Several assessments have been made of the economic feasibility of liquefaction of orgar.ic municipal waste and/or biomass since 1972, placing the breakeven cost of liquefying from about $16.00/dry ton to over $58.00/dry ton cellulosic material processed, exclusive of the cost of biomass, in plants processing roughly 2,500 dry tons biomass daily. LBL studied the cost assessments in order to trace the origins of disparities and to identify the unit operations or unit processes that are costly so that the R & D effort could be diverted to find solutions to the costly steps. The =ajor causes of the disparity (corrected for inflationary trends) vere traced to the differences in the interpretation of process chemistry. The LBL ~~alysis indicated that the econonic feasibility of bio~ass liquefaction approaches that of coal liquefaction in spite of the fact that the biomass liquefaction plants have to be smaller by an order of magnitude. This economic feasibility assessment concerns the Bureau of Mines process for which the Albany facility vas designed and built and which is now being evaluated. ·an the basis of bench scale experiments, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL) co=ceptualized three optional biomass liquefaction p~ocesses, one of.vhich has already been tested at ft~bany, Oregon and found to be chemically and technically feasible. The other two process options are scheduled to be tested at Albany during July 1979. Tt.e cost assessment made in this report pertains to the Bureau of Mines process. In 1973, D~vo Corporation was commissioned by the Bureau of Mines to make a technical and economic feasibility study of biomass liquefaction by a process conceptualized at the Bureau of Mines and to provide the conceptual design of a process development unit (PDU) that would perr.:it the development of the process should the process economics approach economic feasibility. The Dravo study placed the breakeven cost of oil produced at $7.00/bbl exclusive of the cost of rav material. Two years later, National Science Foundation commissioned Bechtel Corporation to make a technical and economic desirability study of organic waste liquefaction in order to assess the operational Justification of the PDU by ERDA. The Bechtel study placed the breakeven cost at $16.13/bbl. During the same year Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories (PNL) made an independent analysis of the process for ERDA as a part of a study de.. ,~';:.'l'rc:;;-xplore the best use of the facility. · ·The Battelle study placed the breakeven cost at about $12.00/bbl. The plant construction was completed during December of 1976 and Bechtel Corporation was contracted to commission the facility, and conduct some experimental runs. The final Bechtel report (June 1978) included a cost analysis of the process which placed the breakeven cost of oil produced at $29.00/bbl, exclusive of the raw material cost, from a plant processing 2,500 TPD dry wood. Although Bechtel strongly recommended the continuation of the development program with the stated belief that the costs can be reduced through development, the high cost caused concern and LBL was asked to review the cost estimates. Bechtel conceptualized two integrated plants, one for liquefaction, another one for gasification to provide synthesis gas for the liquefaction plant and other heat requirements. Each plant was sized to process 1,250 dry tons daily. The cost estimates made by Bechtel included the items listed below: 1. Annualized direct costs: site and yard, civil/· structural, mechanical, piping and instruments, electrical, indirect (80% 9f labor), engineering, and uncertainty (20%). 2. Owner costs: land, startup, AFDC, and miscellaneous (4% of the total construction costs). 3. Operating costs: labor and material for maintenance, operating labor, supervision, ad.ministration and overhead, supplies, local taxes and insurance, and utilities. The cost estimates were thorough and conservative. The totals translate into a wood processing cost of $58.00/dry ton. Bechtel has assumed that 2 bbls oil (a round figure) would be produced per dry ton total wood utilized. The $39.00/bbl figure translates into $78.00/dry ton. Subtracting the cost of wood ($20.00/dry ton), the cost of processing becomes $58.00/dry ton. An examination of the cost breakdown for the tvo plants leads to the following figures for processing costs: · 1~ The cost of liquefying vood is $42.00/dry ton. 2. The cost of gasifying wood is $74.00/dry ton. The average being $58.00/ton. To translate these operating costs to a breakeven cost for the oil produced, Bechtel made the following assumptions: 1. Fifty lb dey wood will yield 35 lb oil upon liquefaction. ·2. Fifty lb dry wood has to be gasified to produce the carbon monoxide needed for liquefaction and process heat requirements. 3. The oil produced has a heating value of 15,000 Btu/ib. 4. The gross thermal efficiency of the process is 66%. Neither the conceptual design nor the operating costs are in question. However, the assumptions cited above are not acceptable. Ass~ption 1 requires an oil yield of 70%! Experimental results obtained at the Bureau of Mines, PNL, and LBL indicate the yield of an oil having the composition assumed by Bechtel cannot exceed 58%. If the Bechtel cost estimate is corrected for this lower yield, the cost of oil would be $49. 00/bbl instead of $30. 00/bbl. This assumption is over-optimistic. Assumption 2 is a consequence of the reaction stoichiometry assumed by Bechtel. There are no data in the literature indicating that carbon monoxide consumption is over sevenfold that dete~ined by the Bureau of l4ines. This assumption is very pessimistic. Assumption 3 is baseless. An oil having the composition that Bechtel assumed, i.e., 23% oxygen, is likely to have a heating value of about 13,300 Btu/ lb and not 15,000." This assumption is very optimistic. Assumption 4 may not be regarded as an assumption because it is the consequence of the th"ee preceding assumptions. However, we are not sui-e of this. This may have been the assumption that dictated or influenced asswnptions 2 a.nd/or 3. If corrected· for lower oil yield and lower Btu value, the gross thermal efficiency of the process wnUld be LB% instead of 66%. Even a 66% gross thermal efficiency is extremely conservative for 0: liquefaction process (for coal it is about 80%). In summary, the chemical and stoichiometric bases of cost estimates· are fraught with many inconsistencies· and. invalid assumptions. After a careful evaluation of the results of recent research on wood liquefaction at PNL and LBL, and comparing these results with those reported by the Bureau of Mines, we arrived at the chemical bases listed below: 1. Eiehty toh dry wood will yield 46.4 ton oil (58% conversion efficiency) upon liquefaction. 2. Twenty ton dry wood will be gasified to provide the carbon monoxide and heat requirementr.. 3. The oil produced will have a heating value of about 13,500 Btu/lb. These bases lead to a gross thermal efficiency of about _78%, i.e., do not include the electricity used, Using the chemical bases listed above and process costs provided by Bechtel, the breakeven cost of oil is as shown below: (42 + 20)80 + (74 + 20)20 350 46.4 2000 = $25.80/bbl. The factor 350/2000 converts barrels to tons. The chemical bases listed above require a larp;er liquefaction plant (80 vs. 50) and a smaller gasification plant (20 vs·. 50) than those assumed in the Bechtel conceptual design. If we adjust the processing costs for changes ih plant sizes ( !12 becomes 36.5 and.74 becomes 97), the cost increases .by only $1.00. However, we cannot take the $97_.00 figure seriously. In summary, had Bechtel interpreted the reaction chemistry properly, they would have arrived at a breakeven cost of about $26.00/bbl and an oil yield 33% higher than they projected. In terms of heating value of the oil produced, the latest Bechtel cost estimate places the breake,;en cost of oil at $6.13/MM Btu, .exclusive of the material cost ($8.25/MM Btu including the ccst of the wood). The cost estimate revised by LBL places the corresponding costs at $3.86 and $5.46/1-'ll-1 Btu, respectively. In the Bechtel report the cost of oil produced from coal by the SRC II process is placed between $3.00 and $4. 00/i•IH Btu including the cost of coal. If we assign $1. 00/MI·l Btu for the cost of the coal and 80% for thermal efficiency, the cost of the SRC. II oil would be between $1.75 and $2.75/MM Btu. If the latter figures are trar.slated into plants processing 3,000 TPD coal instead of 30,000 TPD, the cost of processing would nearly double, i.e. , $3. 50 to $5. 50/MN Btu. Considering the fact that biomass is much more reactive than coal, liquefies at much lower temperatures (680°F vs. 860°F), does not require pure hydrogen and contains no elaborate cleanup system in the liquefaction process because it contains little-or no sulfur, nitrogen, and ash, the cost fir;ure revised in this_ report. is very conservative. In its conceptual design Bechtel incorporated an expensive product oil recoveioy system and n very expensive gas cleanup system without a valid data base. ~ i


The quad-tree structured motion-compensation technique effectively utilizes the motion content of a frame as opposed to the fixed size block motion compensation technique. The authors propose a novel quad-tree structured region-wise motion compensation technique that divides a frame into equilateral triangle blocks using the quad-tree structure. Arbitrary partition shapes are achieved by allowing 4-to-1, 3-to-1 and 2-1 merge/combine of sibling blocks having the same motion vector. We propose an optimal code scheme and a temporal predictive coding for the quad-tree. Simulation results show that our techniques reduce the bit rate by 40% as compared to other methods.


The synthesis of novel polypyridyl molybdenum and cobalt complexes and their electrocatalytic hydrogen-producing abilities are described. The synthesis of novel iron complexes and their conversion to transient iron(IV)-oxo complexes is described.


The crystal chemistry of Rb‐Cs boroleucites has been studied by means of X‐ray powder diffraction at room and elevated temperatures. The cubic I‐43d → cubic Ia3d phase transition was investigated using a series of samples prepared by solid‐state reaction along the pseudobinary system RbBSi2O6 ‐ CsBSi2O6. The Rietveld refinement of the structures of Rb1‐xCsxBSi2O6 solid solutions (x = 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8) demonstrates that the solutions with a high Rb content crystallise in the cubic I‐43d space group, and the boroleucites with a considerable Cs content have Ia3d symmetry. Rb can substitute Cs in a wide range of compositions. Within a narrow range of x = 0.5 ‐ 0.6 immiscibility was revealed. Under Rb‐Cs substitution the cubic lattice parameter, the (Rb,Cs)‐O distances, and the angles between tetrahedra of the I‐43d phase change clearly, while those of the Ia3d phase change slightly. The HTXRD data shows that the I‐43d phase transforms into a Ia3d phase on heating analogously to a change of the composition. As the Cs content increases the transition temperature decreases. The low temperature I‐43d phase shows a higher thermal expansion than the high temperature Ia3d phase. © 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim


In this article the authors describe a study on wheel-climb derailments which was intended to provide lay persons with a better practical understanding on the subject. First the original account of wheel flange-climb is described, which is based on a simple equilibrium of forces between wheel and rail on an inclined plane of contact. However, earlier descriptions of wheel-rail interactions did not take into account gauge-face angle, rail lubrication, top-of-rail frication, and wheel-flange angle. Creating a wheel-climb index for each of these contact conditions greatly improves data representation and testing for soundness against derailments. Other conditions that the authors suggest to be accounted for in such an index are track curvature, track gauge, cant deficiency, wheelbase, and suspension stiffness. A second stage of studies for the future of implementing these indices is described, currently in the research phase.


