The number of devices connect to the internet is rapidly increasing with the advent of the IoT(Internet of Things). TheIoT has improved the convenience of life. However, it makes security issues such as privacy violations. Thereforecybersecurity is the most important issue to be discussed nowadays. ...


A review of Urban Latin America: Inequalities and Neoliberal Reforms is especially fitting for Latin American Perspectives, since the book emerged from three special issues of the journal edited by Tom Angotti, including two with Clara Irazábal (Angotti, 2013; Angotti and Irazábal, 2017; Irazábal and Angotti, 2017). Collectively, these issues considered Latin American urbanization in its political economic context. Angotti's contributions to the book foreground the relations between urban Latin America and the global political economy, the inequalities resulting from them, and the struggles shaping the region's cities. The interdisciplinary collection includes works by well-known Latin Americanists positioning the paradox of Latin America's inequalities in the context of neoliberal reforms and globalization. Neoliberalism, an ideology associated with economic liberalization and free-market capitalism, plays a key role in producing urban inequality, which has been explained in terms of uneven geographies and accumulation by dispossession whereby expanded growth produces "ever greater levels of social inequality, as indeed has been the global trend over the last thirty years of neoliberalism" (Harvey, 2004: 73). Urban Latin America provides a compelling rationale for studying the urbanization of the region, detailing broad trends and exceptions to the rule. Through rich empirical material, this collection contributes to a deeper understanding of the profound transformations experienced by Latin American cities in response to larger social, economic, and political forces. Since Latin America is exceedingly urban, cities are central to understanding the challenges and inequalities across the region. Set within the capitalist political economy at local and global levels, Urban Latin America highlights three key contradictions defining urban Latin America with particular consequences for its cities—violence, enclaves, and land struggles. For Angotti, violence, such as police violence in Brazilian favelas and drug-related crime in Mexico and Central America, marks Latin America's history of urbanization. Alan Gilbert's chapter shows that violence is intimately linked to inequalities as a feature of the region, although some countries, such as Chile, are highly unequal without exhibiting much violence. Another feature of Latin American urban contexts is the formation of enclaves, including exclusive gated communities in São Paulo (Caldeira, 2000) and the communities at cities' geographic periphery described by Lorena Zárate. While informal settlements are known by many terms, as Zárate explains, they are largely "produced by the people" (30), going beyond 'informal' to recognize multiple practices and struggles involved in city building. Finally, land struggles and the risk of displacement have been pervasive across the region, shaping cities' growth during the twentieth century and access to land and housing. As Irazábal aptly describes, these struggles involve citizenship claims to the right to the city, challenging the neoliberal reforms prevalent across the region. Critical issues include lack of access to formal titles and basic urban services.


background: In our country, chronic renal failure represents a public health problem. Continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis treatment is symptomatic and replacement of end-stage renal disease. Peritonitis is the main complication, increases morbidity and is the main cause why the change of treatment mode. For cytological diagnosis should be made dialysis fluid but the more specific method to determine the pathogen is the cultivation of which, together with the antibiogram serves as a basis for developing management guidelines and initiate or modify specific antibiotic treatment. Methods: We reviewed the medical records of patients admitted to the Emergency Department with a diagnosis of peritonitis associated with peritoneal dialysis hospitalized during the period of March 1, 2005, to February 29, 2008. results: Of the 43 patients who met the inclusion criteria, the prevailing age of 50-59 years (28%), being the main pathogenic coagulase-negative Staphylococcus (67%). conclusions: As reported in other studies, this study found that the main microorganisms causing dialysis-associated peritonitis are grampositive.


The performance of a mixture of CH3F/He (1/9) as a reaction gas for the determination of As in biological fluids using a quadrupole ICP-MS instrument has been explored. A simple (dilute-and-shoot) interference-free method has been developed to quantify As concentrations at trace and ultra-trace levels in matrices with a high Cl content. As+ reacts with CH3F (through CH3F addition, followed by HF elimination) with high efficiency forming AsCH2+ as the primary reaction product, which can be monitored at a mass-to-charge ratio of 89, free from the Cl-based interferents (e.g., 40Ar35Cl+ and 40Ca35Cl+) that hamper the monitoring of 75As+. Matrix effects are overcome by the use of Te as an internal standard and the addition of 3% v/v ethanol to all samples and calibration standard solutions. The method presented was validated by analysing a set of reference materials (blood, serum and urine) and by assessing As recovery from a set of real blood samples. With this method, the limit of detection was calculated to be 0.8 ng L−1 As, favourably comparable to the vast majority of values reported in the literature, even with those obtained using more sophisticated sector-field instrumentation.


Cases of homicidal children are scarce, but they have great social and legislative impact, leading to the study of risk and protector factors of early criminal activity. Given the only record in Chile of a homicidal child, the objective of this study was to the individual and contextual risk factors associated with such homicidal behavior of a child under 10 years of age toward a pair. A unique case design was used that involved a multidisciplinary diagnosis, with neuropsychological, individual, and family, clinical, and psychiatric evaluations. The main findings are scarce cognitive flexibility in the child and emotional feedback in their family relationships, which would be associated with risk factors – family education guidelines, personality characteristics, and use of time (playing violent video games – and could explain the homicidal behavior, where it would be difficult for the child to stop the violent behavior once initiated, in an emotionally demanding context.


Finite element (FE) studies are undertaken to investigate the accuracy of currently available concrete constitutive models in predicting the behavior of steel fiber-reinforced concrete (SFRC) panels tested in pure shear. The tension-stiffening, tension-softening, and compression-softening behaviors of the panels are evaluated and compared with predictions made using the disturbed stress field model and currently available concrete constitutive models. In addition, the effects of crack slip and crack spacing parameters on the modeling accuracy are assessed. The FE analysis results indicate that although current constitutive models are able to simulate the behavior of conventionally reinforced concrete panels accurately, the models overestimate the strength and deformation capacity of SFRC elements. Three factors are found to significantly influence the calculation accuracy: the tension stiffening/softening model, the consideration of shear slip on crack surfaces, and the crack spacing parameters.


Leadership has been described as the process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task (Lussier & Achua, 2010). Different people require different styles of leadership. There are many traits that help people increase the effectiveness of their leadership. In order to have an effective leadership, it is important to build your own leadership style which can expend strengths and avoid weaknesses. Leaders should work hard to develop respect for each member of the team and try to makes team members feel important. Mutual respect is vital to success. Sometimes, rewards and motivation are necessary. Moreover, sometimes it is good for employees to share their opinions and help to get to a solution. Sometimes, it's also important to be able to switch from one leadership style to the others. All of this really can improve people's morale and gain work efficiency.


Even using the best techniches available, modern dentistry still replaces lost with metal implants covered with prosthetic crowns. Although these methods are effective, they are far from reproducing, qualitatively and quantitatively, all the biological structures that were lost. Meanwhile, there is a collective effort of scientists to create techniques that allow a natural tooth (Bio-tooth) to be created, using different cell populations and tissue engineering techniques. Although these researches are recent, they are advancing and promise to revolutionize the future of dentistry, since they offer the possibility of developing the third dentition in humans. In vivo clinical assays are still inexistent but there are that show different ways of making a complete dental element in a laboratory in animal models. Currently, there are four major techniques available to make bio-tooth and this paper makes a literature review to expose them, their advantages, disadvantages and perspective of future applicability in the clinical setting. Indexing terms: stem cells; tissue engineering; dentistry.


The object of scientific research is the social relations that develop in the sphere of application by prosecutors of the Russian Federation of powers to initiate disciplinary proceedings. The subject of the study is the practice of prosecutor's offices of the Russian Federation in bringing guilty persons to disciplinary liability, legislation of the Russian Federation and foreign countries, organizational and administrative documents of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, works of scientists related to the topic of research. The methodological basis of the research includes the dialectical method, methods of analysis, synthesis, analogy, deduction, induction, observation, modeling, historical, comparative legal, statistical and other methods. The main conclusions of the study are to substantiate the mandatory requirement of the prosecutor to bring the perpetrators to disciplinary liability, since this is dictated not so much by the formal requirements of statistical reporting, but by the need to ensure the prevention of law violations. The scientific novelty lies in the proposals formulated by the author to legislatively consolidate the powers of the prosecutor or his deputy to initiate disciplinary proceedings, mandatory for the authorities specified in paragraph 1 of Article 21 of the Federal Law of January 17, 1992 No. 2202-1 "On the Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation". The work contains specific proposals for amending Article 21 of the Law on the Prosecutor's Office.


X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS), x-ray fluorescence holography (XFH), and inelastic x-ray scattering (IXS) techniques were applied to an ${\mathrm{Fe}}_{2}({\mathrm{V}}_{0.95}{\mathrm{Ta}}_{0.05}$)Al Heusler-type thermoelectric material to investigate the doping effect of Ta on the local structure and the atomic dynamics. The XAFS and XFH results show that the positional correlation between Ta and surrounding Fe atoms is much more rigid than that between V and Fe. In the IXS results, we observed a broad dispersionless mode in the energy range of the acoustic phonons of undoped ${\mathrm{Fe}}_{2}\mathrm{VAl}$, which is regarded as the so-called resonant mode. These results revealed a clearly different feature of the dynamics of heavy dopants from that of the matrix element, which disturbs the coherency of phonons and should contribute to the enhancement of the thermal insulation.


This research determined the engagement levels and learning experience of students in a unique remote laboratory for engineering students. The findings determined the perceived learning objective of students in the laboratory, as well as perception of realism of equipment in a remote educational environment.


