light Higgs bosons at CERN LEP and the SLAC Linear Collider is briefly discussed.


In this paper ,the geometric errors of DM1007 milling machineis described .The 9-line method is used to identify error parameters ,and ML10 Gold laser interferometer produced by Renishawis used to measure error parameters .Through the experi ment ,we find this method is simple , quick and has a high recognition accuracy .


The development of priority design theory of municipal sewage treatment plant in different stages is reflected,some units of its priority design and from PLC parts are also analyed,finally several further research problems having yet to be solved for the theoretical research of priority design municipital sewage treatment plant are presentanted.


Introduction. Protective equipment has become globally used to protect against respiratory infections in healthcare workers and sick patients. With the emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the global pandemic, the role of protective masks in reducing the transmission of the new virus has become the subject of much research. Although the protective mask has a significant role in reducing the transmission of infections, wearing it also has certain adverse effects. Aim. The aim of this review is to show the effectiveness of different types of protective masks in reducing the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, as well as the comparison of adverse effects when wearing protective masks


This research shows the whole epigraphical sources for the study of the vernae/vemaculi in Roman Spain, from their social condition to the use of the word as a cognomen or as an indication of the origo.


AbstractA new PVC membrane potentiometric sensor for Fe(III) ions was prepared using N,N′-bis(2,6-diisopropylphenyl)-1,4-diaza-1,3-butadiene) (iPr2Ph-DAD) as a suitable carrier. The best performance was observed for the membrane composition including 33.0% PVC, 66.0% DOS, and 1.0% ionophore. The electrode displayed a linear potential response over a concentration range from 1.0 × 10−6 to 1.0 × 10−2 M with a detection limit of 4.5 × 10−7 M and a Nernstian slope of 19.9 ± 0.3 mV/decade. The sensor response is pH independent in the range of 2.1–6.0 and has a fast response time of 7 s. It also shows good selectivity to Fe(III) ion over many alkali, alkaline earth, transition, and heavy metal ions. The lifetime of the electrode was two months. It has been observed that the developed sensor satisfactorily works in partially non-aqueous media up to 10% (v/v) content of methanol, ethanol, and acetone. The proposed electrode could be used to quantify Fe3+ ion in some different synthetic and real samples with satis...


This paper is intended to provide an insight into some of the technical problems that appear to be impeding the development of railroad freight intermodalism as an efficient and viable transport system. Three points of view are presented: the "systems approach", the operational approach, and the economic approach.


Wireless multicarrier communication systems transmit data by spreading it over multiple subcarriers and are widely used today owing to their robustness to multipath fading, high spectrum efficiency, and ease of implementation. In this paper, we use real measurements to show there is significant frequency diversity in Wi-Fi channels, and propose a series of techniques to explicitly harness such frequency diversity. In particular, we leverage the Channel State Information (CSI), which captures the SNR on each subcarrier to (i) map symbols to subcarriers according to their importance, (ii) effectively recover partially corrupted FEC groups and facilitate FEC decoding, and (iii) develop MAC-layer FEC to offer different degrees of protection to the symbols according to their error rates at the PHY layer. We further develop a rate adaptation approach that works together with these optimization schemes. Our trace-driven simulation and testbed experiments based on USRP clearly demonstrate the effectiveness of our approaches.


PyeongChang 2018's vision for the 2018 Games is to offer the Olympic Movement and the world of winter sports New Horizons - a legacy of new growth and new potential never seen before.


Andrew Abbott in The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor, one of the best books on the sociology of the professions ever written, presents systemic theory and data regarding the origin, growth, fusion, and fission of professions as they compete with each other over what he calls "workplace jurisdictions" [I]. Defining "professional power" as "the ability to retain jurisdiction when system forces imply that a profession ought to have lost it," he argues that "jurisdictional invasion generally begins in the workplace, then moves to the public mind, and then into the law." And he generalizes how long it usually takes for the system to equilibrate after a jurisdictional challenge: "Jurisdictions are renegotiated in workplaces over twoto threeyear periods, in (the public's mind) over tento twenty-year periods, in the law over twentyto fifty-year periods." That fits almost precisely osteopathy and chiropractic, both of which invaded the medical marketplace at the end of the last century, osteopathy coming first. Its founder Andrew Taylor Still was a frontier doctor who, having lost three children to an 1864 meningitis epidemic, "flung to the breeze the banner of osteopathy" in the 1870s and established the first osteopathic school in Kirksville, Missouri, in 1892 [2]. Chiropractic was "discovered" by Daniel David Palmer in 1895 at Davenport, Iowa, less than 150 miles from Kirksville, although he began using the word "chiropractic" only in the following year [3]. He began teaching it in 1898 but did not change the name of his school from "Palmer's School of Magnetic Cure" to "Palmer Infirmary and Chiropractic Institute" until 1902 [4]. Both Still and Palmer had earlier practiced magnetic healing, and Still had even advertised himself as a "lightning bonesetter" [5].