The present invention relates to a device for identifying and separating the fibrous material from the impurities, the fibrous material conveyed by the feed element (14, 15) to scutching station (1), wherein the fibrous material is obtained by a or more separation means (5,56) by the opener roller guide, and subsequently delivered to the feed channel (24, 58 '). In order to improve the known methods, and the optimum orientation for the separation of impurities, impurities direct identification and separation means (32,33,50) mounted scutching station (1) transport zone (20,24,58 ').


Object of study. The evaluation of the interaction between breast milk opportunistic microorganisms abundance and the milk whey antimicrobial activity at different periods of lactation.Materials and methods. 100 samples of breast milk from healthy breastfeeding mothers were inoculated on solid selective media, and then pure cultures of microorganisms were identified by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry. The antimicrobial activity of the whey against a model culture of Candida albicans was evaluated by spectrophotometry.Results. 270 isolates represented by 36 species of 13 genera of opportunistic bacteria were obtained. None of the 100 samples contained opportunistic fungi. Staphylococci (7 species) and streptococci (11 species) were predominant. The most common were staphylococci S. epidermidis (70.2%) and S. aureus (20.8%), and streptococci S. mitis (27.7%) and S. oralis (21.8%). The total contamination (median) of opportunistic bacteria in the colostrum was 79 103 CFU/ml, transitional milk 4 103 CFU/ml, mature milk 5 102 CFU/ml. The antimicrobial activity of colostrum whey was 87.489.4%; transitional milk 88.2%; mature milk 63.481.9%. The total contamination had a high inverse correlation with the lactation period (r = 0.806) and a high positive correlation with the antimicrobial activity of whey (r = 0.699). Meanwhile, a significant decrease in contamination was noted after 1 month from the beginning of lactation, while a significant decrease in antimicrobial activity was observed after 8 months.Conclusions. The decrease of the breast milk contamination by opportunistic bacteria during the lactation period was found to be primary compared to the decrease of the whey antimicrobial activity. Thus, changes in the whey antimicrobial protection factors occur in response to changes of the opportunistic microbiota abundance.


This master thesis dissertation analyzes what kind of humanitarian issues can arise when international sporting events, such as the World Cup, are connected with powerful, global sporting organizations such as FIFA. It asks whether or not FIFA takes into consideration the positive and negative consequences that such an event might have on human rights? Or if FIFA chooses to ignore these rights in preference of organizational gain? For my investigation I decided to choose FIFA because it is one of the most important sports organizations in the world and wields a great deal of power thanks to its corporate partners and football's worldwide appeal. My hypothesis is simple: Decisions made by FIFA are heavily influenced by endemic corruption throughout the organization that does not prioritize citizen rights or human rights development more generally.


summary This feature presents a program that targets fundamental techniques and skills required for straight ahead speed, directional changes, and lower body power development to be used during a collegiate athlete's non-traditional season. The goal of the program is to teach generalized movement patterns and build a solid foundation that can be used by individual sport coaches during their traditional season.


In this contribution we pursue a simple goal: to show that Słupecki's rule can be applied to a diagrammatic interpretation of syllogistic. With this goal we expect to bring more attention on Słupecki's rule and suggest that diagrammatic systems are, by no means, irrational approaches to logic.


Robust multi-view spectral clustering (RMSC) minimizes the rank of probability matrix to recover a common transition probability matrix from the matrices calculated by each single view and achieves promising performance. However, for the clustering task, the underlying structure of the low-rank probability matrix is readily accessible. Yet, RMSC ignores a priori target rank information, and it does not efficiently depict the complementary information between different views. To address these problems, we propose a novel multi-view Markov chain spectral clustering method with a priori rank information. To be specific, we encourage the target rank constraint by minimizing the partial sum of singular values instead of the nuclear norm and construct a global graph from the concatenated features to exploit the complementary information embedded in different views. The objective function can be optimized efficiently by using the augmented Lagrangian multiplier algorithm. Extensive experimental results on one synthetic and eight benchmark datasets demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms the state-of-the-art approaches.


In the article ''Molecular Subtyping of Treponema pallidum in
Paris, France,'' published in Sexually Transmitted Diseases
journal (Vol. 40, No. 8, August 2013), Grange et al.1
identified 3 subtypes that are sporadically present in the
human population, that is, subtypes 11q/j, 14d/d, and 15d/f.
Interestingly, subtype 11q/j showed a unique typing pattern
''q'' corresponding to a new restriction profile after MseI
digestion of the tprE,G,J genes (Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention [CDC] typing system)2 and ''j'' corresponding to
a new sequence type within the 83-basepair region of the tp0548
gene (enhanced CDC typing system).3 This genital specimen was
isolated from an HIV-negative MSM (men who have sex with men)
patient with diagnosed primary syphilis.


Chaff jamming rocket projectile as a special ball.Its structure compares with other balls is especially complex.Unifies the author work experience.Take to the chaff jamming rocket projectile's structure and the mechanism analysis as the foundation.Uses the fault tree analysis determination expiration factor and the important attribute.From enhances ammunition's overall potency to embark,in the security,the function reliability,the storage and the overcoatability four aspects,has carried on the failure analysis to it.


Taking the surveying and mapping project in Heixiazi Island as an example,this paper detailedly introduced the overall procedure of surveying and mapping production using modern surveying and mapping technologies.It provides reference for the surveying and mapping project in the future.


This article argues that the book of Tobit is a tapestry woven from many different traditions within Israel and the wider culture. One of the primary influences on the book of Tobit according to most scholars is the book of Deuteronomy and its theology of retribution, one in which humans are responsible for their own fortunes by way of their obedience. The author of Tobit depicts the title character as one who emulates the figure of Moses in Numbers and Deuteronomy. Tobit assumes a Moses-like place among his exiled people, an intertextual strategy with which the author addresses the problem of individual misfortune and its eventual alleviation.


Dispersion compensating fibres for dispersion-flattened hybrid transmission lines based on non-dispersion shifted fibres have been experimentally investigated. Average values obtained from the production of thousands of kilometres of fibres with different dispersions and thereby different compensation length ratios are given. Optimisation of hybrid lines for minimisation of span attenuation and fibre nonlinearity is described.


The trashing versus burning debate has been raging for many years, where trashing is defined as the physical separation of leaf material from the cane 'stick' prior to transporting the cane stick to the mill. This paper steers away from the environmental debate and focuses on the economics of trashing versus burning. Trashed cane can generally be supplied quicker than burnt cane, reducing sucrose deterioration and improving cane quality. A reasonable trash blanket left in the field after trashing inhibits weeds, thereby reducing herbicide costs. The additional organic matter above and below the soil surface improves moisture retention and soil health, which can significantly improve cane yields and profits. Trashing, however, is not appropriate in wet, low lying and cooler areas because the trash blanket increases the risk of stools rotting and inhibits ratooning respectively. The volume of trashed cane is also higher than burnt cane, which increases transport costs. In addition, extra trash delivered to the mill may necessitate upgrading the mill's processing facilities. In November 2002, a multi-disciplinary working group was set up to compile an appropriate spreadsheet model. The results to date support a priori expectations that, although trashing should be promoted under certain conditions in the South African sugar industry, further research is required in the following areas: (i) yield benefits of trashing under different circumstances, (ii) cane composition of different varieties, (iii) rates of cane deterioration, (iv) influence of density on transport costs, (v) labour productivity under different trashing regimes, (vi) the costs associated with alleviating bottlenecks at the sugar mills should trashing be widely adopted, (vii) the temperature effect in higher altitude areas, and (viii) the economics of trashed cane under irrigation.


The energy storage performances of supercapacitors are expected to be enhanced by the use of nanostructured hierarchically micro/mesoporous hollow carbon materials based on their ultra-high specific surface areas and rapid diffusion of electrolyte ions through the interconnected channels of their mesoporous structures. In this work, we report the electrochemical supercapacitance properties of hollow carbon spheres prepared by high-temperature carbonization of self-assembled fullerene-ethylenediamine hollow spheres (FE-HS). FE-HS, having an average external diameter of 290 nm, an internal diameter of 65 nm, and a wall thickness of 225 nm, were prepared by using the dynamic liquid-liquid interfacial precipitation (DLLIP) method at ambient conditions of temperature and pressure. High temperature carbonization (at 700, 900, and 1100 °C) of the FE-HS yielded nanoporous (micro/mesoporous) hollow carbon spheres with large surface areas (612 to 1616 m2 g−1) and large pore volumes (0.925 to 1.346 cm3 g−1) dependent on the temperature applied. The sample obtained by carbonization of FE-HS at 900 °C (FE-HS_900) displayed optimum surface area and exhibited remarkable electrochemical electrical double-layer capacitance properties in aq. 1 M sulfuric acid due to its well-developed porosity, interconnected pore structure, and large surface area. For a three-electrode cell setup, a specific capacitance of 293 F g−1 at a 1 A g−1 current density, which is approximately 4 times greater than the specific capacitance of the starting material, FE-HS. The symmetric supercapacitor cell was assembled using FE-HS_900 and attained 164 F g−1 at 1 A g−1 with sustained 50% capacitance at 10 A g−1 accompanied by 96% cycle life and 98% coulombic efficiency after 10,000 consecutive charge/discharge cycles. The results demonstrate the excellent potential of these fullerene assemblies in the fabrication of nanoporous carbon materials with the extensive surface areas required for high-performance energy storage supercapacitor applications.