Pancreatic cancer maintains one of the worst prognoses of all malignancies. Fewer than 1% of patients survive 10-years post-diagnosis. It is an aggressive disease with as many as 80% of patients diagnosed in the most advanced stages of disease. This severely limits treatment options, contributing to the dismal prognosis. Diagnosis remains a challenge. Often, imaging alone cannot differentiate between benign or malignant disease. Blood-based biomarker CA19-9 cannot be relied upon since it is a modified Lewis antigen so 5-10% of the population do not express it. Tissue biopsies remain the gold-standard for final confirmed diagnoses, yet collection of pancreatic biopsies is invasive, time and resource intensive and have a range of risks associated. Blood-based biomarkers offer a less invasive, cheaper, and more accessible alternative to more traditional diagnostic techniques. Here, we explored the use of novel DNA mutation assay, the human erythrocyte PIG-A assay, as a blood-based biomarker to determine whether it had any potential in diagnosing pancreatic cancer. An elevated frequency of PIG-A mutant erythrocytes was observed within pancreatic cancer patients in comparison to controls of healthy donors and a benign pancreatic disease cohort. Furthermore, the more well-established human peripheral blood mononuclear cell cytokinesis block micronucleus assay provided a secondary measure of DNA damage. An elevation was also viewed in this assay in malignant donors. Both assays were additionally explored within an in vitro setting, modelling the induction of DNA damage by known risk factors for pancreatic cancer. Given the complexity of pancreatic cancer diagnosis, a panel of biomarkers was explored, combining clinical markers of inflammation with our two DNA-based biomarkers and clinically approved CA19-9. Combination of the novel PIG-A mutation assay and CA19-9 blood-test appeared the most suitable panel of biomarkers for future exploration.


The following aesthetic discussion examines in a philosophical-scientific way the relationship between computation and artistic creativity. Currently, there is a criticism about the possible artistic creativity that an algorithm could have. Supporting the above, the term computer-generated art (CG-Art) defined by Margaret Boden would seem to have no exponents yet. Moreover, it has been pointed out that, rather than a matter of primitive technological development, CG-Art would have in its very foundations the inability to exist. This, because art is considered as one of the most unique and exclusive human manifestations of our species. On the contrary, I propose that the denial of CG-Art has an anthropocentric bias. For this, I use the recent studies that, from the cognitive sciences, have been carried out on artistic creativity. In this way, I intend to convince the reader that behind the denial of the creative artistic capacity to the machines, a negationist mysticism of the current scientific advances necessarily lies.


Dental hygienists are skilled professionals of the allied health field taught to recognize and treat various oral conditions. However, due to variances in the states' rules and regulations set forth by the Dental Boards, they are prohibited in many states from diagnosing such conditions and/or disease. This can present ethical dilemmas when hygienists know that disease is present and feel that incomplete treatment methods are taking place. For example, periodontal disease is a common oral condition affecting numerous individuals. Given that periodontal disease is thought to be implicated in other overall health crisis, it is essential that it be properly address. Furthermore, questions of standards of care are implied when periodontal disease is not properly addressed or treated. As hygienists, evaluations of personal ethics and current office settings, as well as possible issues of liability and proper documentation, should influence the decisions that are executed as professionals in the field.


The author has investigated the effect of dislocations on thermoelectric properties of n- GaN based on two layer model and developed a model for calculation of the Seebeck coefficient, the thermal conductivity and the Figure of merit of n-GaN for the bulk n-GaN considering the two layer model. The effect of band quantization on the transport properties of n-GaN based on two layer model has been investigated. The variation of electronic conductivity with high magnetic field under the extreme quantum limit has been studied. The effect of dislocation in n-GaN on the Seebeck coefficient has been studied. Here the author has studied ac and dc mobility of hot electrons in the presence of a quantizing magnetic field where a small AC signal is superimposed on a DC electric field. It is applied to n-GaN in the low and high temperature regions. The author has studied the effect of dislocations and the non equilibrium phonons on the ac mobility of hot electrons at low and high temperatures. The author has studied the effect of various scattering mechanisms on the dc mobility and the effect of dislocations on transport peoperties of electrons in 2DEG in AlGaN/GaN .


Groundwater is susceptible to contamination from a range of land-use activities, while remediation is very expensive and often impractical. To help mitigate this problem an effective regional vulnerability assessment, based on existing databases that provide a consistent national coverage, was developed. One of the critical factors affecting vulnerability in the Manawatu area of New Zealand is the effect of the soil, through its sorption capacity, on the fate of contaminants. Organic carbon content is often the most important factor controlling a soil's sorption capacity, but because carbon content declines sharply below the A horizon, the sorption model developed also considers the cation exchange capacity of the profile, particularly at lower depths. Soil data were obtained from the New Zealand Land Resource Inventory and the Manawatu - Wanganui regional soil database. Correlation of the two databases allowed the creation of cation exchange capacity, organic carbon content, and soil sorption maps for the study area. An uncertainty ranking system was derived to indicate the reliability of these maps. Soil sorption is relatively low for the soils over the northern Tararua foothills and other recharge zones, so little, or no, contaminant attenuation occurs there As contaminants are more likely to reach the aquifer, controls on potentially contaminating land-use activities are particularly important in these areas. Highest uncertainty in the estimates of vulnerability as a result of soil sorption, reflecting the present lack of chemical data for these soils, is around inland Horowhenua where land use is very intensive and where many bores provide drinking water.


Gulshaniyyah order is an order which has been significantly influenced from the Mawlawiyyah order. After the founding of the Gulshaniyyah order, an important intercommunication and mutual interaction occured between the two orders. Especially, the relation between the poets of the two orders, attracts more of our attention. In this study, we focus on Mawlawī poets who have communicated and built relations with Gulshanians in the Tadhkira-i Shu'arā-i Mawlawiyyah of Asrār Dede (d. 1211/1796). These poets are Samā'ī Sultān Dīwānī, Yusuf Sīnechāk, Gharībī, Shāhidī, Gunāhī, Derūnī, Shuhūdī, 'Arshī, Beqayī, Wehbī and Enīs Receb Dede (eleven poets). In this study, we arrive at important conclusions regarding the relations between the two orders.


Imaging is a key technique for diagnosing arthritis and assessing activity of arthritis. For years, conventional radiography has been the gold standard for determining bone damage in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), that is, bone erosions. Although the presence of erosions may show us the relics of what has happened in the past, it delivers insufficient information about what actually is going on in the patient. Clearly, in times where the clinical rheumatologist is increasingly held responsible for the effects of drug management decisions, sophisticated imaging techniques providing up-to-date information are in the limelight. Any imaging technique should be able to guide us in our daily


Six indexes together with their critical values for the modernization of infrastructures in the city Nanjing were proposed, i. e. the convenience of road transportation, quality of public facilities, informationalization of post and telecommunications, corn fortablity of residence facilities, standardization of drain and flood control, ecological management of city environment. Ten parameters of significant importance were introduced to build gray system forecast model, which was in turn used to predict construction progress of the municipal infrastructure modernization. The city development can thus be divided into three steps: the primary stage of municipal infrastructure construction modernization (1999 - 2013 ), medium stage (2014 - 2020 ); and the higher stage (2021 -2030 ). In order to realize the modernization objectives, the countermeasures suggested are: to strengthen the municipal economic capacity, to increase the function of city center, to optimize the infrastructure, to adjust the space - form structure, to widen financing channel, to set up market-oriented financing structure, to improve urban ecological environment, to realize urban sustainable development, and so on.


The Association of Promoting Mass Education established a health care network in Dingxian County in the 1930s, containing health workers in village, clinics in township and hospitals in the county. This system made remarkable achievements in school hygiene, health care for baby and woman, prevention of infectious disease and disease treatment. It produced an extensive influence at that time. And today it still worth drawing lessons from this experiment.


From the correspondence between our past cyclotron resonance work and the time resolved EHD luminescence result by Wagner-Schmid-Sauer for impurity-assisted intervalley scattering in silicon, a rather surprising conclusion is drawn that the impurities can remain "neutral" in the electron-hole liquid.


Let μ1 ≥ . . . ≥ μn denote the eigenvalues of a graph G with m edges and clique number ω(G). Nikiforov proved a spectral version of Turán's theorem that


State and federal regulators have turned to economic incentives, such as toxic use fees, as a means of encouraging pollution prevention. This paper examines ho>r regulatory policies can influence environmental policy of small to medium sized firms in two particular industries. Environmental managers were surveyed in order to describe responses to and perceptions of the various types of regulatory policies that can be used to help eliminate or control toxic emissions. Not surprisingly, firms are most concerned with compliance with traditional command and control regulations. However, these businesses also indicated that some economic incentive programs would provide motivation to reduce toxic emissions. Implications for small and medium-sized operations are discussed.


Galaxy surveys provide one of the best ways to constrain the theory of gravity at cosmological scales. They can be used to constrain the two gravitational potentials encoding time, $\Psi$, and spatial, $\Phi$, distortions, which are exactly equal at late time within general relativity. Hence, any small variation leading to a nonzero anisotropic stress, i.e. a difference between these potentials, would be an indication for modified gravity. Current analyses usually consider gravitational lensing and redshift-space distortions to constrain the anisotropic stress, but these rely on certain assumptions like the validity of the weak equivalence principle, and a specific time evolution of the functions encoding deviations from general relativity. In this work, we propose a reparametrization of the gravitational lensing observable, together with the use of the relativistic dipole of the correlation function of galaxies to directly measure the anisotropic stress with a minimum amount of assumptions. We consider the future Legacy Survey of Space and Time of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory and the future Square Kilometer Array, and show that combining gravitational lensing and gravitational redshift with the proposed approach we will achieve model-independent constraints on the anisotropic stress at the level of $\sim 20\,\%$.


The expressions for molecular parameters ΔH° and ΔG° are obtained in the presence of volume changes ΔV/V between the isomeric states and the results are used in investigating the influence of the volume changes on the molecular parameters ΔH°, ΔG°, and ΔS°. The present calculations show that for those liquids for which Cp/αRT is large, the molecular parameters are influenced considerably by the volume changes.