For this study, women who had undergone a breast biopsy 6‐8 months earlier were randomly selected from lists of breast biopsy reports supplied by each of the pathology laboratories in the four communities. Because about 25% of the breast biopsy reports indicated breast cancer, our sampling fraction for women with benign breast disease was one third of that for women with breast cancer to obtain similar sample sizes in both groups. Women were invited to participate in the study by their surgeon. An invitation letter, prepared by our staff on the surgeon's letterhead and signed by the surgeon, was sent to each woman selected. Included with this letter were a response form on which the woman could check whether or not she wished to participate in the study and a stamped addressed envelope to be returned with the form to the woman's surgeon, who then forwarded them to us. Participating surgeons (n 4 27) sent invitations to 941 women. Two hundred fifty women (27%) did not respond to their surgeon's invitation, and 153 (16%) refused to participate. Five hundred thirtyeight women (57%) agreed to be interviewed. Fifteen of these women could not be reached, and five lived outside the study communities, leaving 518 women with completed interviews. Of these, 53 were excluded from the analysis because of a history of breast cancer or of breast biopsies, leaving 465 interviews for analysis: 208 (45%) from women with breast cancer and 257 (55%) from women with benign breast disease. The 53 women excluded did not differ statistically significantly from the study participants in age, educational level, or household


In recent years, there have been several proposals that extend the expressive power of Bayesian networks with that of rela- tional models. These languages open the possibility for the specification of recursive probability models, where a vari- able might depend on a potentially infinite (but finitely de- scribable) set of variables. These models are very natural in a variety of applications, e.g., in temporal, genetic, or language models. In this paper, we provide a structured representa- tion language that allows us to specify such models, a clean measure-theoretic semantics for this language, and a proba- bilistic inference algorithm that exploits the structure of the language for efficient query-answering.


Charge transport properties of poly(dA)-poly(dT) DNA has been studied by using thigh binding Hamiltonian approach. Molecule DNA that we use consist of 32 base pair of adenine (A) and thymine (T) and backbone is consist of phosphate and sugar. The molecule DNA is contacted electrode at both ends. Charge transport in molecule DNA depend on the environment, we studied the effect of electronic coupling of Watson-Crick hopping in poly(dA)-poly(dT) DNA to transmission probability and characteristic I-V. The electronic coupling constant influence charge transport between adenine-thymine base pairs at the same site. Transmission probability is studied by using transfer matrix and scattering matrix method, and the result of transmission probability is used to calculate the characteristic I-V by using formula Landauer Buttiker. The result shows that when the electronic coupling increase then transmission probability and characteristic I-V increase slightly.


Since the discovery of high-temperature superconductor (HTS), liquid nitrogen(LN2) has not been only utilized as a coolant of superconducting electric equipment but also as an insulation material in cryogenic environment due to its dielectric performance. It also has a lot of advantages over other cryogenic liquid such as less expense and harmless substance, thus it has been widely used in the development of superconducting devices. Up to now, a lot of research works dealing with the breakdown characteristics of LN2 for distribution-class superconducting devices have been presented worldwide but, few research works about breakdown characteristics of liquid nitrogen in extra high voltage class have been reported due to the limitation of cryogenic test facilities in extra high voltage (EHV) class. In order to study the cryogenic EHV insulation technologies, we have built the cryogenic dielectric test facilities including a fiber reinforced plastic (FRP) big cryostat with cryogenic bushing, a 400 kV AC overvoltage and a 1.6 MV lightning impulse test systems. Using these facilities, we focused on the breakdown characteristics of liquid nitrogen in EHV level which is rather different comparing to the distribution level. With real scale big cryostat, AC overvoltage test and impulse tests have been performed. From the test results, the breakdown characteristics of liquid nitrogen in EHV were suggested. And these test results could be used as basic insulation design data to develop transmission-class superconducting electric equipment.


A host environment cleaning using disinfectants is the most effective way to prevent the pathogen's transmission. This study compared the activity among of commercial liquid disinfectants [3% hydrogen peroxide (HP), and 70% ethyl alcohol (EA)] and bioactive-compounds (BCs) from Streptomyces sp. KB1 on indicating microorganisms: Bacillus subtilis ATCC 6633 as representative of spores; Staphylococcus aureus TISTR 517 and clinical methicillin-resistant S. aureus as representative of gram-positive bacteria, Escherichia coli TISTR 887, Pseudomonas aeruginosa TISTR 1467, and extended spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL)-Klebsiella pneumoniae 342 as representative of gram-negative bacteria; Candida albicans TISTR 5779 as representative of yeast. Results showed that B. subtilis spores are resistant to 70% EA and BCs from strain KB1—which are biocidal to TISTR strains and clinical isolate MRSA, ESBL—in the free floating microorganism (suspension test). On the other hand, this resistance was not observed with 3% HP. Thus, 3% HP showed more promise for disinfecting microorganisms than that 70% EA and BCs. However, BCs did show the antimicrobial activities equal as 70% EA. The results might be implied that the using of BCs from selected bacterial strain as effective disinfectant against microorganism, especially vegetative cell, is a sustainable application in nearly future, to reduce using the chemical substances and zero wastes.