Magnetosonic (MS) waves and Electromagnetic ion cyclotron (EMIC) waves are important plasma waves in the magnetosphere. Using the Van Allen Probes observations from 2012 to 2017, we constructed the global distribution of simultaneous occurrence of MS and EMIC waves. We found a total of 214 events and the waves distribute from the noon sector to the duskside. Furthermore, we quantitatively analyze the combined effects of both waves on protons and electrons by calculating the particle diffusion coefficients and 2‐D Fokker‐Planck diffusion simulations. The simulation results show the combined effects of MS and EMIC waves. High‐frequency EMIC waves and intense MS waves at low proton harmonics are essential for the enhanced proton acceleration at several hundred eV and enhanced electron loss at several MeV. Our results provide new sights into understanding the distribution of MS and EMIC waves and evaluating their combined effects on the evolution of energetic particles.


This article centers on a novelistic adaptation of the Indic Javanese epic Arok Dedes written by one of Indonesia's most prominent novelists, Pramoedya Ananta Toer, a proponent of socialist realism in Indonesia and a translator of Maxim Gorky into Indonesian. Drawing from Katerina Clark's observations on the Soviet socialist-realist novel, and building on the adaptation's intertextual references to older Javanese and Sanskrit epic traditions, Lienau's essay argues that Pramoedya's work posits the generic superiority of the Indonesian-Malay novel to the linguistic caste-consciousness (and relative monoglossia) of its Indic-Javanese, epic precedent. These arguments on the vernacular aspect of Pramoedya's work question Benedict Anderson's (and others') conclusions about the revolutionary quality of Pramoedya's nationalized Malay prose. Lienau also qualifies Mikhail Bakhtin's distinction between the novel and epic and extends on a meta-lingual register Clark's characterization of the "modal schizophrenia" within the socialist-realist novel. The analysis builds through a close reading of Arok Dedes to consider the socialist-realist patterns within Pramoedya's adaptation and—in a departure from Soviet models of socialist realim—to revisit the novel's passage to literary selfconsciousness, a passage that underscores the historical contingency of sacralized languages of prestige. In addition to suggesting the historical telos of literary progress, Pramoedya's novel exemplifies how a socialist-realist template changes in the hands of an opposition writer who moves beyond the state-centered enshrinement of official myth.


The utility model relates to LED lighting fixtures, in particular to an LED linear lamp for supermarkets, which comprises a suspension rod. A connecting device is fixed onto the suspension rod, a main radiator is connected to a position below the connecting device, a baffle board is fixed at the top of the main radiator, a thermal insulation board is arranged between the middle portions of the main radiator, an LED retaining board is arranged between the bottoms of the main radiator, and LED lamps and a lamp shade are arranged on the lower side of the LED retaining board. The integral LED linear lamp is attractive in appearance, simple, convenient and quick in the process of engineering mounting so that mounting time and cost are saved, and is energy-saving environment-friendly, a traditional 36W fluorescent lamp can be substituted by the integral 18W LED linear lamp thoroughly, energy can be saved by 50%, service life of the LED linear lamp is prolonged to 50000 hours, and subsequent product maintenance cost is reduced.


The construction sector significantly impacts the environment. Buildings and non-building structures require natural resources and technical nutrients to be constructed and maintained. One of the most important challenges is the mitigation of their usage for construction projects. In the context of insufficient knowledge about the most effective leadership patterns for sustainable construction projects, one may wonder if there is one dominant style of management represented by construction companies. In turn, the challenges faced by these organizations can be related to how to effectively implement the circular economy (CE) concept, and thus reduce the negative externalities of the construction industry. Transition to sustainable construction requires the involvement of change leaders. In this article, based on a literature review and questionnaire, it was revealed that it is extremely difficult to distinguish one prevailing leadership style in construction companies. Besides, a path to CE maturity has been shown as a continual pursuit. The consistency enables effective promotion of the concept of CE in the construction company. The research allowed the identification of three explicit phases, disharmony, euphoria, and harmony, in becoming the CE-matured construction enterprise.


Objective:To increase the speed of level set image segmentation algorithm.Methods:A fast hybrid K-Means level set method is proposed for image segmentation in this paper.We firstly draw a connection between a level set algorithm based on Mumford-Shah model and K-Means plus nonlinear diffusion preprocessing,analysing their drawbacks.Then,we exploit this link to develop a new hybrid numerical technique for segmentation that draws on the speed and simplicity of K-Means procedures,and the robustness of level set algorithms.Results:The proposed method costs lesser time than standard level set methods.Conclusions:Taking advantage of K-Means simplicity and efficientibility,this new level set algorihm increases the speed of image segmentation.So it is practical.


With China's export-oriented strategy as the background,this study explains the internationalization strategy of companies in China and other developing countries from the perspective of entrepreneurship.Different from the widely accepted exploitative and incremental viewpoints,this study employs the theoretical lens of the neo-international trade theory to examine the nontraditional internationalization of China and other emerging multinationals.Based on the relevant literature,we conduct a theoretical analysis on this non-traditional internationalization,and find out that corporate entrepreneurship plays a critical role in driving Chinese companies to globalization.We conclude with the policy implications for China's export-oriented strategy.


A 72 GHz-band transceiver is developed for millimeter-wave short-range wireless access systems. To eliminate an oscillator for the receiver and to avoid the degradation of the signal quality due to the phase noise of a transmitter oscillator, we employ a novel IF self-heterodyne transmission scheme. For multi-chip modules (MCMs), coplanar devices are mounted in multi-layer LTCC packages. At an IF frequency of 4.4 GHz and an RF frequency of 72.4 GHz, an output power of 6.6 dBm at 1 dB gain compression point is obtained for the transmitter. For two-tone RF signals of 71.8 and 72.4 GHz, the receiver provides an IF output power of -50 dBm at a total input power of -40 dBm. The total size of the transmitter, receiver and DC power supply/control boards is 89 mm/spl times/83 mm.


Research into sculture and entrepreneurship in Britain has been dominated by casual empiricism. This article shows the benefits of using a new method. Lifetime wealth accumulation is specified as a measure of entrepreneurial performance, and applied to data collected from dictionaries of business biography. Industry, region, and religious dissent are ruled out as explanations of entrepreneurial performance. Education and entrepreneurial type are the important predictors. Firm inheritors and those receiving a high-status education experienced relatively low lifetime rates of wealth accumulation. Firm founders, managers, and individuals with a lower-status education were comparatively successful.


In order to design a geoeducation program in the context of the possibilities given to the Experimental Schools of Greece of Lower Secondary Education, teachers identified the need for diagnostically assess students' understanding of basic concepts of the geoenvironment and particularly the concepts of geodiversity, geoheritage, geoethics and geotourism. In addition, there was a need to apply the educational technique of creating cognitive conflicts in order to promote the scientific perceptions of these concepts. Thus, research questions were identified which led the research to assess the current latent state of students' perceptions regarding the thematic areas of the concepts and to identify concepts whose perceptions can be used in the educational process in order to achieve effective cognitive conflicts in order to promote scientific perceptions of them. The students briefly answered a four-question questionnaire, wherein each question examined their perceptions regarding the four concepts of geoenvironment: geodiversity, geoheritage, geoethics and geotourism. All 45 students of the geoeducation program that took part in the survey were aged between 12 and 15 years old. The qualitative research strategy approach was selected and specifically the hybrid technique of semiotics content analysis in combination with thematic analysis. This technique was selected due to the need to identify, code, categorize and count both obvious and latent meanings in the students' written answers; these meanings were related to the four concepts under examination. The results of the research show that the current latent state of students' perceptions regarding the thematic fields of the four concepts of the geoenvironment can be considered as particularly confused since the majority of students did not understand the concepts as they are employed in the international literature. The research also highlighted concepts that can be used by teachers in their efforts to develop students' clear or even scientifically acceptable perceptions for the concepts of geodiversity, geoheritage, geoethics and geotourism in the thematic field of the geoenvironment.


Airway leak pressure was measured with cuff pressures set to 60 cmH2O. After removal, devices were inspected for traces of blood and patients were questioned for hoarseness or soar throat. Results and Discussions: 16 boys/4 girls were ventilated with LMA, 17 boys/3 girls with LT. Demographic data as well as baseline heart rate, blood pressure and peripheral oxygen saturation were comparable for both groups, mean age was 5.2 ( 2.0) years for LMA and 5.5 ( 1.8) years for LT. Insertion was successful for LMA in 95% of patients (1 attempt 15, 2 attempts 4) and for LT in 100% (1 attempt 17, 2 attempts 3). Insertion time and time until first tidal volume for LMA/LT were 12.7/11.2 and 24.5/21.9 seconds. Peak airway pressures were 15.6 and 17.6 cmH2O with tidal volumes of 12.0 and 12.6 ml/kg for LMA and LT. Airway leak pressure with LT was higher than with LMA: 25.8 ( 6.2) vs. 19.8 ( 3.5) cmH2O (p 0.001). Anaesthesia time was 74.2 min for LMA and 89.1 min for LT. Traces of blood after removal were found in 5 LMAs and 3 LTs, mild complaints of hoarseness or soar throat were found in the recovery room in 3/6 patients and after 24 hours in 1/2 patients for LMA/LT. Conclusion(s): Both laryngeal mask airway and laryngeal tube allow ventilation in the age group studied. The airway leak pressure, serving as an estimate to judge quality of airway seal, is higher with the laryngeal tube. Reference: 1 Lopez-Gil M Anaesthesia 1996; 51:969–72.