Decontamination waste from chemical weapons (CW) agents has been stored in ton containers on Johnston Atoll since 1971. The waste was recently sampled and analyzed to determine its chemical composition in preparation for disposal. Due to the range of products and analytical requirements, multiple chromatographic and spectroscopic methods were necessary, including gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), gas chromatography/atomic emission detection (GC/AED), liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS), capillary electrophoresis (CE), and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). The samples were screened for residual agents. No residual sarin (GB) or VX was found to detection limits of 20 ng/mL, but 3% of the samples contained residual sulfur mustard (HD) at <140 ng/mL. Decontamination products of agents were identified. The majority (74%) of the ton containers were documented correctly, in that the observed decontamination products were in agreement with the labeled agent type, but for a num...


Marine operators are confronted with the new air emissions regulations that determine the limits of sulfur content in marine fuels. The low-sulfur (LS) marine fuels have a higher price, and their fluctuation is almost similar to the fluctuation of high-sulfur (HS) fuels. The price difference between HS and LS might also determine the decision of operators for alternative technical means, such as scrubbers, in order to comply with the new limits. This paper aims to provide a thorough statistical analysis of the currently available LS and HS marine fuels time series, as well as to present the analysis of the differential of the HS and LS fuel prices. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research.


This present paper is a case report from the pre-transplantation out-patient service of the renal transplantation department at a university hospital in Northeastern Brazil, followed by a psychologist, as part of a training program in Hospital Psychology by the Federal University of Ceara. The theoretical framework included systemic approach and brief psychotherapy and was focused on disease, hospitalization and discharge. In renal transplantation, it was observed that the process of donating and receiving involved the individual dynamics of donor, recipient and family, activating unconscious conflicts capable of affecting the patient's decision-making ability and emotional balance.


The invention provides a system and method allowing multiple terminals to share one Beidou short message communication module. The system comprises at least one terminal group. The terminal group comprises at least one base station terminal and a plurality of node terminals; the base station terminal comprises the Beidou short message communication module, and the base station terminal in one terminal group communicates with the node terminals by use of a local area network. The base station terminals of different terminal groups communicate with each other through the Beidou short message communication module, and the node terminals of the different terminal groups communicate with each other through the Beidou short message communication module of the base station terminal in each terminal group. By using the system and method provided by the invention, under certain conditions, multiple terminals can share the same Beidou short message communication module so that the effect of saving cost is achieved.


The Codification of Islamic Criminal Law in the Sudan: Penal Codes and Supreme Court Case Law under Numayrī and al-Bashīr. By Olaf Köndgen. Studies in Islamic Law and Society, vol. 43. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Pp. xii + 480. $171, €149.


The 2008 financial crisis and the credit crunch severely restrict the ability of multinational companies to invest abroad and finance cross-boarder mergers and acquisitions; yet do not impair the intra-firm trade among parent firms, subsidiaries and branches. Intra-firm trade is a complement of foreign direct investment whether it is a market-access based FDI or for considerations of factor price differential motivations. Compared with arm's length transactions, intra-firm trade of MNCs is highly contributable to unit the global-based affiliates under one set of rationales of operation mechanism, thus reel off the substantial benefits produced within the boundaries of the host nations. The essay starts with characteristics and incentives of intra-firm trade of MNCs, then analyzes in great details the related effects from the standpoints of international trade structure, international relations and the economy perspectives of the host countries. The author concludes that the sales of affiliates of multinational firms have long dwarfed the value of FDI injection to the host countries and the transfer price system is often illegally used for tax evasion purposes, thus shortchanging the earnings of the host nations. The author proposes corresponding countermeasures by the end.


Lane Roberts, Dome Technology, Inc., USA, reports on the storage dome constructed for the Ash Grove cement plant in Louisville, USA.


With 4 kinds of tea(i.e. green tea, Ti Kwan Yin tea, black tea, Pu-er tea) as experimental materials,the contents of tea polyphenols, free amino acids and nutrient component in the tea and their tea wastes were determined by national standard method, respectively. The results showed that the content of tea polyphenols in the 4kinds of tea wastes was 4.2%-10.1%, which was significantly lower than that in the corresponding tea(6.5%-17.8%),but which was retained more than 60% of that in the corresponding tea. Similarly, the content of free amino acids in the 4 kinds of tea wastes was 1.1%-1.4%, which was significantly lower than that in the corresponding tea(1.2%-2.2%), and also retained more than 60% of that in the corresponding tea. However, the content of crude fiber(13.0%-19.0%) in the 4 kinds of tea wastes was significantly higher than that in the corresponding tea(10.0%-16.0%),respectively. The results of determination of nutritional ingredients showed that the content of crude protein(26.0%-35.0%) in the 4 kinds of tea wastes was slightly higher than that in the corresponding tea(25.0%-35.0%),respectively. But the content of moisture in the 4 kinds of tea wastes(7.81%-8.82%) was significantly higher than that in the corresponding tea(4.5%-7.2%) respectively. Conversely, the content of crude fat in the 4 kinds of tea wastes(1.5%-4.5%) was significantly lower than that in the corresponding tea(4%-11%), respectively. And the content of total ash in the 4 kinds of tea wastes(3.3%-4.7%) was also significantly lower than that in the corresponding tea(5.0%-7.0%), respectively. The active and nutritional ingredients in tea wastes still contained high tea polyphenols, amino acids and main nutritional components, which could provide a theoretical basis for the development and utilization of tea wastes.


John H. Faber, the first executive director of the National Ash Association (NAA), 1968– 80, was the planner of the first Ash Utilization Symposium in 1967 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A summary of his history of the first 40 years of ash marketing, beginning in 1946, is presented in this paper. Due mainly to his efforts, the NAA was formed in 1968 and became recognized as the world's leading authority on coal ash technology and utilization. Faber initiated the publication of a NAA newsletter entitled "Ash at Work." In 1985, the NAA became American Coal Ash Association (ACAA). The formation and early history of the NAA, compiled from Ash at Work, are presented in this paper, as well as highlights from the NAA and ACAA. Ash at Work continues today with its fourth logo.


Intractable pain is one of the main indications for a surgical approach in chronic pancreatitis. In some cases, especially when the main pancreatic duct is not dilated and when other treatment measures have failed, one surgical approach is a total pancreatectomy. A complication of this approach is diabetes and islet autotransplantation has been suggested in recent years as a good option for minimizing or preventing diabetes. The studies published up to now have shown that pain relief is obtained in most patients, and insulin independence is preserved long term in about onethird, with another third having sufficient beta cell function so that the surgically-caused diabetes is mild [1]. However, the quality of life in these patients should be evaluated using a structured questionnaire. In this respect, the recent paper of Morgan et al. is welcome [2]. Over a 20-month period, the authors evaluated 33 patients who underwent extensive pancreatectomy with islet autotransplantation for pancreatitis. In these patients, they evaluated data pertaining to daily oral morphine equivalents and the quality of life was measured by the SF-12 questionnaire in both the preoperative and the postoperative periods. The mean follow-up was nine months and postoperative complications occurred in 48% of the patients enrolled. Preoperative quality of life scores showed a mean of 25 for the physical component and 32 for the mental health component. Postoperatively, the physical component score increased significantly at 6 months and at 12 months, as did the mental health component score. The data of the SF-12 were also confirmed by the decreased number of morphine equivalents which was preoperatively equal to 357 mg daily and was 161 mg daily at 6 months (-55%). At 12 months, the average of the morphine equivalents was 128 mg daily (-64%). In conclusion, total pancreatectomy with islet autotransplantation should be considered as an effective surgical option for intractable pain in chronic pancreatitis; the quality of life of patients improves and narcotic use decreases. This research should be continued because additional information is needed on the long-term results of this surgical approach. In the meantime, we must take into consideration the message of the authors and a total pancreatectomy should be associated with islet autotransplantation in order to improve the quality of life of patients.


China's economy encountered a bottleneck of resources whereas dematerialization can get to the root of the problem and solve it thoroughly.With the data from 1981 to 2008,this article applies the EW-MFA indicators recommended by ERUOSTAT with the economic indicators such as GDP to do the linking analysis and fit the Environmental Kuznets Curve.The results indicate relative dematerialization of China from 1981 to 2008,with the fact that the general tendency of material use for per-unit economic growth is decreasing.What's more,the speed of dematerialization has been accelerating after 2005.However,the scale of China's total material use is expanding year by year and there is no evidence that the absolute dematerialization will appear,suggesting that the China's economy is still subjected to tremendous environmental stress.Finally,some suggestions are provided on the basis of the results.The input-side policies should be developed to directly prevent pollution,and give people self-motivation to improve material utilization efficiency.The settings of pollutant emission standards must focus on the entire economic system.China should concern about the hidden flow which put the enormous pressure on the environment.Developing the recycling economy accounts and raising awareness of the dematerialization can promote the research of China's material flow accounts and dematerialization.Taking the economic system as a "black box" model,EW-MFA should combine with other methods to investigate material flow changes for the further study.