1 Ji Hyung Park, 1, 2 Dae Gon Woo, 1 Dae Woon Lee, 1 Chi Hoon Kim, 3 Beob Yi Lee and 1* Han Sung Kim 1 Department of Biomedical Engineering and Institute of Medical Engineering, Yonsei University, Wonju, Korea 2 Medical devices Research Division, National Institute of Food and Drug Safety Evaluation, Korea Food & Drug Administration, Seoul, Korea 3 Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, Konkuk University, Seoul, Korea; email: firstname.lastname@example.com


The first two years of Narendra Modi's governance were marked with the unprecedented level of activity on the world stage. In particular, the India-U.S. strategic partnership gained new momentum. The major areas of the growing bilateral cooperation are defense and security, economy, space, science and technology. The rise of politico-military interactions between two states in Indo-Pacific region as well as the increased share of American companies in the Indian defense market challenge Russian interests. Apart from that, the realization of U.S.-India civil nuclear agreement may result in the competition between Russian and American energy companies. On the one hand, in the short-term perspective there are no threats to the positions of Russia in two key areas of cooperation with India (defense and nuclear energy). On the other hand, preserving the leadership requires careful attention to the relationship with New Delhi since the potential of bilateral cooperation remains to be unleashed.


In this paper, a case study is carried out in Hong Kong for demonstration of the Transport Information System (TIS) prototype. A traffic flow simulator (TFS) is presented to forecast the short-term travel times that can be served as a predicted travel time database for the TIS in Hong Kong. In the TFS, a stochastic deviation coefficient is incorporated to simulate the minute-by-minute fluctuation of traffic flows within the peak hour period. The purposes of the case study are: 1) to show the applicability of the TFS for larger-scale road network; and 2) to illustrate the short-term forecasting of path travel times in practice. The results of the case study show that the TFS can be applied to real network effectively. The predicted travel times are compared with the observed travel times on the selected paths for an OD pair. The results show that the observed path travel times fall in the 90% confidence interval of the predicted path travel times.


The Brazilian penitentiary system has many flaws, which involve the treatment of the prisoners, and also the work situation of the professionals in this setting. This fact led to this investigation, which had as a purpose to identify the presence of stress due to labor activities, assess the quality of life of the workers and correlate the dimensions of quality of life to occupational stress among the prison officers. This is a descriptive, transversal and quantitative research , carried out with  35 workers (70% of the universes ) working in the prison system of the municipality of  Cajazeiras, Paraiba after the approval  of the Research Ethics Committee of the Faculty of Santa Maria (protocol number 815.685). For the data collection the World Health Organization Quality of Life – Bref (WHOQOL-Bref) and the Job Stress Scale (JSS) were used. The data was analyzed through the descriptive and inferential statistics. In the comparison between the quality of life and work-related stress domains, the Friedman test was used and to control the error effect Bonferroni's test was carried out. The results, regarding occupational stress, indicated that the psychological demand was what presented the highest score (3.74) and lack of control over work the lowest one (2.71). The total level of quality of life of the prison officers presented an average of 71.07, with the highest score being for the social domain (76.90 points) and the lowest score for the environmental domain (62.23 points). When correlating the quality of life with stress, there was a negative and significant correlation of the total quality of life with the lack of control over work (ρ = -0.42; p <0.05) and with the total stress (ρ = -0.41; p <0.05) showing that the higher the levels of stress, lower the quality of life level. Despite the quality of life having been adequate, the environmental domain has led to its reduction, as well as the occupational stress, being this factor more affected by the lack of control over work. Interventions in the field of promotion of occupational health and safety, with general improvements in the life and work conditions of the prison agents are suggested.


Posttraumatic thumb defects result in significant functional impairment. Multiple reconstructive procedures have been described for the management and improvement of function. Compared with no treatment, all reconstructive methods are beneficial. Each of the available procedures may be more applicable under certain conditions, can offer great benefits, and have its own downsides as well. With a thorough assessment and meticulous technique, the results of thumb reconstruction can be excellent. We present a review of the current reconstructive procedures for traumatic thumb amputation.


A nitrogen-doped graphene oxide/copper oxide (N-GO/CuO) nanocomposite is prepared through a modified Hummers method followed by heat treatment. The composite is characterized by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy, and the results show crumpled and curved graphene oxide nanosheets with uniformly distributed CuO nanoparticles. The composition of N-GO/CuO is further studied by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), Raman spectroscopy, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The electrochemical behaviors of N-GO/CuO as an anode material for lithium ion rechargeable batteries are investigated by galvanostatic discharge–charge measurements and cyclic voltammetry. N-GO/CuO exhibits a high reversible capacity of 472 mA h g−1 under the current density of 372 mA g−1 with excellent capacity retention of 99.7% over 100 cycles and improved rate capacities. This work demonstrates that N-GO/CuO is a promising anode material for lithium ion batteries.