A comparative study of phenomenological models used to describe the behavior of concrete at early age was realized. The main objective of this review is to evaluate the ability of various models to predict the autogeneous shrinkage and the basic creep of concrete. The report also proposes some improvements to these models. This constitutes the first part of a series of two complementary papers.Key words: concrete, early age, phenomenological models, thermal deformation, autogeneous shrinkage, restrained shrinkage, basic creep, basic relaxation, induced stress, maturity.


Building on Zou and Cavusgil's (2002) global marketing strategy (GMS) framework, the authors propose a structural model of advertising standardization that explores (1) the factors that encourage firms to engage in standardized advertising; and (2) the impact of advertising standardization on advertising effectiveness, as well as on two measures of firm performance. Results from a survey of Japanese and U.S. subsidiaries operating in the European Union (EU) provide support for the model. They also suggest that standardized advertising does enhance a firm's financial and strategic performance, provided that the external environment and internal resources of the firm are conducive to standardization.


This paper presents a new method for control-ling variable frequency, multi-phase buck converters. At the MHz-range switching frequency for each phase, cycle-by-cycle digital control of current and voltage results in a fast transient response to and fast settling from disturbances. A key challenge in adding phases or increasing frequency is maintaining the ability to measure voltage without interference from switching transients; cycle-by-cycle voltage averaging is fast and largely impervious to these effects. Additional benefits include ease of design and implementation. Theory and modeling are presented and results are demonstrated in simulation.


The hatchery production of Portunus pelagicus has not been undertaken in our country. So work was taken up to standardise and popularise a technology for the hatchery production of seed of P. pelagicus with a view to overcome the nonavailability of crab juveniles for farming and also to replenish the depleting stock of the wild by sea-ranching (by releasing the laboratory reared young ones into the sea) which would help a sustainable fishery of crab in the region.


The desulfurization and recarburizing of phosphorus pig iron used for producing electrolytic aluminum were conducted adopting lime desulfurizer and graphite recarburizer to reduce the sulfur content and increase the carbon content in the phosphorus iron. The results show that, when the size of graphite recarburizer is 10 mm, recarburizing effect is the best using the adding method when feeding and stratification charge, the carbon content increases from 1.85% to 2.98%.When the mix proportion of Ca C, Ca CO3 and Ca O in the lime desulfurizer is 2∶2∶3, the effect of desulfurizer is the best, the sulfur content reduce to 0.265% from 0.698%, and the iron slag becomes into alkaline slag from acid slag. At this time,there will be no wiredrawing phenomenon in the process of getting rid of the slag, and the separation of slag and iron is favorable.


The value of a contingent claim under a jump‐diffusion process satisfies a partial integro‐differential equation. A fourth‐order compact finite difference scheme is applied to discretize the spatial variable of this equation. It is discretized in time by an implicit‐explicit method. Meanwhile, a local mesh refinement strategy is used for handling the nonsmooth payoff condition. Moreover, the numerical quadrature method is exploited to evaluate the jump integral term. It guarantees a Toeplitz‐like structure of the integral operator such that a fast algorithm is feasible. Numerical results show that this approach gives fourth‐order accuracy in space. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Numer Methods Partial Differential Eq 2011


The purposes for this study were: (a) to establish benchmark metrics for selected variables related to characteristics of physical therapy education programs; and (b) to determine how well a subset of the variables predicted group membership based on first-time pass rates (FTPRs) on the National Physical Therapy Examination (NPTE). The population was defined as all physical therapy programs in the United States and Puerto Rico accredited by the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education. Questionnaires soliciting data related to the variables were mailed to the entire population (N = 177). Fifty-eight (32.8%) of the programs returned the questionnaire, with 51 (29%) having provided enough information for inclusion in the study. Characteristics of the sample were compared to known population characteristics in order to determine the extent to which the sample represented the population. Pearson product-moment correlation resulted in a coefficient of .993, indicating that the two groups were similar. Descriptive statistics were calculated. Values for the variables were tabulated in various ways, based on the nature of sponsoring institution, regional location, degree offered, and grouping based on FTPRs, in order to facilitate comparisons. A single institution was selected and comparisons made to demonstrate the utilization of benchmark metrics. Chi-squared tests were conducted to study the relationship between curriculum model, degree offered, and grouping. The resulting values of c 2 indicated that these variables were independent of each other. Classification accuracy was determined through discriminant analysis. Results indicated 80% accuracy for this sample; however, the accuracy was only 47% on cross-validation. Structure coefficients were calculated to determine the relative contribution of each variable to the prediction. The findings demonstrate the usefulness of benchmark metrics for facilitating quality improvement in physical therapy education programs. There is, however, need for improvement in the process, and further research should be conducted to develop a realistic model for predicting group membership based on FTPRs.


This article looks back at the Supreme Court's school desegregation opinions, including Brown v. Board of Education, from the perspective of a multiculturalist. A multiculturalist prefers an American society that has learned to appreciate and value the existence of multiple racial and ethnic cultures. A prerequisite to accomplishing this multicultural vision of a utopian American society is to bring diverse racial and ethnic students together in public schools. But for this appreciation to occur, more than the physical presence of a racially and ethnically diverse student body is required. Thus a multiculturalist also wants to foster meaningful cross-cultural understanding, though not necessarily cross-cultural agreement. The Supreme Court's opinionin Brown produced significant positive changes in American society. Nevertheless, with the beginning of the termination of over 500 school desegregation decrees, the United States has entered a post desegregation era. Racial and ethnic segregation in public schools is likely to increase. Thus the utopian vision of a multiculturalist is not where our society is currently headed. After reexamining the Supreme Court's school desegregation opinions, I conclude by stating the reason the multicultural vision is not the one our society is moving toward. This vision was simply not part of the vision of public schools articulated by the Supreme Court in the school desegregation cases. If local school systems decide to engage in further efforts to bring racially and ethnically diverse students together, it must not be on the ideological basis of the Supreme Court's school desegregation opinions. The very kind of thinking about the issues of cultural diversity that Brown I was based upon is the very kind of thinking that must be overcome in order for true multicultural education to occur.


AUTHOR Scliar-Cabral, Leonor; And Others TITLE The Role of Context to Guarantee the Optimization of Linguistic Communication. PUB DATE Apr 90 NOTE 15p.; Paper presented at the Meeting of the World Congress of Applied Linguistics sp.msored by the International Association of Applied Linguistics (9th, Thessaloniki, Greece, April 15-21, 1990). PUB TYPE Reports Evaluative/Feasibility (142) -Speeches/Conference Papers (150)


This research was carried out to find out whether there was a significant impact of managed financing and non-performing financing portfolios on the management of total assets at PT Bank Muamalat Indonesia in 2009 to 2018 either partially or simultaneously. This type of research is descriptive quantitative using secondary data types obtained from the Publication Financial Statements of PT Bank Muamalat Indonesia or BMI from the Bank's Annual Report, from 2009 to 2018. The data analysis method uses classical assumption test techniques and Linear Regression Analysis techniques , Correlation Coefficient test, partial hypothesis test (t test), simultaneous test (F test) and Coefficient of Determination test with the variable Financing Management (X1) and Non-Performing Financing Portfolio (X2) and Total Asset Management at PT Bank Muamalat Indonesia as a variable (Y). The tests were carried out using the SPSS For Windows version 20 application. The results obtained with the multiple regression equation PTA = - 2,314,464,26 + 1,33KP + 1,93NPF and with the results of the Simultaneous Test the value of Fcount 3.978 < Ftable 4.74 with table significance value of 0.070 from the value of the significance level = 0.05. So that simultaneously the Financing Management (KP) and Non-performing Financing Portfolio (NPF) simultaneously have no significant effect on Total Asset Management at PT Bank Muamalat Indonesia. The value of Adjusted R-Square (R2) is 0.532 or (0.532 x 100% = 53.20%) this shows that although there is no significant effect, there is a contribution of KP and NPF variables to the PTA variable of 58.20% while 46, 80% by other factors


The use of medicinal plants for treatment of infections is an old age practice. On the basis of this important practice, this study was initiated to evaluate the antibacterial effects of medicinal plants, commonly used by the community of Hazara region of Pakistan. Antibacterial spectrum of traditionally used medicinal plants was determined by disc diffusion method under incubation period of 24 to 48 h at 37°C. Four medicinal plants were tested against the different species of human pathogenic bacteria. It was observed that Incarvillea emodi have good activity against Proteus and significantly active against Staphylococcus . Vernonia anthelmintica revealed significant activity against Staphylococcus and Proteus . However, Pseudomonas is resistant to Adiantum capilus-veneries and this plant is negligibly active against other tested microorganism. Mentha longifolia is significantly active against Proteus , while negligibly active against other tested microorganisms. Escherichia coli is however, resistant to M longifolia . Keywords: Biological activity, medicinal plants, Incarvillea emodi , Vernonia anthelmintica , Adiantum capilus-veneries , Mentha longifolia , Hazara, Pakistan


Several investigators in the past one or two years have reported rheological data on systems capable of formation of crystalline phases during flow. Berens and Folt, and Collins and Krier reported data on polyvinyl chlorine systems which could be interpreted as a phase transition during melt flow. Kobayashi has reported on stress induced crystallization of polyethylene melts and Vinogradov has presented data on the formation of super‐molecular structures in isotactic polystyrene melts during flow. This paper is a report of our initial findings on a rheological transition in the isotactic polypropylene system.