The present invention relates to pharmaceutical compositions and dietary supplements for the treatment of metabolic syndrome comprising the β- glucan and sangbaek extract as an active ingredient. β- glucan and sangbaek extract may act as when used in combination, a synergistic combination useful for the treatment of symptoms of metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, β- glucan extract sangbaek


A large proportion of the former area of species-rich semi-natural grasslands has been lost due to agricultural intensification and abandonment. Remaining small and isolated grassland fragments are often imbedded in more or less intensively managed landscapes. The loss and fragmentation of these grasslands have profound effects on overall biodiversity, and may affect processes and functions in the entire agricultural landscape. Therefore, semi-natural grasslands are key targets for conservation and restoration efforts. Until recently, evaluations have mainly assessed restoration outcomes in terms of species richness and abundance, often only of plants. Contrasting responses among interacting species to landscape and local factors can have consequences for the recovery of community composition, species interactions and ecosystem functions in restored habitat fragments. In this thesis, I examine the response of plant and pollinator (bees; Apoidea, and hoverflies; Syrphidae) communities to restoration of semi-natural grasslands in fragmented landscapes in south-central Sweden. Restoration effects were measured in terms of species richness, species composition, community trait composition, and composition of species and interactions within plant-pollinator networks. Following restoration, plant communities recovered both in terms of species richness and trait composition. These changes were reflected in a recovery of pollinator composition within plant-pollinator networks, and also a recovery in species interactions. The trait composition among pollinators was sustained both through abandonment and restoration, but responded to structural features of the vegetation. Plant communities had higher species richness in sites adjacent to intact grasslands than in those adjoining croplands. Hoverflies were not affected by grassland connectivity, but high connectivity facilitated the recovery of sedentary and specialized bee species. Time since restoration was an important driver in the recovery of plant communities, but not for pollinators or species interactions. This thesis shows that plant and pollinator communities as well as plant-pollinator interactions can be restored. The dispersal ability of both plants and pollinators, and the resource use of pollinators within and outside grassland fragments affected species responses to grassland connectivity. Connectivity to intact grasslands does not fully reflect the availability of resources and potential source populations within fragmented landscapes. Except for intact grasslands, abandoned and restored grasslands are also important for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in the agricultural landscape.


Saliency detection is an active research field in computer vision in recent years. As RGB-D sensors are more and more widely used in a robot system, the demand of corresponding saliency detection datasets and algorithms are growing rapidly. In this paper, we built a RGB-D saliency detection dataset NJUSTDS1000 contains 1000 real RGB-D scenes. The labeling of saliency ground truth of this dataset is based on color and depth fixation map. Then we propose a spectral and spatial analysis based RGB-D saliency detection model. It uses quaternion to present multi-channel features and dose fast saliency detection based on spectral analysis. Then a two-steps scale adaptive saliency fusion process is carried out in spatial domain, which are scale adaptive superpixel based saliency smoothing and multi-layer cellular automata based saliency maps fusion. We validate the proposed model on NJUSTDS 1000 and MSRA10K.


This paper contributes to the study of citizenship by interrogating how young people in Nairobi (Chege and Arnot 2012) perceive their rights of citizenship. It builds on previous analyses of the connections between gender, education and poverty's poor urban settlements by focusing on the political dimensions of the young people's lives. The findings are based on in-depth interviews with 24 young men and women (mainly siblings aged 16–25) from 18 urban households which explored how they define their national identity and citizenship rights and their expectations of the Kenyan government. All youth felt a connection with the Kenyan nation and actively engaged with rights discourses, but secondary schooled youth demonstrated a noticeably more reflexive and challenging approach to the norms and responsibilities of citizenship. Young men focused on the public sphere, emphasising voting rights, political corruption and their role in leading community change, whilst secondary educated young women recognised the importance of 'freedoms' associated with national membership, their rights to choose within cultural traditions and the need to support their families. Gender is shown to play an important role in framing their understanding of themselves as citizens.


Summary: We consider the streaming version of the following problem: given an input string s of length n , find the maximum exponent of a substring of s . We prove that any algorithm deciding


This research work examined Gender and Technical Efficiency in Cassava Production in Oyo State, Southwestern, Nigeria. A total of 245 cassava farmers, which comprised of 121 female and 124 male farmers, were sampled using a multi-stage stratified random sampling technique from two local government areas in Oyo State, Nigeria . The analytical tools employed in this study include the Descriptive Statistics, Budgetary Techniques and Stochastic Frontier Model. The major findings and policy recommendations of this study are in the latter chapters of this book.


Research on potential diversionary uses of military force continues to generate widespread scholarly attention. New measures, novel databases, and an increasing internationalization of this research examine the kinds of targets an American president may strike. Yet in many respects, Levy's insight on research of diversionary military action(s), that quantitative research approaches fail to capture the decision-making dynamics involved in a military action, has generally held true. Current analysts still struggle to develop a consensus on the conditions that help explain a diversionary military action, or whether such military actions ever even occur. Using a diversionary-war model created from previous case-study analyses this research examines American military actions in Grenada in 1983 and Iraq in 1996 to determine whether or not these strikes appear to be diversionary in nature. Our model also employs previous research on diversionary military action to assist in the selection of American military actions, followed by a series of tests to assess various aspects of the decision-making process, international interaction prior to and after the strikes, and the strategic merits for conducting these strikes. Our research generally suggests that neither of these strikes was conducted for diversionary purposes.


Internationally, green-cane chopper-harvesting is increasing, with drivers being environmental constraints on pre-harvest burning, the potential benefits relating to the utilisation of leafy extraneous matter (EM) in varying proportions for agronomic benefit or as an industrial feedstock. The potential for significant cane and sucrose loss with chopper harvesting is a concern, and in the Southern African Industry harvesters have been introduced, then rejected, primarily because of reduced sugar recoveries. The re-introduction of chopper harvesters in Mpumalanga Province of South Africa in 2014 initially resulted in a significant decline in recoverable sugar content (tonnes RV/ha) for the fields harvested relative to traditional harvesting practices. This paper presents the results of a replicated field trial undertaken in 2015 to fine-tune 'best practice' settings for the harvesters under local conditions. It then presents the results from four replicated trials that were undertaken to compare the sugar recovery from chopper-harvested green-cane and traditional burned cane using manual cutting and machine loading. In all trials, direct delivery of the machine-harvested cane to the mill resulted in harvest-to-crush times of 6-8 h. For the manual-harvest burned-cane treatments, 'mill average' burn-tocrush delays of 70-85 h were targeted, but in one trial a burn-to-crush time of less than 24 h was targeted to quantify this effect. The green-cane chopper-harvesting operation, when optimised for minimal losses, achieved 10-15% higher indicated sugar recovery per hectare than burning and manual cutting for the mill average burn-to-crush delay. When the burn-to-crush delay for the hand-cut cane was reduced to less than 24 h, both systems gave similar indicated total recoverable sugar. Despite the known multiple losses associated with chopper harvesting, the losses associated with wellsupervised burned cane with manual harvesting are as great or greater than optimised chopper harvesting, with the losses associated with the pre-harvest burn and burn-to-crush delays possibly being significant factors.


to closing device for actuating forcibly or openable flaps, valves and similar devices consisting of a drive, which on a drive shaft (2) for a crank mechanism (7, 8; 10) acts, the rotary permanent against a spring (1) operates and the crank gear (7; 8; 10) with a spring mechanism (4) an output shaft (5) moves, which in turn acts on a flap, characterized in that a) the spring mechanism (4) in the open state of the flap ( 2 ) Presses against a stop (9) only a few degrees before the latching position of the crank mechanism by the application of the flap is lifted to the sealing surfaces of the stop and the spring force of the Federmechanismusses (4) as defined sealing force acts ( 1 ); b) the crank gear (7; 8; 10) very close to or exactly in the used for closing latching position of the driving crank (7) against a stop (3) applies; c) the spring (1) dimensioned so exactly to the ...


In the Mid 8os,there appeared a group of young writers Presented by Liu Suo la and Xuxing,the"Pre Vanguardists",Who focused their writing on the"city culture",These writers,with a valiant rebellious spirit,challenged authrity and dispelled orthodoxy from the perspective of living condition and criticism.They displayed painstakingly mediocrity, triviality and absurdity in order to reveal modern people's living situation, their spiritual anxiety and perplexed emortions. They adopted extensively the narrative techniqves of irony and black humer in their writings so as to overturn and dispel the traditional narrative discourse in a mocking ironic tone.


Precise X ray powder diffraction analysis has been carried out on pentasil type zeolites (ZSM-5, boralite, silicalite) after calcination and after adsorption of n-hexane or p-xylene at room temperature under vapor pressure. Some X ray diffraction step scans were refined using the DBW 3.2 programme [10] and a Guinier type camera was used with a monochromatised CuKα 1 radiation. It was observed that n-hexane adsorption resulted in the formation of one pentasil type phase while p-xylene adsorption resulted in the formation of two distinct pentasil type phases. This observation is compared to adsorption data by Olson et al and discussed in terms of physical interaction (molecular fitting) Une analyse precise des diagrammes de diffraction sur poudres de zeolites de type pentasil (ZSM-5, silicalite, boralite) montre que par adsorption de p-xylene, il se forme deux phases cristallines distinctes de type pentasil. Un tel effet n'est pas observe par l'adsorption d'autres molecules comme le n-hexane


Possible geometrical structures and relative stability of(LiN3)n(n=1-2)clusters are studied by using the hybrid density functional theory(B3LYP)with 6-31G* basis sets.For the most stable isomers of(LiN3)n(n=1-2)clusters,the electronic structures,vibrational properties,and bond properties are analyzed.The calculated results show that,the bond length of N-N is about 0.1146-0.1203 nm and that of Li-N is 0.1722-0.1987 nm in the(LiN3)n(n=1-2)clusters.Natural charge of Li atom is 0.708 e-0.907 e and that of N atom is-0.896 e-0.208 e.The stablest LiN3 cluster is linear structure.


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 Pellets of K 1-x Na x NbO 3 mixed system of different concentration have been prepared by solid solution reaction method. The subcell parameters & grain size have been calculated using X-ray diffraction data for mixed K 1-x Na x NbO 3 system where x is varied from 0, 20, 40, 50, 80, 100%. The variation of unitcell parameters and grain size with composition, at room temperature have been reported. Dielectric constant and loss tangent at room temperature and at different frequencies have also been reported. doi:10.4038/sljp.v2i0.176 Sri Lankan Journal of Physics, Vol.2 (2001) 13-19


It is necessary a system with a nanometer positioning accuracy in many parts such as a process technology, a manufacturing technology, a measurement technology, a material technology The behavior of Piezoelectric material and a stage made with flexible hinge mechanism have been used in STM. A plezoelectric material is useful in the actuator of ultra precision positioning mechanism because it convert electric energy to mechanical movement without any equipment and it have a high speed response character It is classified a joint used in flexible hinge mechanism into notch-type joint and leafspring joint We can make a high efficient stage because each joint has native strength and weekend if we use them together


We separate a Bose-Einstein condensate into an array of two-dimensional (2D) sheets and excite quantized vibrational motion in the direction normal to the sheets. The measured collisional decay rates are suppressed due to the reduced dimensionality, a matter wave analog to inhibited spontaneous emission. After decay, the large excitation energy is transferred to back-to-back outgoing atoms, imaged as rings in the 2D plane. The ring diameters correspond to vibrational energy level differences, and edge-on imaging allows identification of the final vibrational states.


When it comes to computed tomography (CT), the possibility to reconstruct a small region-of-interest (ROI) using truncated projection data is particularly appealing due to its potential to lower radiation exposure and reduce the scanning time. However, ROI reconstruction from truncated projections is an ill-posed inverse problem, with the ill-posedness becoming more severe when the ROI size is getting smaller. To address this problem, both ad hoc analytic formulas and iterative numerical schemes have been proposed in the literature. In this paper, we introduce a novel approach for ROI CT reconstruction, formulated as a convex optimization problem with a regularized term based on shearlets. Our numerical implementation consists of an iterative scheme based on the scaled gradient projection (SGP) method and is tested in the context of fan beam CT. Our results show that this approach is essentially insensitive to the location of the ROI and remains very stable also when the ROI size is rather small.


We report a case of pneumatocele (PC) caused by bronchoscopy and bronchoalveolar lavage performed in a patient with human immunodeficiency virus infection. We speculate that coughing during the bronchoscopy may have contributed to the pathophysiology. A PC is a gas-filled cystic cavity in the lung p


The gyroscope reported in this paper is a lateral-axis angular rate sensor with in-plane vibration and out-of-plane Coriolis acceleration sensing. The sensor plus on-chip CMOS circuitry is about 1 mm by 1 mm in size and is fabricated by a post-CMOS micromachining process that uses interconnect metal layers as etching mask(s) and a single-crystal silicon layer as the structural material. The resultant device incorporates both 1.8 /spl mu/m-thick thin-film structures and 60 /spl mu/m-thick bulk Si structures to simultaneously achieve spring beams with either in-plane or out-of-plane compliance. The microstructure is flat and avoids the curling problem existing in thin-film CMOS gyroscopes. A unique silicon electrical isolation technique is used to obtain individually controllable comb fingers. The noise floor of the gyroscope is 0.02/spl deg//s/Hz/sup 1/2/ at 5 Hz.


Under suitable conditions, one-step generalized method of moments (GMM) based on the first-difference (FD) transformation is numerically equal to one-step GMM based on the forward orthogonal deviations (FOD) transformation. However, when the number of time periods ($T$) is not small, the FOD transformation requires less computational work. This paper shows that the computational complexity of the FD and FOD transformations increases with the number of individuals ($N$) linearly, but the computational complexity of the FOD transformation increases with $T$ at the rate $T^{4}$ increases, while the computational complexity of the FD transformation increases at the rate $T^{6}$ increases. Simulations illustrate that calculations exploiting the FOD transformation are performed orders of magnitude faster than those using the FD transformation. The results in the paper indicate that, when one-step GMM based on the FD and FOD transformations are the same, Monte Carlo experiments can be conducted much faster if the FOD version of the estimator is used.


The object of this dissertation is to develop a decomposition theory for a particular kind of ring of operators on a Hilbert ,space, and to investigate the relation ships between the ring, the Hilbert space, and the decomposition. This study has grown out of several previous • theories of the same kind which were developed to treat the same problem. However, ithe development which is given here overcomes some of the main disadvantages of these previous theories, while preserving most of their important features. The first chapter introduces the terminology and states the results from the theory of Banach symmetric rings and their representations, in the exact form which is to be used in this work. Most of this material is known and can be found in the references given in the bibliography, so that the proofs, with a few exceptions, are omitted. In Chapter II, a study is made of a special kind of commutative ring E of operators on a Hilbert space ^ , which is called a diagonal ring in this work. The topological structure of the maximal ideal space M of E is investigated, and it is shown how the invariant subspaces for the commutant E1 of E are related to M. For the case where f t is cyclic for E', the cyclic subspaces for E iv are also studied. It is shown that a special class of linear functionals on E comes about from a particular type of integral representation on its maximal ideal, space M. This integral representation is used to relate the vectors of # to the structure of the cyclic subspaces for E which they generate. Chapter III, which contains the main part of this work, sets up a direct integral decomposition of a Hilbert space over the maximal ideal space M of a diagonal ring E whose commutant has a cyclic vector. This direct integral comes about from a particular kind of structural system related to i the space and ring, which is called a canonical decomposition system. It is then shown that the operators of E' and E decompose in a special way in this direct integral, and the relationships between the operators and their decompositions are investigated. Finally, a relation is shown between the theory given here and that developed previously by Tomita and Segal. In Chapter IV, a dimension function is defined on the maximal ideal space M of E. Using this function, it is shown that certain dimension properties of the canonical decomposition system and direct integral of Chapter III are determined entirely by the space and diagonal ring on which they are defined.


Abstract: Current usages of the terms patrimonial and neopatrimonial in the context of Africa are conceptually problematical and amount to a serious misreading of Weber. His use of the term patrimonial delineated a legitimate type of authority, not a type of regime, and included notions of reciprocity and voluntary compliance between rulers and the ruled. Those reciprocities enabled subjects to check the actions of rulers, which most analyses of (neo) patrimonialism overlook. We apply these insights to a case study of Botswana and suggest that scholars reconsider the application of Weber's concepts to African states.


The research presents an alternative, value–based approach to conventional strategic marketing; facilitating football club theory and practice evolution and adaptation to contemporary competitive conditions. Methodologically, the paper is conceptual and based on extensive secondary data and a multi–perspective theoretical research and analysis. It initially builds a football–focused contextual strategic marketing theoretical foundation. Subsequently, an alternative, consumer–focused perspective to conventional strategic marketing is presented; followed by a value–based analysis of the theories and conditions pertaining football as an industry, and clubs as individual organisations. The paper finally provides theoretical directions towards further research as well as explicit advice to executives towards practical utilisation. The findings show that football clubs need to carefully re–examine and re–develop the nature and range of their value propositions. Additionally, they need to perform an analysis of their potential value stakeholders; to identify their 'true' competitors; and to draw strength from club strategic collaboration.


*SUMMARY Motivation: The transposable elements most commonly isolated from fungi to date are retrotransposons. Fungal LTR retrotransposons showed the high variability and presence of great number of different groups and families. These elements resemble the vertebrate retroviruses in their genomic organization and replication cycle. Investigated fungi revealed considerable differences in the structure of retrotransposable elements population in genomes even for closely related species. The differences suggest that the factors shaping retrotransposon evolution have differed in the distant species. Use of data generated by different genome sequencing projects to identify LTR retrotransposons in distant fungal species can give insights into evolution of mobile elements and their hosts interactions. Results: We described two Ty3/gypsy LTR elements from Aspergillus fumigatus and Aspergillus nidulans which formed a new common branch on the phylogenetic tree of LTR retrotransposons. They appear to form a new family of fungal elements. Further screening of 11 fungal genomes revealed presence of elements belonging to the same new family not only in ascomycetes but also in basidiomycetes. Altogether 6 additional elements have been found. Availability: http://genome.unipro.ru/.


【Objective】To explore the value of vaginal ultrasonography in ectopic pregnancy diagnosis.【Methods】 Included in our hospital from January 2010 to December 2011 were treated 84 cases of suspected consecutive ectopic pregnancy were randomLy divided into groups and vaginal abdominal B ultrasound B-group,to give vaginal B ultrasound,abdominal B-ultrasound,comparative analysis of the final diagnosis results.【Resluts】B ultrasound diagnosis of vaginal compliance rate of 40 cases,accounting for 95.2%;abdominal B group the rate was 35 cases diagnosed,accounting for 83.3%.Vaginal B group compared with abdominal diagnosis rate is relatively high in terms of B-group,the difference was statistically significant(P0.05).【Conclusion】Vaginal B ultrasound diagnosis of ectopic pregnancy more advantages than the abdominal B ultrasound,it worthy of promotion.


The effect of ethyl choline mustard (ECMA), an effective irreversible inhibitor of choline transport, was investigated on the enzymes of choline metabolism. ECMA at concentrations of 50 μM hardly affected choline acetyltransferase and caused only a 20% inhibition of choline kinase at a concentration of 1 mM. However, the mustard was an extremely effective inhibitor of choline dehydrogenase, producing 50% inhibition at concentrations of 6 μM. The inhibition was prevented by incubation in the presence of choline or by prior reaction of the mustard with thiosulphate. Separation of the components of the ECMA solution on TLC suggested that only the compound with an aziridine ring was an effective inhibitor of choline dehydrogenase. The inhibition was resistant to the washing out of excess unreacted mustard. The rate constant of inhibition was 395 M'‐1 s‐1. By the use of [3H]ECMA a single polypeptide in the enzyme preparation having a MW of 67,000 was labelled. The labelling was thiosulphate‐sensitive and prevented by incubation with choline. It is concluded that ECMA is an irreversible inhibitor of choline dehydrogenase. It is at least as effective an inhibitor of choline dehydrogenase as of the choline transport system, although it does not appreciably inhibit choline acetyltransferase or choline kinase in the micromolar range.