On May 18, 1875, so Nelson Sizer records in his memoirs, Forty Years in Phrenology, "a quiet gentleman in plain, citizen's dress" (360) presented himself at the New York phrenological depot of S. R. Wells at 753 Broadway for a complete cranioscopic character description. A major figure in phrenological annals, Sizer was said to have conducted over three hundred thousand examinations during a career that started in 1849 when he joined the pre-eminent phrenological firm of Fowler and Wells (Stem 79). Dictating his findings to a shorthand writer, the Pitman system being but one of the myriad enthusiasms the firm espoused during its long and colorful life, Sizer described, melodramatically, a person with a robust and energetic constitution coupled with excessive mental restlessness and excitability. Sizer counseled his client to "contrive to sleep an hour or two more every night" so as to rest the brain; to "avoid everything exciting in the way of luxury, condiment, food, or drink," for these, he said, set "your nerves on fire, worse than...those of most men"; and to "avoid overdoing" (360), observing that: If you were an army officer and in active service, you would get as much work out of a horse as General Custer or Phil. Sheridan would, that is to say, as much as the horse could render. (361) At the end of the examination and after his client revealed his name-Custer-and then his initials, "G.A.," Sizer must have been as awed as he was clearly self-congratulatory; without the benefit of Custer's trademark long locks to identify his client ("I have had that cut off," Custer responded to Sizer's query about the absence of long hair), Sizer's character description was uncannily accurate, while his naming his client as a type of Custer would have tickled any phrenological examiner's vanity. Custer headed off to Chicago to attend Philip Sheridan's wedding and from there to meet his doom, thirteen months later when, failing to heed Sizer's admonitions, he recklessly led his command to slaughter at Little Big Horn. Custer's outcome, Sizer crowed was "a verification of my description of his fiery energy which betrayed him to his doom" (Sizer 361-62). The reading seems uncannily perspicacious. Or was it? Surely, phrenology's many supporters would have found in this profile confirmation of their faith in phrenology's ability to plumb depths of human character. But phrenology's critics would also have had good reason for skepticism. For them, that the full analysis was published two months after the Little Big Horn disaster raised the question of veracity. Could they be sure that the editors didn't add anything after the battle to make the original analysis seem all the more prescient? How likely, anyway, is it that the cabinet would have made a duplicate copy of the 1875 analysis and stored it? Further, they might well wonder, what prompted the publication of Custer's profile in the Journal in the first place? Was the profile published to reveal truths about Custer's character so as to explain the battlefield debacle, or to confirm the truth of phrenology as revealed through Custer's character that led to the ensuing disaster? As the article wasn't a tribute, which it surely was not, could it have been merely a tasteless act of self-promotion? Such suspicions in addition to others dogged the century-long enterprise of "practical" phrenology or the practice of "reading" a subject's cranium to determine the character of a subject. These are evident in a series that appeared years earlier in the American Phrenological Journal which profiled senior members of the Union's officer corps. In the weeks following the firing on Fort Sumter in mid-1861, the phrenological publishing firm of Fowler and Wells ostensibly placed the authority of their science in the service of the Union. Starting with the June issue they profiled generals and commodores alike so as to determine, phrenologically, the suitability of each subject for command and bring this "insurrection"1 to a swift and triumphant conclusion. …


Newspaper endorsements played an important and measurable role in determining the outcome of the 1964 Illinois at-large election for state representatives. In this election, it was possible to vote for 177 candidates. To help the electorate cope with this major voting task, newspapers throughout Illinois provided information generally not available elsewhere, as well as recommendations which could be used compatibly with party loyalties. Localism and the endorsements of civic and special interest groups also affected voting in this election, but less so than newspaper endorsements. Aggregate statistics provide the basic and most appropriate data source for these conclusions.


This research analyses the economic connection between different cities in Changzhutan urban agglomeration by establishing index of overall competitiveness and the calculation of gravity model and the intensity of urban flow model. It concludes that the overall competitiveness of changsha- zhuzhou- xiangtan urban agglomeration is not strong,outgoing service function is weak and urban agglomeration and radiation ability needs to improve. In addition, the degree of connection between different cities in changsha as the center to the periphery, every city has a strong connection with"gold triangle"which consist of Changsha/zhuzhou/Xiangtan. However, the connection between them is weak, and the sub-center is not prominent, the difference of the spatial framework of economic connection is similar.


Excerpt Trichlorethylene has been used for some time in the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia. Its therapeutic activity in regard to this condition has been discussed by Glaser,1, 2and an extensive...


Michael Allen's, The Christ's faith: a dogmatic account, forms part of the Christian doctrine series of monographs by T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology. It focuses particularly on constructive engagement with major topics through historical analysis or contemporary restatement. This monograph,The Christ's faith, and Are you the one who is to come? by Michael Bird (2009), are two important contributions at a time when there is a pronounced quest for the historical Jesus. In this monograph Allen argues for a subjective reading of pistis Christou. The result depicts the fullness of the humanity of Jesus. This is "an exercise in critical traditioning and a dogmatic argument meant to provide ontological and covenantal support for a contemporary exegetical possibility" (2). Allen's focus is on incorporating this theological exercise into both orthodox Christology and Reformed theology (4). To this end, he critiques Thomas Aquinas' understanding of Jesus' beatific knowledge (one that almost provocatively denies that an incarnate Jesus could have faith in God). Yet the man Jesus believed in God the Father. Allen, alongside Karl Barth, develops his constructive proposal within the extensive contours of reformed theology. His dialogues with Thomas Aquinas and others form the platform for his arguments for a "covenantal anthropology" guided by Christ's faith. He also involves Morna Hooker to highlight the general concerns that a subjective reading raises (2, 4).


In severe obesity, left ventricular (LV) and right ventricular (RV) remodeling and contractile dysfunction have been documented, but less is known regarding left atrial (LA) dysfunction and its association with LV/RV remodeling, especially in children.


In this work, we show that there is a reduction of photoconductive gain g in quantum well infrared photodetectors from its classical value. The reduction is caused by the quantum nature of electron transport in these structures. On the other hand, the generation‐recombination noise is unaffected by the transport model, and remains to be the same as a classical photoconductor. The reduction of g leads to an apparent noise increase in these structures, i.e., the noise gain deduced from the noise measurement is larger than g deduced from the photoconductivity measurements. We compared the present theory with existing experimental data, and found reasonable agreement.


According to the U.S. Constitution, the outcomes of American presidential elections are determined by the Electoral College, within which each state is awarded its electoral voters on the basis of ...


Animal waste, including chicken manure, is a category of biomass considered for application in the energy industry. Poland is leading poultry producer in Europe, with a chicken population assessed at over 176 million animals. This paper aims to determine the theoretical and technical energy potential of chicken manure in Poland. The volume of chicken manure was assessed as 4.49 million tons per year considering three particular poultry rearing systems. The physicochemical properties of examined manure specimens indicate considerable conformity with the data reported in the literature. The results of proximate and ultimate analyses confirm a considerable effect of the rearing system on the energy parameters of the manure. The heating value of the chicken manure was calculated for the high moisture material in the condition as received from the farms. The value of annual theoretical energy potential in Poland was found to be equal to around 40.38 PJ. Annual technical potential of chicken biomass determined for four different energy conversion paths occurred significantly smaller then theoretical and has the value from 9.01 PJ to 27.3 PJ. The bigger energy degradation was found for heat and electricity production via anaerobic digestion path, while fluidized bed combustion occurred the most efficient scenario.


The relation between low ***all‐esterase activity and organophosphate resistance was studied in a malathion and a diazinon resistant strain of houseflies by a system of repeated back‐crosses with a susceptible strain. In the malathion resistant strain G, low ***ali‐esterase activity and resistance are dependent on one and the same autosomal gene. In the diazinon resistant strain F one gene is responsible for the low esterase activity and part of the resistance, whereas at least one other resistance factor is present not affecting the esterase activity. Two subcolonies were obtained, one which is called Fa with only the gene for low ali‐esterase activity, the other, called Fb, without this gene but with another resistance factor. Since Nguy and Busvine found a single gene to be responsible for resistance in three other strains, a total of five strains has now been found to have an important gene for low esterase activity and resistance to phosphate compounds. These genes, which differ in the degree or specificity of the resistance they confer to the strains, are probably all alleles. It is concluded that physiologically closely related defence mechanisms must be responsible for these different kinds of resistance.


FIGURES 3–4. Passandra barsevskisi sp. nov.: 3—details of forebody, ventral view, holotype ♂; 4—details of forebody, ventral view, paratype ♀. Not reproduced to the same scale.


Under the title "The Road to Disarmament: the Military Background to the Geneva Talks," P.M.S. Blackett, Nobel Prize-winning British physicist and one of the world's leading authorities on nuclear warfare, has assembled facts and figures on the military programs and strategies of the United States and the Soviet Union which ought to be known and pondered by everyone everywhere. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website , where most recent articles are published in full. Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.


The existence of buffering mechanisms is an emerging property of biological networks, and this results in the possible existence of "buffering" loci, that would allow buildup of robustness through evolution. So far, there are no explicit methods to find loci implied in buffering mechanisms. However, buffering can be seen as interaction with genetic background. Here we develop this idea into a tractable model for quantitative genetics, in which the buffering effect of one locus with many other loci is condensed into a single (statistical) effect, multiplicative on the total (statistical) additive genetic effect. This allows easier interpretation of the results, and it also simplifies the problem of detecting epistasis from quadratic to linear in the number of loci. Armed with this formulation, we construct a linear model for genome-wide association studies that estimates, and declares significance, of multiplicative epistatic effects at single loci. The model has the form of a variance components, norm reaction model and likelihood ratio tests are used for significance. This model is a generalization and explanation of previous ones. We then test our model using bovine data: Brahman and Tropical Composite animals, phenotyped for body weight at yearling and genotyped up to ∼770,000 Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNP). After association analysis and based on False Discovery Rate rules, we find a number of loci with buffering action in one, the other, or both breeds; these loci do not have significant statistical additive effect. Most of these loci have been reported in previous studies, either with an additive effect, or as footprints of selection. We identify epistatic SNPs present in or near genes encoding for proteins that are functionally enriched for peptide activity and transcription factors reported in the context of signatures of selection in multi-breed cattle population studies. These include loci known to be associated with coat color, fertility and adaptation to tropical environments. In these populations we found loci that have a non-significant statistical additive effect but a significant epistatic effect. We argue that the discovery and study of loci associated with buffering effects allows attacking the difficult problems, among others, of release of maintenance variance in artificial and natural selection, of quick adaptation to the environment, and of opposite signs of marker effects in different backgrounds. We conclude that our method and our results generate promising new perspectives for research in evolutionary and quantitative genetics based on the study of loci that buffer effect of other loci.


The Five Power Defence Arrangements (FPDA) is a regional security institution in Southeast Asia, with Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and United Kingdom as its members. As one of the oldest, and still existing, regional security institution in the Southeast Asia region, FPDA's existence seems to be unheard of, compared to the region's Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) or even the Cold War's Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO). Although FPDA was created in the height of the Cold War, as well as in response to the potential hegemonic Indonesian threat to former British colonies, the institution is still exist even after both original existential threat wanes. In the end, how the FPDA can maintain its existence in the changing security dynamics in the region, especially after the end of the Cold War, is an interesting piece of puzzle to be solved.


Titania–silica glass films doped with Rhodamine 6G dye were fabricated using the low-temperature sol–gel technique. Films of thickness varying from 0.7 to 1.1 μm and of refractive index from 1.61 to 1.54 were obtained by controlling the revolution speed of spin coating and by changing the ratio of the sol–gel precursors. Tunable laser action was observed for the sol–gel glass films on glass or quartz substrates when a dynamic gain modulation was optically generated. Lasing with multiple guiding modes was achieved at a film thickness of 1.1 μm. The effect of optical confinement was studied by varying the difference of refractive indices between the sol–gel film and the substrate.


"Gotov je!" ("He's finished!")-Serb resistance slogan, directed at MilosevicAfter a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Obama Administration has adopted a new defense strategy that recognizes the need to limit our strategic ends in an era of increasing limits on our military means.1 The strategy calls for armed forces capable of conducting a broad range of missions, in a full range of contingencies, and in a global context that is increasingly complex. It calls for doing so with a smaller defense budget. Opportunities for savings come from reducing the ability to fight two regional conflicts simultaneously and from not sizing the force to conduct prolonged, large-scale stability operations.Seemingly missing from the new defense strategy are the types of wars we fought in Afghanistan and Iraq. Both started with forcible changes in regime - the armed ouster of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein from their positions of power. In each case, the rapid removal of leadership was followed by lengthy counterinsurgency operations to bring security to the population and build up a new government. The duration and difficulty of these operations and their cost in deaths, destruction, and debt were not understood at their outset.Whereas past defense strategies foresaw the prospect of forcible regime change,2 the new defense strategy does not. Thus, absent a direct threat to U.S. vital interests, any future endeavors to oust unfriendly leaders are likely to be pursued by non-military means. U.S. military forces may play a supporting role at most. Libya and Syria demonstrate the new defense strategy in action. While regime change has been an objective, the United States has worked through partners and limited or ruled out the use of military force.If U.S. policymakers consider non-military regime change in the future, they may wish to look for lessons learned before Afghanistan and Iraq, lessons learned from the 2000 overthrow of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. While the circumstances were unique and perhaps uniquely favorable to a democratic transition, many of the lessons are probably enduring.Deposing a Dictator3In 2000, Slobodan Milosevic, then president of what remained of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia,4 set the stage for his own demise. He did so by calling for elections, seeking to bolster his legitimacy at home and abroad, while miscalculating his own ability to fix the results.Personally and politically, Milosevic had survived North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Operation Allied Force, 78 days of air strikes against Serbia and its forces in Kosovo the year before. While longer than the United States or its allies anticipated, the campaign of military strikes and non-military measures ultimately succeeded, compelling Milosevic to halt ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, withdraw Serb security forces, and consent to the introduction of a UN administration and NATO-led force, but leaving Milosevic in place.Milosevic was a survivor. Despite instigating ethnic violence and genocide in Bosnia and Croatia in the early 1990s, he had emerged unscathed as leader of Serbia and signatory of the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords. Many analysts predicted that the 1999 NATO air strikes would cement Milosevic's grip on power. Instead, Milosevic was weakened, his political legitimacy tarnished at home and abroad.Milosevic's confrontation with the UN and NATO isolated him internationally. He also faced growing opposition domestically. In September 1999, opposition rallies in twenty cities in Serbia urged Milosevic to resign. The police and army cracked down, but Milosevic's regime had difficulty suppressing opposition leaders and the student movement OTPOR - Serbian for "resistance." OTPOR, a loosely organized network of activists trained in peaceful resistance, used a variety of nonviolent tactics to excoriate the regime and build popular support.In January 2000, OTPOR organized an Orthodox New Year's Eve rally against Milosevic's rule. …


literary activity, with very little not even the P&?r Nester coming from an earlier source which would reach back to Jesus. To conclude, Goulder mag have produced a book useful to exegetes in spite of its faulty overall thesis. They will find the work often helpful as a stimulus to look for new avenues, especially in difficult passages. This can be said even for the Old Testament, since the book contains also G.'s analysis of the Chronicler's Lectionary System (202-24), and for other questions, like the midrashic method (pp. 28-69; but here his exposition is already coloured by the theory, and neither R. Le m u t , .nor A.G.'Wiright are mentioned). A bibliography and indices complete the volume, which can be expected to stimulate further discussion and so doing perhaps contribute to clarify pending issues on the composition of Matthew's gospel. L. Sabourin


The subject of this article is Giovanni da Serravalle's commentary on Dante's Comedy. The Author argues that Michele Barbi's and Carlo Dionisotti's evaluation of the translation and commentary has to be completed by another point of view: the dependence of Giovanni da Serravalle from other chiosatori on the 14th century. He chooses the interpretation problems of veltro to show this.


This chapter discusses the concepts of accuracy and precision and talks about industry standard color coding of thermocouple extension cables. While the distributed control system (DCS) receives information on the status of equipment in the facility and makes control decisions to operate this equipment, the instrumentation forms the nervous system of the power generation facility to feed valid data back to the control system. The instrumentation system monitors various physical parameters in the power plant and provides either local or remote indication of these parameters to the operational staff to assist in the reliable and safe operation of the power station. There are many sensors in use in the power generation facility to monitor temperature. Temperatures on bearings, motor windings, gas streams, steam streams, hotwell fluid, and the like are all monitored. Potential transformers (PT) are used to monitor voltages in the power plant.


In the present article the questions of forming and development of political parties in Russia in the end of XX century are reviewed on the material of Kursk Territory.


We report on airborne measurements of the sea-surface normalized radar cross-section (NRCS) at incidence angles of approximately 22° obtained at both C-band and Ku-band in high-wind (> 25ms-1) conditions. Measurements obtained over numerous research flights through tropical cyclones and high-latitude winter storms between 2011 and 2014 are composited to yield geophysical model functions in rain-free conditions. The present observations extend the results of [1], who reported high-wind NRCS for incidence angles from 30° to 50°, to a smaller incidence angle. Saturation of the mean NRCS is observed at both frequencies. In some cases the NRCS is observed to decrease with increasing wind speed beyond the saturation. The results have implications for planned and future scatterometers aiming to increase the observed swath width by extending the range of incidence angles.


The accomplishment of blockchain has increased the focus on the various applications for simplifying the confidentiality and transaction sanctuary using the decentralized architecture via consensus mechanisms between different internet of things (IoT) nodes in daily increasing societal areas. The growth of blockchain lasted to grow and used to do compare technologies. The major shortcomings of blockchain is the lack of scalability in modern application settings. Holochain technology vends itself as a "thinking" exterior to blocks, and it is a peer-to-peer disseminated ledger technology. It works contrarily compared to the blockchain, and it offers an exclusive value in the existing market. IoT devices are continuously used in distributed environments, in various smart applications. The peer-to-peer IoT networks, connected to smart agricultural systems are exposed to the security issues. Specifically, the personal data of agricultural land records need protection against unauthorized access and eradicate corruption in land transactions. The Blockchain offers a possible solution based on distributed ledger, but it has scalability issues due to high storage and processing requirements with growing network size. Also data is not locally stored in a Blockchain. This paper studies the conventions of holochain technology, its architecture and challenges, and critical mechanisms of holochain applications. We also analyze the numerous models utilized for the implementation of protected transactions. We discuss an agent centric framework with distributed hash table for secured applications.


In this paper, we present results authors published initially on the white light emission with broad band (330-465 nm) excitation of the specially prepared nano-phosphor: Eu3+: ZnS which is capped with sodium methyl carboxylate and on pure red-light emission from the nano-phosphor when capped with alpha methyl acrylic acid and prepared in a different method. Then we discuss possible methods of future improvement of the white light emission from the nano-phosphor. We then present the cost effective and energy efficient method of obtaining highest quality natural white light sources using such nano-phosphor and blue or near UV blue light emitting diodes. The latter discussion includes the driving circuit for the white LED and powering the LED by concentrated solar photovoltaics for both lighting and waste heat energy storage for completely clean energy natural white lighting sources.


This study was conducted to determine the germination characteristics, oil contents and fatty acid compositions of the different safflower accessions. The safflower accessions had nearly the same germination period of about 12-13 days and the germination rate was more than 87.5%. Plant height grew until 84 days after seeding. The number of leaves did not increase after 70 days from seeding. The accessions had a difference of six leaves from 17 to 23 leaves. Flowering time had a difference of 11 days from 79 days after planting to 90 days after planting. The Jangsung accession had the shortest flowering time of 79 days after planting. In the characteristics of bearing fruit, the number of branches including main stem are from 4.7 to 8.8. The number of head flowers had nearly the same number of branches which were 4.8-8.9, numbers of seed per head flower were 29.3-49.1 and the weight of 100 seeds were 2.9-3.9 g. The crude fat content was 21.8-33.9% and fatty acid content was 66.6-77.6% containing mostly linolenic acid. Oleic acid content was 9.2-16.5% and it contained palmitic acid, stearic acid, venin acid, arachidonic acid etc. Results of this study, the accession Jangsung, which had the shortest flowering time and had the most crude fat content, was observed to be the best accession for the breeding of safflower.