This chapter describes various aspects of how we can define ecosystem function and situations ecosystem function in a continuum from ecosystem processes to services. Illustrating that functions are about connections, the chapter uses examples of productivity, organic matter decomposition, ecosystem metabolism, habitat creation and foodwebs. Changes in the contributions of function to ecosystem dynamics are considered. Sedimentary ecosystems are multifunctional, requiring the development of new methods to assess this aspect of sediments and trait-based approaches are discussed. The role of ecosystem functions in underpinning ecosystem services is described to ensure that valuation and mapping exercises do not lose sight of the foundational role of ecosystem functions.


Objective To observe the therapeutic effect of naloxone in acute ishemic cerebrovascular disease.Methods 50 patients with confirmed acute ischemic cerebrovascluar disease were treated with naloxone(the treatment group) and compared with the control group receiving routine treatment.Results The drug could restore conciousness,shorten disease course,reduce disability rate and improve curative rate,there was a significant difference between the two groups.Conclusion Naloxone has a good effect in treating acute ischemic cerebrovascular disease.


The Runway Safety Monitor (RSM) is an algorithm for runway incursion detection and alerting that was developed in support of NASA's Runway Incursion Prevention System (RIPS) research conducted under the NASA Aviation Safety Program's Synthetic Vision System element. The RSM algorithm provides pilots with enhanced situational awareness and warnings of runway incursions in sufficient time to take evasive action and avoid accidents during landings, takeoffs, or taxiing on the runway. The RSM currently runs as a component of the NASA Integrated Display System, an experimental avionics software system for terminal area and surface operations. However, the RSM algorithm can be implemented as a separate program to run on any aircraft with traffic data link capability. The report documents the RSM software and describes in detail how RSM performs runway incursion detection and alerting functions for NASA RIPS. The report also describes the RIPS flight tests conducted at the Dallas-Ft Worth International Airport (DFW) during September and October of 2000, and the RSM performance results and lessons learned from those flight tests.


This book evaluates the financial system of Thailand, a proto-typical developing economy in Asia. Specifically the manuscript evaluates the impact of financial institutions, markets, and policies on growth, inequality, poverty, and the welfare of households and businesses. A repeated theme is the description of the Thai economy as an integrated micro/macro, general equilibrium system, with the choice of diverse individual agents, limited by obstacles to trade, aggregated up to explain macro variables. The financial system comprises the role of informal and formal financial sectors in the intermediation of savings and credit and the allocation of idiosyncratic and aggregate risk. If markets and institutions were perfect, and there were no policy distortions, then certain benchmark standards would be implied. Relative to these benchmarks there are many anomalies, even for those using formal credit and savings instruments. Likewise, various government program innovations, and plausibly exogenous variation in access to intermediation, have had nontrivial impact on households and businesses. More generally, enhanced finance is established to be correlated with and causally related to growth of GDP and poverty reduction, though with mixed consequences for the distribution of income. Quantification of the distribution of gains, losses and macro impact of financial policy variation also requires a specification of why markets, contracts, and institutions may appear in combination to be ∗ Acknowledgements: To my wife Pram for the loving encouragement to write this book. Financial support from the National Science Foundation and the NICHD helped to support the research described herein. Pitsamorn Kilenthong and Lenka Reznicek provided invaluable help in writing, editing, formatting, and research. This book would not be possible without Sombat Sakunthasathien, who oversees all aspects of data collection in Thailand. Anna Paulson, Mike Binford, Tae Jeong Lee, and Alan Kolata are part of the larger Thai project. Coauthors and Ph.D. students whose work is the bedrock of this project include Christian Ahlin, Mauro Alem, Francisco J. Buera, John Felkner, Xavier Giné, Hyeok Jeong, Joseph P. Kaboski, Alex Karaivanov, Tee Weerachart Kilenthong, Yukio Koriyama, Gabriel Madeira, Edward S. Prescott, Esteban Puentes, Krislert Samphantharak, Samuel SchulhoferWohl, Suchanan Tambunlertchai, Kenichi Ueda, Sergio Samuel Urzua, James Vickery, Hiroyuki Yamada, Liu Yang, and Jacob Yaron. This work has also benefited from comments and suggestions from participants at the 2005 Simon Kuznets Memorial Lecture Series at Yale University, the University College London Master Class, lectures at the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce/University of Chicago joint research center in Bangkok, Thailand, as well as from my students at the University of Chicago and MIT. Townsend, Robert M., The Thai Economy: Growth, Inequality, Poverty, and the Evaluation of Financial Systems [DRAFT] Chapter 0 2 incomplete. Candidate obstacles to trade include moral hazard, adverse selection, limited liability, collateral/default, and transactions costs. These are tested against one another, and against exogenously limited/incomplete markets, with parameters estimated and obstacles quantified. The impact of policy variation on gains and losses and on growth, inequality and poverty varies within the apparent financial regime. Policy recommendations follow naturally.


The effects of sulphur and nitrogen combined application on the yield and starch quality traits of soft-gluten winter wheat cultivar Yumai 50 with were investigated.The results showed that sulphur and nitrogen application had positive effects on yield,sulphur application could significantly improve spike numbers,and nitrogen application could significantly improve kernel per ear and fertile spikelet rate.Sulphur application increased the ratio of amylase content,and very significantly increased amylose/amylopectin,but the effect of nitrogen application was opposite to sulphur application.the average contribution rate of sulphur,nitrogen and their interaction to starch quality traits were 12.72%,51.31% and 35.98%,respectively,so sulphur and nitrogen combined application has positive effect on starch quality.Among treatments,N240S100 has the highest yield,N240S20 and N240S60 had the lowest amylase content and ratio of amylase / amylopectin,respectively.It indicated that there were difference for yield and starch quality at the rate of S and N combined application.


A 50 years old male patient of Hodgkin's Lymphoma presented to Oncology department of NORI hospital with undiagnosed double IVC. It is a rare finding in Radiologic studies; it is due to persistence of both supracardinal veins. Its symptomatic presentation is even rarer. The estimated incidence is1.5% (0.2-3%) [1].


1. Introduction Carl Thompson 2. The Capsized Self: Sea Navigation, Shipwrecks and Escapes from Drowning in Southern Buddhist Narrative and Art Sarah Shaw 3. 'Describe Nunc Tempestatem': Sea-Storm and Shipwreck Type-Scenes in Ancient Literature Boris Dunsch 4. The Sunken Voice: Depth and Submersion in Two Early Modern Portuguese Accounts of Maritime Peril Josiah Blackmore 5. God's Voice: Shipwreck and the Meanings of Ocean in Early Modern England and America Steve Mentz 6. Shipwreck and the Forging of the Commerical Nation: The 1786 Wreck of the Halsewell Carl Thompson 7. Shipwreck in French and British Visual Art, 1700-1842: Vernet, Northcote, Gericault and Turner Christine Riding 8. Shipwrecks on the Streets: Maritime Disaster and the Broadside Ballad Tradition in Nineteenth-Century Britain and Ireland Kirsty Reid 9. What Lies Beneath: The Submarine Shipwreck in Anglo-American Culture, 1880-1920 Stephen Donovan 10. Molly Brown and the Titanic: the Shipwrecked Woman in U.S. Culture Robin Miskolcze 11. Shipwrecking the World's 'Wretched Refuse': Spectres of Neo-colonial Exclusion in Carl de Souza's Ceux qu'on jette a la mer and Charles Masson's Droit du sol Veronique Bragard 12. Wrecked in the Shallows: Yann Martel's Life of Pi Michael Titlestad 13. Salvaging a Romantic Trope: The Conceptual Resurrection of Shipwreck in Recent Art Practice Emma Cocker


The invention discloses a face-beautifying Chinese angelica beverage. The beverage comprises the following raw materials by weight: 25 to 30 parts of grape, 25 to 30 parts of mulberry, 10 to 14 parts of longan, 3 to 5 parts of sesame, 3 to 4 parts of red bean, 5 to 6 parts of buckwheat, 2 to 3 parts of Pseudostellaria maximowiczian (Franch.et Sav.), 3 to 5 parts of mushroom, 1 to 3 parts of grape seed, 3 to 4 parts of Chinese angelica, 1 to 2 parts of cabbage, 1 to 3 parts of red date, 1 to 2 parts of hollyhock root, 1 to 3 parts of globe amaranth, 1 to 3 parts of wolfberry fruit, 2 to 3 parts of pomegranate leaf and 2 to 3 parts of pomegranate leaf. The Chinese angelica beverage provided by the invention has a high health care value, fast absorption and good taste, can be directly drunk without brewing with water and is free of bitter and astringent taste and the like; the grape in the beverage has a powerful astringing effect and softening and moisture-retaining action and can moisten the skin in depth, resist aging and promote regeneration of skin cells, and the red date has the effects of nourishing, vacuity supplementing, heat clearing and spot removing. The Chinese angelica beverage is especially applicable to females and enables the females to have fine and smooth skin after long-term drinking of the beverage.


SUMMARY Changes in host quality for the nematode Meloidogyne naasi Franklin during cropping of three ryegrass species. The host-range of ryegrass species for Meloidogyne naasi has been studied in experiments in pots filled with infested soil. During the 19 months of experiment, the Italian ryegrasses, that had the lowest degree of perenniality, gave the highest number of females or eggs of the nematode per g of root. At low infestation level, a considerable number of females appeared on these Italian ryegrasses. Increased numbers of females and eggs were produced on 3 hybrid ryegrasses and the perennial ryegrass cv. Reveille, more than on perennial ryegrass cvs Vigor and Grasslands-Ruani. Cv. Grasslands-Ruani was a bad host for the nematode. Female fecundity was statistically similar on a large number of cultivars tested. The different numbers of eggs produced per g of root and observed between species and varieties were the consequence of different development of females on these cultivars. This study showed that 2 generations of the nematode could develop on ryegrasses, the 1st in June and July, and the second in autumn or at the beginning of winter. Numbers of females or eggs produced per g of root were maximum in autumn with the second generation of M. naasi.