The actin cytoskeleton (microfilament,MF),also known as F-actin,is a filamentous polymer built from globular monomers called G-actin.It plays an important role in cell motility,cell morphogenesis,intracellular transport and many other life activities.It was found that the depolymerization and polymerization of actin dynamics could very well contribute to these cellular functions,and were strictly regulated by actin-binding proteins,metal ions,small G proteins,etc.It is now well agreed that following the numerous studies of animal microfilaments,the understanding of plant actin dynamics also has made a rapid progress.In this review,the regulating mechanism of plant actin dynamics would be discussed thoroughly.


Abstract We prove that there exist exactly three non-equivalent symplectic semifield spreads of PG  ( 5 , q 2 ) {\operatorname{PG}(5,q^{2})} , for q 2 > 2 ⋅ 3 8 {q^{2}>2\cdot 3^{8}} odd, whose associated semifield has center containing 𝔽 q {\mathbb{F}_{q}} . Equivalently, we classify, up to isotopy, commutative semifields of order q 6 {q^{6}} , for q 2 > 2 ⋅ 3 8 {q^{2}>2\cdot 3^{8}} odd, with middle nucleus containing 𝔽 q 2 {\mathbb{F}_{q^{2}}} and center containing 𝔽 q {\mathbb{F}_{q}} .


The authors intended to study what shades showed the Japanese teeth. It has been compared with the tooth shade guides as a method, because the tooth shade guides are only a standard comparison system made experimentally and sensorily in shades. However, there are no optical connections between them. We can't obtained, therefore, any chracteristic groups from values measured by the tooth shade guides, and we can't conclude the characters of these samples, that is, the average and the deviation value and so forth. At the beginning of our study, we tried to analyse the optical characters of the tooth shade guides of S. S. W. & Co, in U. S. A, with the automatic recording spectrophotometer of the Central Laboratory, Hitachi Ltd (Japan). In such a way the authors obtained the data showing the character of the tooth shade guides expressed in numeral.


The article deals with methodological aspects of forming the corporate values, their influence on corporate culture is shown. It is noted that a significant drawback of Russian management is the lack of effective corporate culture. Approaches used in the formation of corporate culture and its change are analyzed.


The article is devoted to the problem of chronic hepatic diseases in leprosy patients at the stage of long-term rehabilitation. The article focuses on the opportunity to use such hepatoprotector as Heptral® for the complex treatment of chronic hepatic affections
in leprosy patients, and presents the authors' clinical experience of studying the drug efficacy.


In a distributed storage system based on erasure coding, an important problem is the repair problem: If a node storing a coded piece fails, in order to maintain the same level of reliability, we need to create a new encoded piece and store it at a new node. This paper presents a construction of systematic (n,k)-MDS codes for 2k ≤ n that achieves the minimum repair bandwidth when repairing from k+1 nodes.


With increasing emphasis being placed on controlling health care costs the Maine Department of Human Services decided in 1977 to undertake a three year experimental effort designed to demonstrate the potential of patient education for reducing medical care costs. Focusing on rural ambulatory care the program established formal patient education in health centers across the state. This article will cover the scope and sequence of events during the first two years with particular emphasis on the problems encountered in program planning and implementation. It will discuss some problems of rural development and includes recommendations for the reimbursement of patient education for third party programs.


We present a factor graph formulation and particle-based sum-product algorithm for robust localization and tracking in multipath-prone environments. The proposed sequential algorithm jointly estimates the mobile agent's position together with a time-varying number of multipath components (MPCs). The MPCs are represented by "delay biases" corresponding to the offset between line-of-sight (LOS) component delay and the respective delays of all detectable MPCs. The delay biases of the MPCs capture the geometric features of the propagation environment with respect to the mobile agent. Therefore, they can provide position-related information contained in the MPCs without explicitly building a map of the environment. We demonstrate that the position-related information enables the algorithm to correctly infer the agent position even in fully obstructed LOS situations. In a challenging scenario we demonstrate the presented algorithm to significantly outperform state-of-the-art multipath-aided tracking algorithms and show that the performance of our algorithm attains the posterior Cramér-Rao lower bound (PCRLB).


Integrated energy systems (IES) with cooling, heat, electricity, and natural gas have drawn significant interest recently as we embrace more sustainable energy a midst climate change. However, the uncertain outputs of distributed generators (DGs) make it challenging for IES planning while maintaining low-cost installation and operation under carbon emission constraints. To tackle the challenge, this work proposes an optimal planning model for IES considering both DG output uncertainties and carbon emission punishments. To reduce the conservatism of the widely-adopted interval and affine algorithms, an affine model based on the matrix form is first proposed to model the uncertain DG outputs. A tiered dynamic charging cost model is further developed to introduce and minimize carbon emissions with a punishment mechanism at the planning stage. Based on these two sub-models, an optimal IES planning model is proposed to simultaneously minimize the overall costs of investment, operation, and carbon emissions. To solve the multi-dimensional nonlinear model, an improved quantum particle swarm optimization (IQPSO) algorithm is introduced with enhanced global optimization ability. Simulation results on the IEEE 33-bus and 69-bus IES network have demonstrated that the proposed method can effectively reduce the impacts of DG uncertainty and carbon emissions at the planning stage of IES with a better long-term economy.


Linear alkylbenzene sulphonate (LAS) determination can be an important factor in the control of wastewater discharges into natural environment. As it is the main anionic surfactant continuously used worldwide it can be used as an indicator of detergents in water. The purpose of this work is the study of LAS behaviour in sewage using direct UV absorption spectra deconvolution. This method is applied in order to observe LAS distribution and degradation during biological and physico-chemical sewage treatment up to the discharge into rivers, and to assess the effects of sample preservation or pretreatment on its determination.


Relationships between electrical properties and molecular structures for various nonpolymeric amorphous dyes were investigated. Absorption maximum wavelengths (λobs) for amorphous films were found to be nearly equal to those for solution samples. When the parameters of the used PPP−CI MO method were modified so as to reproduce the λobs values, the calculated HOMO and LUMO energy levels corresponded with the reported ionization potential (Ip) and electron affinity (EA) values. Electric carrier transport properties between dye films and metal electrodes (Au or Al) were found to be correlated with the HOMO and LUMO levels. For strong donor and acceptor dyes, impurity carrier effects were generally observed. For weak donor and acceptor dyes, carrier injection was difficult. Carrier injection phenomena without the influence of impurities were observed for moderate donor and acceptor dye films. Amorphous dyes with cyanovinyl substituents or oxadiazole rings were designed to allow reversible electron transport a...