The illness of a child, especially in situations of serious diseases like cancer, can alter significantly the family dynamics and cause conflicts and other negative repercussions. Thus, the nursing team who works in pediatric oncology needs to direct special attention both to the child who is sick and their families in order to accept and valorize her autonomous and collaborative participation in decisions and care. This study aimed to know the perceptions of nursing professionals working in pediatric oncology on families of children with cancer in the context of his illness. It is a qualitative research, phenomenological model, conducted among April and June 2009. Interviews with nurses from a hospital specialized in oncology in Goiania-Go were recorded. The analysis was based on the Method of Qualitative Analysis of the Situated Phenomenon. We learned that the team tries to understand the feelings experienced by families and the changes that pervade their daily lives. Recognize the collaborator function of the family during the process of facing cancer, despite the difficulties in dealing with situations of distress and suffering. It is believed that all members of the nursing team have a key role in assisting in pediatric oncology focused on taking care of the whole child and his family.


This paper aims to present iconographic modifications of the Virgin Hodegetria representations in the Crown of Aragon (a composite monarchy extended from Southern Italy to the Iberian Peninsula) in the early modern period. The time span ranging from the mid-15th to the early decades of the 16th century is the crucial period for the wide-range spread of the Hodegetria cult between East and West, and during which period occurred an iconographic and worship transfer that produced allotropies and variants. It is only after the fall of Constantinople that new ways of representing the Hodegetria appeared on the Italian Peninsula and in Sicily, along with the Holy icon replicas: the depiction which was set as a standard is the one with two old men (Calogeri) carrying on their shoulders the chest with the Hodegetria, sometimes as an icon, sometimes as a real body. Because of her commitment as protector against the enemy, the Virgin Hodegetria was invoked by all professionals related to the sea and so, during the ...


The authors are concerned with dynamic programming (DP) algorithms whose solution is given by a recurrence relation similar to that for the matrix parenthesization problem. Guibas, Kung and Thompson (1979), presented a systolic array algorithm for this problem that uses O(n/sup 2/) processing cells and solves the problem in O(n) time. The authors present three different mappings of this systolic algorithm on a mesh connected parallel computer. The first two mappings use commonly known techniques for mapping systolic arrays to mesh computers. Both of them are able to obtain only a fraction of maximum possible performance. The primary reason for the poor performance of these formulations is that different nodes at different levels in the multistage graph in the DP formulation require different amounts of computation. Any adaptation has to take this into consideration and evenly distribute the work among the processors. The third mapping balances the work load among processors and thus is capable of providing efficiency approximately equal to 1 (i.e., speedup approximately equal to the number of processors) for any number of processors and sufficiently large problem. They experimentally evaluate these mappings on a mesh embedded onto a 256 processor nCUBE/2.<<ETX>>


A hybrid power system placed in Beaufort Sea in order to power supply the offshore oil and gas platforms is investigated in this paper. The proposed microgrid includes various energy sources such as photovoltaic panels, wind turbines, diesel generator as a secondary power source and stationary storage system. Simulation of each component and the proposed topology is discussed with the energy management strategy and the implementation of different scenarios that show relevant characteristics of the strategies. Finally, a multi-objective optimization of the system is carried out and the results obtained are used to construct a Pareto front, for the best trade-off between emissions and cost.


A 512×512 CMOS Active Pixel Sensor (APS) imager has been designed, fabricate, and tested for frontside illumination suitable for use in astronomy specifically in telescope guider systems as a replacement of CCD chips. The imager features a high-speed differential analog readout, 15 μm pixel pitch, 75 % fill factor (FF), 62 dB dynamic range, 315Ke- pixel capacity, less than 0.25% fixed pattern noise (FPN), 45 dB signal to noise ratio (SNR) and frame rate of up to 40 FPS. Design was implemented in a standard 0.5 μm CMOS process technology consuming less than 200mWatts on a single 5 Volt power supply. CMOS Active Pixel Sensor (APS) imager was developed with pixel structure suitable for both frontside and backside illumination holding large number of electron in relatively small pixel pitch of 15 μm. High-speed readout and signal processing circuits were designed to achieve low fixed pattern noise (FPN) and non-uniformity to provide CCD-like analog outputs. Target spectrum range of operation for the imager is in near ultraviolet (300-400 nm) with high quantum efficiency. This device is going to be used as a test vehicle to develop backside-thinning process.

http://ericfossum.com/Publications/Papers/CMOS active pixel sensor imager for scientific applications.pdf


1. Swerdlow SH, Campo E, Harris NL et al. eds. WHO classification of tumours of Haematopoietic and lymphoid tissues, rev. 4th ed. IARC: Lyon, France, 2017. 2. Satou A, Tsuzuki T, Nakamura S. Other iatrogenic immunodeficiency-associated lymphoproliferative disorders with a Tor NKcell phenotype. J. Clin. Exp. Hematop. 2019; 59; 56–63. 3. Omori I, Kawanabe R, Hashimoto Y et al. Cutaneous methotrexate-related T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder with CD4, CD30, CD56, EBV-positive tumor cell infiltration: a case illustration and a brief review. Am J Blood Res. 2021; 11; 163–167. 4. Yu WW, Hsieh PP, Chuang SS. Cutaneous EBV-positive cd Tcell lymphoma vs. extranodal NK/T-cell lymphoma: a case report and literature review. J. Cutan. Pathol. 2013; 40; 310– 316. 5. Caudron A, Bouaziz JD, Battistella M et al. Two atypical cases of cutaneous gamma/delta T-cell lymphomas. Dermatology 2011; 222; 297–303.


The goal of this thesis is twofold. Firstly, it investigates the actual, native use of spatial-deictic demonstratives in Japanese, Finnish and Swedish. Secondly, it investigates and elucidates the ...


Valve regulates the flow of a fluid over the limits from full flow in one direction to full flow in the opposite direction. At the midpoint valve position both flow paths are closed. Gradually increasing port size on both flow paths results in good throttling characteristics.


A new type of Faraday effect based magneto-optical current transducer (MOCT) has been developed. This paper presents the theoretical background, engineering design, and test results of this clamp-on MOCT. The sensor consists of two separate clamp-on parts. This design avoids the need to break the current carrying circuit in order to have the conductor enclosed by the optical path. A feedback scheme has been designed to stabilize the light source. The MOCT has two output stages, 1 kA and 20 kA, so that it can provide current signals for both power system metering and relaying devices, The theoretical background of maintaining the light travelling through the glass prism to be linearly polarized and the analysis on the effects of dielectric and metal reflections on the linearly polarized light is presented in the appendix. >


Plots were direct seeded on 7 Mar 84 in Rockdale soil. Each plot was a 25-ft long single row on 3-ft centers. The plots were irrigated by an overhead sprinkler twice a week. There were 4 replications in a randomized complete block design. Treatments were applied 5, 12, 19 and 24 Apr with a CO2 powered, 2.5 gal hand-held sprayer with 40 psi at a rate of 50 gal of water per acre, insect counts were taken on 25 Apr by shaking the plants over a 3 ft by 3 ft white cloth. The banded cucumber beetle and garden tleahopper populations were normal, however other pests did not build-up in the plots.


This report examines the concept of developing emotional competencies at the age of 3 - 7 years, which is the basis of an innovative for Bulgaria model for conflict management in preschools. The conclusions raise as relevant and important the question of the difference between emotional intelligence and emotional competence and how they are integrated into the educational methodology of preschool education at the moment.


Vascular tumors of the female genitalia are unusual. Hemangiomas are benign tumors of the blood vessels. Usually they are asymptomatic but may present as discomfort, pain and other symptoms. However, vulvar cavernous hemangioma can be seen in newborns and infants, but rarely occur in children and adult women. A 10-year old premenarchal girl presented with a painless swelling on her right labia majora since birth which was increasing gradually. On examination, a well-defined, soft, mobile and non-tender multicystic swelling was observed involving right labia majora and minora of approximately 5×6 cm in size. An ultrasound of the lesion showed a well-circumscribed, hypo echoic mass with multicystic lesion of size 40×14×44 mm arising from right labia majora with vascularity on color Doppler and venous flow on spectral pattern, suggestive of vascular malformation. Surgical excision of lesion was performed with the utmost care to preserve the surrounding healthy tissue and vulvar anatomy. Histopathological examination (HPE) report confirmed the diagnosis of a cavernous hemangioma with no evidence of malignancy. Vulvar cavernous hemangioma is an uncommon vascular tumor that can be rarely seen in pediatric patients. Imaging studies, such as ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), play a crucial role in confirming the diagnosis and guiding the management. Surgical excision with preservation of healthy tissue is the treatment of choice. Long-term follow-up is essential to monitor for any signs of recurrence and ensure the patient's well-being.


This paper examines output disparities between the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation countries during the period 1990~2011. The results show that inter-country levels of output per capita diverged over the study period but there was a clear break in the trend around 1998. Applying the time-varying individual common factor model, we found that all countries could be grouped into three convergence clubs. Focusing on the time path of each country's output level relative to that of a reference economy such as the United States of America and allowing for possible structural breaks, we found that more countries converged towards the USA during the sub-period 1999~2011. The findings also suggest that the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation could have played some role in diminishing the output inequality between its member countries after the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation reached its current extent in 1998. Likewise, the paper suggests a need to reduce the wide income gap among the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation countries to promote their economic integration.


In recent years, many systems have been developed which aim at helping users to find pieces of information or other objects that are in accordance with their personal interests. In these systems, machine learning methods are often used to acquire the user interest profile. Frequently user interests drift with time. The ability to adapt fast to the current user's interests is an important feature for recommender systems. This paper presents a method for dealing with drifting interests by introducing the notion of gradual forgetting. Thus, the last observations should be more "important" for the learning algorithm than the old ones and the importance of an observation should decrease with time. The conducted experiments with a recommender system show that the gradual forgetting improves the ability to adapt to drifting user's interests. Experiments with the STAGGER problem provide additional evidences that gradual forgetting is able to improve the prediction accuracy on drifting concepts (incl. drifting user's interests).


West China Development will provide a great historical opportunity for the domestic and overseas enterprises,especially for various mechanical and electronic products and their manufacturers.Five basic directions in the development will promote the West China market opening,growing and maturing.How to look for and confirm the vivosphere is extremely important that the enterprises should change the traditional business conception,accelerate the reform of the economic system,confirm the entrance and the goal of the development,adjust and perfect the product mix,open up the famous brand project and estalish the integrated system of research,production and marketing operations,reconstruct and flourish the machinery industry in West China.


The emergence of a new outbreak of influenza A/H1N1 has tested our ability to adapt and respond to an epidemic. Since the 16th century, more than 30 pandemics causing numerous deaths have been reported 1 . In the 20th century alone, there were three pandemics, all of them caused by influenza virus type A. In the 1918-1919 pandemic, caused by the H1N1 subtype, 25-30% of the world population was infected and more than 40 million people died in less than one year (some experts even estimate a resulting mortality of 100 million) 2 . Most victims were young and previously healthy. This pandemic outbreak was probably the greatest medical calamity and the most devastating natural disaster in human history. Estimated mortality due to the 1957-1958 pandemic was 2 million people 3 . There were fewer deaths, not only because of reduced virulence of the virus, but also because health systems were better prepared. The third major pandemic of the twentieth century, occurring in 1968, was also less aggressive than the previous one, with 1 million deaths 4 . Although the current outbreak seems, in principle, to show low severity and mortality, we should not underestimate nature's capacity to test us. Currently, cases of infection are primarily distributed among young people at low risk of complications, but the behavior of influenza A/H1N1 is unknown in the high risk group 5 whom we deal with.


The inherent characteristics and limitations of Internet of Things networks make it hard to avoid facing adverse network conditions. Addressing high performance in extreme situations still remains a challenge even for a standardized routing protocol like the IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low Power and Lossy Networks (RPL). No effective support is provided by the design of RPL to guarantee high network performance in the presence of such challenging conditions. To address such a compelling need, an innovative approach referred to as Dynamic-RPL is proposed in this research paper. With only limited in-protocol modifications to RPL, Dynamic-RPL provides effective support of dynamic topology management in a distributed manner. Seamless optimization of network topology is realized with dynamic topological adjustments to sustain high network performance and stability. It incorporates modified RPL topology establishment, customized RPL objective function and parent selection, a new dynamic topology management algorithm, and additional inter-routing support. The evaluation results demonstrated the ability of Dynamic-RPL to maintain high overall network performance irrespective of the adversity of ongoing network conditions. Considering varying-scale experimental setups, high QoS performance and low energy consumption were achieved without much increase in network overhead. Dynamic-RPL succeeded in adapting responsively with little time required to have the network performance successfully restored and network topology completely converged.


PURPOSE: An online information input and financial transaction system using a personal identification medium and a method using the same, and a recording medium recording a program therefor are provided to use personal member information registered in a personal information management institution for member subscription and login of a general web site. CONSTITUTION: At least one personal terminal(10) communicates with servers connected to a network. A medium reader(20) reads personal identification data recorded in a personal identification medium. At least one web site server(30) provides web pages included in a web site to the personal terminal. If a payment request for a member whose personal information is saved in the web site server is received, a personal information management institution server(40) performs a payment procedure.


The invention relates to a flight-information data-sharing switching exchanger and a processing method thereof, belonging to the technical field of civil aviation. The flight-information data-sharing switching exchanger comprises a power supply, a microprocessor, a data communication unit, a data-sharing service unit, a data exchange module, an exchange management module and an enterprise service bus (ESB), wherein the microprocessor is connected with the data communication unit, the data-sharing service unit, the data exchange module and the exchange management module by the ESB; and the data communication unit is connected with an integrated metadata and separate data server of flight information. The processing method is realized by that the flight-information data-sharing switching exchanger is connected with the integrated metadata and separate data server of the airline company, airport and air-management flight information into a whole for communicating, sharing, exchanging and maintaining data and realizing data sharing and exchange among all civil aviation parts. The invention realizes the sharing management and exchange of data sources and has the advantages that the shared service data are reliably transmitted in a plurality of directions in real time, and decision support, emergency command, and the like are provided.


This paper examines, through the lens of political recognition, the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co, which upholds the territoriality principle regarding the reach of the Alien Tort Statute. Political recognition refers to political processes through which historically marginalized identities are acknowledged and respected within the transnational space. Using this political notion, this paper adopts a transnational approach in which the analyses of human rights law and domestic transnational adjudicative processes are integrated. It argues, that the territoriality principle constitutes an instance of Ogonis' political misrecognition, that is, an instance in which law condones the socio-economic marginalizing processes that the Ogonis and indigenous populations in general are facing. It does so by sidelining Ogonis' struggles from the judicial decision making process and denying them compensation for harms they suffered. This use of territoriality contrasts with the evolutions in the human rights field, in which territoriality has been deployed to empower indigenous groups and to guarantee them control over their lands and natural resources. In this context, the paper claims that political recognition invites us to re-conceptualize the ATS scope of application and the concept of state jurisdiction in a way that is responsive to indigenous communities' plight. This leads us to adopt the principle of universal jurisdiction on which US Supreme Court relied prior to Kiobel. Part One of the paper examines Ogonis' struggles for political recognition and the ways this was translated into legal actions. Part Two describes the evolutions within the human rights field. Part Three discusses the territoriality argument deployed by the U.S. Supreme Court and concludes that political recognition mandates the adoption of universal jurisdiction.


Background and Objective: Health literacy is considered by policymakers as one of the important issues for improving the Health of the community. On the other hand، quality of life and efforts to promote it pay a significant role in individual and social health. the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between Health literacy and quality of life in staff members of Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences. Materials and Methods: this cross-sectional study was carried out on all of 205 staff members of Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences in2018. Using a census method، data were collected using HELIA and Life Quality Questionnaire (SF-12) and Health LITERACY Tool (HELIA). Then، using descriptive statics and Pearson correlation test، they were analyzed using spss version 21 software. Results: The results of this study showed that the average health literacy rate of the subjects was 130.16+ 17.16 and the quality of life mean score was 87.21+15.2 the most frequent source of information was healthcare professionals ، doctors and Internet .The analytical results of the study showed that there is no statistically significant relationship between gender ، age ، work experience and marital status with health literacy and quality of life) p>0.05(. But there was a significant relationship between education Level and health literacy and quality of life (p=0.001). There is also a significant relationship between the level of health and the quality of life. (p<0.0001) Conclusion: Regarding the relationship between health literacy and quality of life dimensions، it is necessary to pay more attention to improving the health literacy of individuals (especially adults with inadequate literacy) in quality improvement programmers.


Does radioactive iodine (RAI) treatment in premenopausal women with differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) affects ovarian reserve, as evaluated by anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH), antral follicle count (AFC) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH)?

 AMH concentrations decreased at three, six and 12 months following RAI treatment in women with DTC, whereas no difference was observed regarding FSH.

 Thyroid cancer is the third most common type of female malignancy and DTC is the most common histopathological type. Thyroidectomy constitutes the mainstay of treatment for DTC, followed by administration of RAI, which acts as an adjuvant therapy to destroy residual cancerous thyroid tissue. However, the effect of RAI on ovarian reserve of these women, as assessed by AMH, AFC and FSH, remains controversial.

 A systematic review and meta-analysis was performed aiming to identify studies evaluating the effect of RAI treatment on ovarian reserve in women with DTC. For this purpose, a literature search in the electronic databases PubMed, Scopus and CENTRAL was carried out until 06/12/2020. The primary outcome measure was the effect of RAI on ovarian reserve, as evaluated by AMH, AFC and FSH.

 Studies were eligible if they included premenopausal women with DTC, treated with a single RAI dose and assessed for at least one marker of ovarian reserve repeatedly within 12 months post-RAI.Meta-analysis of weighted data was performed using random effects model. Results were reported as weighted mean difference (WMD) with 95% confidence interval (CI).

 Four prospective eligible studies, published between 2005 and 2020, were eligible for the meta-analysis, evaluating a total of 154 women. The number of participants ranged from 24 to 50. The single dose of RAI used to treat DTC ranged from 50 to 150 mCi. AMH concentrations decreased at three (WMD -1.66 ng/ml, 95% CI -2.42 to -0.91, p < 0.0001; I2 0%), six (WMD -1.58 ng/ml, 95% CI -2.63 to -0.52, p = 0.003; I2 54.7%) and 12 months (WMD -1.62 ng/ml, 95% CI -2.02 to -1.22, p < 0.0001; I2 15.5%) following a single RAI dose compared with baseline (three studies; n = 104). With respect to FSH concentrations, no difference was observed at six (WMD +3.29 IU/l, 95% CI -1.12 to + 7.70, p = 0.14; I2 96.8%) and 12 months (WMD +0.13 IU/l, 95% CI -1.06 to + 1.32, p = 0.83; I2 55.2%) post-RAI compared with baseline (two studies; n = 83). No data on AFC was available.

 The small number of studies and patients included, as well as the lack of data on AFC may have compromised the validity of the conclusions drawn. Moreover, subgroup analysis according to female age was not feasible, due to the lack of relevant data.

 The negative effect of RAI on ovarian reserve in premenopausal women with DTC, as indicated by the decreased AMH, should be confirmed by data on AFC, which are currently not available. These findings necessitate close monitoring of ovarian reserve in such women, counselling them regarding the need for fertility preservation.

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