Since the born of XML, more and more bioinformatics tools and biological data sources have embraced it as a common way to publish results. Other previous attempts, like ASN.1, have not been so widespread adopted as XML because they were created in the wrong moment, when the computational power was valuable treasure. Now, the volume of available information in molecular biology and bioinformatics in XML format is big enough to think on the use of XML databases. In this paper we will talk about XML technologies, places where XML is being used, the alternatives to mining data sources in XML, and our experiences in that field. Brief introduction to XML XML[1] (eXtensible Markup Language) was created in 1998 as an attempt to simplify the complexity of SGML. In fact, XML is a subset of SGML, aimed to lower the hardware requirements of SGML language parsers and processors, meanwhile the information correctness could be checked in a reasonable time. Other reason to create XML was to separate the data representation from the data itself. This is very useful, for instance, when you have published some information and someone else wants to extract, process or show it in a different way. The third one was to have a standard way to store semi-structured information, like the biological one. Like ASN.1, XML is a flexible way to store information, because you are not stuck to a fixed format. The structure of any XML content can be thought as a tree, and if it is based on a defined structure, it will follow the imposed restrictions. At the beginning, the only way to define an XML format was creating a DTD (Data Type Definition). The used language for these DTDs is a subset of the used for SGML DTDs. Although it is quite expressive, it lacks some key characteristics like a way to define precise restrictions in the stored data or a powerful and extensible data type system. So, XML Schema was created in order to overcome these and other expressiveness problems. The next important feature in XML is the concept of namespace. When people defined their format, nothing could avoid they had created XML elements with the same name. In principle, that is not a problem, but what does it happen if someone wants to reuse two or more XML formats in a new DTD or XML Schema? Sometimes it was impossible due XML element name collisions. One way to solve the problem is the use of the namespace concept (used by some object-oriented programming languages): if you want to integrate two or more XML formats, each one of them must live under a different namespace, so there is no chance for name collisions. Due XML success, many other features and technologies have grown under the XML shades: XSL (XML Stylesheets), XPath, XInclude, SOAP, XML-RPC, SVG, WSDL, XQuery, RDF, etc... If we focus on molecular biology and bioinformatics areas, these technologies are more or less integrated and (mis)used, but definitively they are now key tools in the development of new projects. XML in Biology and Bioinformatics If we look at the bioinformatics area, the impact of XML technologies has been huge: NCBI Blast tools[2] are able to generate their output in XML, the DAS protocol[3] is based on three XML custom formats, etc... But, even more important, many of the biggest molecular biology data repositories are publicly available in XML: UniProt[4], born from the fusion of SWISSPROT, TrEMBL and PIR; InterPro; IntAct[5]; GO; etc... There are some efforts about having a central repository for the different XML used formats in biology[6], and some common standard formats have been developed (BSML, AGAVE, GAME, MIAME/MAGE, IntAct, etc...) in order to ease the information exchange in areas like sequences, interactions, etc... Also, EBI is providing a translation and integration service for EMBL[7], Genbank and DDBJ databases, so anyone can get nucleotide sequence data in different XML formats, like BSML or AGAVE. Anyhow, the size of the different XML data sources, both in number of entries and in raw size is increasing at the same rate, or even bigger, than the classical molecular biology data sources. We have to use technologies powerful enough so we can deal with these volumes of information. Until now, most of the ways to mine information from these data sources were related to the use of relational databases, but one of the XML features, semi-structured data representation, sometimes makes it very difficult to realize. XML databases: mining XML As we have told above, there is already a toolbox full of technologies related to XML[1]. The most interesting ones in the data mining field are the ones related to query XML contents: XPath, XSLT and XQuery. XPath was created to locate XML fragments in a XML tree which followed some given conditions, and both XSLT and XQuery (among others) depend on XPath. XSLT is the XSL subset which deals with the task of building an XML output tree based on the transformation of XML fragments from a single XML input tree. It is commonly used to translate XML content into HTML or XSL:FO, and the work flow in XSLT can be driven both by XPath expressions and procedural calls. XQuery is the XML query language created to query a set of XML documents, and it is more or less the SQL of XML databases. XML data model is very different from relational model, because the order of the elements in a XML tree does mind, unlike tuples in a relational table. Other difference is that a relational database has a fixed two-level structure (tables, columns inside tables), unlike XML trees. So, XQuery uses XPath as part of its FLWOR (For-Let-Where-Order-Return) expressions, so an XPath expression selects XML fragments a FLWOR expression is going to handle. Although all these query languages can be used to mine single XML trees, what we want to do is mining a forest. So, what can it be understood as an XML database? Basically, a database which is able to store and organize XML trees, which can be queried using any of the XML query languages, returning XML fragments as the answer of the queries. Even more, a desirable feature in a XML database is the implementation of the XML:DB API[8], which is a independent way to send queries to a XML database, like JDBC or DBI are for relational databases. Other desirables features are XUpdate, an extension to allow the update of XML fragments belonging to stored XML documents, and support for organizing and managing XML content in collections. The number of available XML databases is increasing each day, and they can be classified in three different approaches: pure XML databases; XML databases using a classical database engine (relational, object oriented) as the underlying technology; and XML extensions for an existing database engines. A pure XML database is defined as the one which uses its own custom storage format and query processor. A XML database based on a classical database engine stores digested XML content in a database, and it translates input queries to a set of queries to the underlying database engine. XML extensions in a database engine are composed by special data types and a set of procedures and functions which deal with these special data types, and they can be used and embedded in a native query to the database. From our point of view, some XML extensions cannot be though as XML databases in some cases, because they don't usually provide the same integration levels as the other approaches. Our experiences with XML databases There are some very powerful commercial XML databases and XML extensions, like the ones from Oracle and Software AG. After looking for open-source XML databases in the web, we found two promising products, still in development: eXist[9] and dbXML[10]. Both of them are coded in Java, which has its advantages and its drawbacks. On one hand, most advanced XMLrelated libraries are available in Java. On the other hand, Java programs are slower and use more memory than the equivalent ones coded in other languages like C or C++, and XML libraries in Java tend to be much less efficient than the corresponding C and C++ equivalents. Both products are native XML databases which implement XML:DB API and XUpdate, and they also provides additional methods to query and access the stored information: HTTP GET, XML-RPC, servlets, monolitic standalone access, etc... They have some interesting extensions, like full text indexing (FTI) and full text search (FTS), but we have not compared these capabilities with the ones from other specialized products like glimpse or OpenFTS project. dbXML can be queried using XPath and XSLT, meanwhile eXist uses both XPath and XQuery. As any database management system, these XML database engines need some hints to improve query response times, and eXist and dbXML diverge in this point, because eXist build indexes over almost any imaginable XML component (elements, attributes, attribute values, text values) by default, meanwhile dbXML only builds them under explicit notification. Our tests on these databases were done using IntAct as a mid-size XML data source (25~30MB), and UniProt as a big XML data source (5GB). Also, we have used XSLT and Xalan C++[11] as a measurement of the advantages we were getting using XML databases over processing raw XML content. The machine we have used for the tests is a PC with 1GB of memory, a Athlon 1GHz processor and a 540 GB array for the storage. We have also used IBM, Sun, and BEA Java Virtual Machines for our tests, and we have found Sun JVM had better performance than the others because these products are I/O intensive both in query and store operations. The programs we have built to launch queries to the XML databases have been written in Perl, and we have used both XML-RPC and HTTP-GET interfaces for that task. These programs issued both easy and complicate queries, related to returning XML fragments from the content and the number of them, generating new XML fragments for the output and doing correlated queries. We found eXist


—Industry 4.0, marked by cyber-physical collaboration and the manufacturing industry. The underlying technological conditions of I4.0 require automation, digitization and interconnection. The use of technology can increase the competitiveness of the industry, application of technology also requires a new set of knowledge and skills. In operating machining engineering technology in the Industry 4.0 era, it's requires a workforce who can combine classic machines and Information Technology (IT). Vocational High Schools whose purpose is to provide manpower, need to pay attention to the technical competencies required for the presence of this technology, so that there is a match between the competencies needed by the industry and the competencies taught in schools. To describe what technical competences students need to have in Mechanical Engineering Vocational High School, a literature review was conducted, using the Pagani , Kovaleski , and Resende protocols. 27 articles published in international journals were selected for further study. The results of this study provide insight and input to vocational education managers, regarding various information on technological advances in the Industry 4.0 era and what technical competencies are needed. So that it can be input for curriculum developers in determining what competencies need to be present in the Mechanical Engineering Vocational School curriculum


Rheumatic fever can develop into rheumatic heart disease and lead to the need to
implant a mechanical valve prosthesis followed by mandatory and permanent oral
anticoagulation. Adherence to treatment
is essential but is not always achieved. Psychiatric
disorders can interfere with adherence.
The
study objectives
were
:
1
)
identify
subjective
factors
influencing
the
adherence on oral anticoagulation
in
patients with
rheumatic
mechanical valve prosthesis
,
according to
his
own
perception
, 2)
find the prevalence of
psychiatric disorders
in this population.
To achieve the first objective, we conducted phenomenological qualitative research,
through semi
-
structured interviews, in which patients talked freely a
bout their experiences in
treatment. Signified units were extracted from speeches and grouped into categories
according to thematic convergences observed. From the examination of the material, it is
observed that oral anticoagulation treatment is difficult
to follow. The health team
performance and cognitive, emotional and behavioral aspects of patients show a significant
influence on adherence to the prescription.
To achieve the second objective, we conducted quantitative research, through
structured in
terviews
by applying
the
test
Neuropsychiatric
Mini
International
Interview
(
MINI)
in
193
patients
.
The results
show
that
depression and anxiety disorders
were
the most
prevalent disorders
in the group
studied
, and there was a high risk of suicide. There w
as no
statistically
significant
difference between the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in patients
with and without rheumatic fever


The single shot autocorrelator designed to measure the AF of the ultrashort laser pulses in the temporal range of 30 - 200 fs and in spectral range 730 - 820 nm is described.


Frederick Jackson Turner is reputed once to have remarked to a friend that "conditions in ancient history and, indeed, in much of history are so different from those in the present that lessons derived from anything but recent history are apt to be misleading" (Jacobs, 1966). Even with the admonition of that great authority in mind, we can learn much from the history of the technological development of the great Southwest. The history ot the extraction of natural resources, especially of petroleum, in New Mexico ofters a valuable lesson tor our society in microcosm.


We analyse the reshaping mechanism leading to apparently 'superluminal' advancement of a pulse traversing an undersized section of a waveguide. For frequencies below the first inelastic threshold (cut off one), there are only evanescent modes in the narrow region, and the problem becomes similar to quantum mechanical tunnelling across an effective rectangular 'barrier'. In the coordinate representation, the barrier is shown to act as an effective beamsplitter, recombining envelopes of the freely propagating pulse with various spacial shifts. Causality ensures that none of the constituent envelopes are advanced with respect to free propagation, yet the resulting pulse is advanced due to a peculiar interference effect, similar to the one responsible for 'anomalous' values which occur in Aharonov's 'weak measurements'. In the momentum space, the effect is understood as a bandwidth phenomenon, where the incident pulse probes local, rather than global, analytical properties of the transmission amplitude T (p). The advancement is achieved when T (p) mimics locally an exponential behaviour, similar to the one occurring in Berry's 'superoscillations'. D. Sokolovski, and E. Akhmatskaya


A two-day conference was organized to enhance the knowledge base of urban and rural family physicians in the management of psychiatric emergencies involving the elderly. Eighty physicians from across British Columbia, Canada, attended the training conference and 68 completed a test on managing emergencies in geriatric psychiatry that was given before and after the conference. Results indicated a statistically significant increase in the participant physicians' scores after training. Participants' ability to apply information presented on the certification of the elderly under the British Columbia Mental Health Act was also evaluated. In nearly all cases, participants performed skillfully on this exercise. Physicians gave very positive evaluations of the speakers and the conference as a whole.


Hydroxychloroquine, a slow acting antirheumatic drug, is administered as the racemic mixture. Blood concentrations of the two enantiomers of hydroxychloroquine were measured in two studies, one study of eight patients, in whom blood and urine concentrations were measured during the first 6 months of therapy with rac-hydroxychloroquine, and one of 43 patients who had received rac-hydroxychloroquine therapy for at least 6 months. In the latter study rheumatoid disease activity was also measured. The pharmacokinetics of hydroxychloroquine were found to be enantioselective. The concentrations of (-)-(R)-hydroxychloroquine were higher than those of the (+)-(S)-antipode in all patients at all time points, although the ratios of the two enantiomers did display a two to three fold variability between patients. Both total and renal clearance were greater for the (+)-(S)-enantiomer. From the observational, cross-sectional study design used, it was not possible to differentiate concentration-effect relationships of the two enantiomers. The 11-fold range of drug concentrations swamped any effect of variability between patients in enantiomer proportions. Blood concentrations of both enantiomers were significantly higher in groups of patients with less active disease.