The research explores the origami art (Japanese traditional art of paper folding) and the ability to use it in designing textile printing by employing the techniques and tools necessary to implement printed textile pendants.
The research focuses on using art such as sculpted three-dimensional origami to emphasize the idea of other two-dimensional art such as the art of textile print design.
Origami art depends on forming one primary piece to form a final model without using a sticker and without making any pieces to obtain a final shape for a bird, or for an animal, .... Thus we obtain the final origami form through the same methodology for the forms of origami folds according to specific steps Known in the references related to origami art.
In this art, the material used to form the artwork is chosen according to its flexibility and its ability to fold with some auxiliary materials that help shape the artwork so that the folds are fixed, such as the folds of paper.
As for the suggested shapes, they are one of the simplest and most suitable shapes for printed textile pendants such as bird, fish and pyramid. The researcher benefited from the origami art folds in creating a diverse group of folds using batik-dyed fabric material with designs inspired by ancient Egyptian art, then she analyzed the textile pendants to extract artistic and artistic values. Where various textile origami suspensions were produced using pre-dyed fabrics using wax batik and prepared to correspond to the methods of folding the woven in an origami art style. Thus, the researcher has benefited from the folds resulting from the origami style as a three-dimensional art, with its aesthetic relations that can be used to impart formative technical values, which can represent a new source of inspiration in the design of the printed textile suspension, which is characterized by a continuous change in the artistic elements and in which values can be achieved Aesthetic in it through the relationship between origami folds and silhouettes, as well as architectural artistic values in the production of printed fabric suspensions.


Solar systems are great examples for increasingly becoming popular solutions in renewable energy. As is known, maximizing power output from a solar system is desirable to increase efficiency. In order to maximize heat output from the solar systems, one needs to keep the system aligned with the sun. Intrinsically, the sun is required for tracking. It's a far more costing effectively solution, than purchasing additional solar system placed in different angles. This research develops a hybrid tracking system which will keep the solar system aligned with the sun in order to maximize heat efficiency. Subsequently generation, utilization and its grid penetration in electrical grid are growing worldwide. However, this integration has its own limitations. Solar energy is in form of dc and converted to ac with the help of inverter, which introduces distortion in sinusoidal wave and causes harmonics. Harmonics increase losses in power system. In addition, with harmonics due to fluctuating nature of energy from renewable sources and variation in load, to reduce the power factor and consequences are increasing in losses, it affects the transmission system and reduces the receiving power. Therefore, this project compacts with the analysis of the problems mentioned above and propose the feasible solutions to make the solar system more reliable and efficient.


Welcome to this course guide created for EAS 396 History of Medicine in China, taught by Dr. Yan Liu in the winter semester, 2016. If you need further assistance in looking for library resources for your assignment, please feel free to contact Lucy Gan


The invention discloses a non-stop filter screen replaced dual extruder, which comprises a first extruder and a second extruder, wherein each extruder comprises a reduction box, a charging barrel and a screw; the end of the first extruder is provided with a plastic melt filter; a melt inlet of the plastic melt filter is connected with a melt outlet of the charging barrel; and a melt outlet of the plastic melt filter is connected above a feeding hole of the second extruder. The invention has the advantages that: due to the two plastic extruders, plastic melts extruded by the first extruder are filtered to remove impurities and enter the second extruder to be continuously extruded, the normal work of the second extruder is not influenced in the process of replacing the filter screen regardless of a single-cylinder single-filter screen or a single-cylinder multi-filter screen or a multi-cylinder multi-filter screen of the melt filter arranged at the tail end of the first extruder, the physical labor of an operator can be lightened, the working efficiency is improved, the waste is reduced, and the electric energy is saved.


The concept of "color" is invoked in music from the simplest pieces and is initially related to the range of intensity. Then it perfects itself in the ability to create a more complex relationship between elements such as timbre, style of writing, breath and articulation of language, acoustics of space. The palette becomes rich and complex. Among the instruments, the harpsichord is an extraordinary testing ground for musical colours, particularly in the French repertoire.


We address the problem of fluid motion estimation in image sequences. For such motions, standard optical flow methods, based on intensity conservation and spatial coherence of motion field, are not suitable. This is due to the highly deformable nature of a fluid medium. For all applications where fluid motions are to be recovered from images, it is then important to have specific techniques. We investigate such dedicated models which include an original observation constraint, based on the continuity equation from fluid mechanics, and a new div-curl-type smoothness term. Our method is validated on synthetic and real meteorological images.


Summary.  Background:  Tissue factor (TF) and its signaling mediators play a crucial role in angiogenesis. We have previously shown that TF‐induced endothelial cell (EC) CCL2 release contributes to neovessel formation.


Nonlinear Markov chains are probabilistic models commonly used in physics, biology, and the social sciences. In "Markov influence systems" (MIS), the transition probabilities of the chains change as a function of the current state distribution. This work introduces a renormalization framework for analyzing the dynamics of MIS. It comes in two independent parts: first, we generalize the standard classification of Markov chain states to the dynamic case by showing how to parse graph sequences. We then use this framework to carry out the bifurcation analysis of a few important MIS families. We show that, in general, these systems can be chaotic but that irreducible MIS are almost always asymptotically periodic. We also give an example of "hyper-torpid" mixing, where a stationary distribution is reached in super-exponential time, a timescale that cannot be achieved by any Markov chain.


In this paper, we propose a separated software execution system (SSES) for software as a service (SaaS). The main difference of the proposed SSES and virtual desktop solutions such as Citrix XenDesktop is that 3D rendering commands or graphic commands do not be executed at the server part but they are delivered to client via the Internet. This mechanism brings to reduces server's overhead occurred from multi-users service on 3D rendering applications. In performance experiment, the proposed SSES gets a more stable frame rate than existing virtual desktop solutions on multiple clients. In particular, the SSES shows very high performance in term of frequent screen changes. Also, as another issue, we propose a smart mechanism that servicing software list is auto-updated by processing software usage data.


Digitalis is one of the oldest and most widely used drugs in clinical medicine. Its action in congestive cardiac failure has been thoroughly studied by many workers. Its action upon the normal circulation, however, has received relatively little attention. The concept that it lowers cardiac output and reduces central venous pressure in normal subjects continues to be expressed by many workers. This view, based on studies employing older, often inadequate methods, has been neither confirmed nor disproved by means of existing hmmodynamic techniques. This study, utilizing the technique of cardiac catheterization, was undertaken for the purpose of investigating the heemodynamic effect of digoxin upon the circulation in 12 normal subjects.


Our age is marked by two main trajectories: globalization and democratization–which are not readily compatible. While the move toward democracy requires a certain civic equality among all participants, globalization in its present form fosters or enhances social inequality. The paper concentrates on three main types of inequality: those of power, wealth and knowledge. In each of these domains the presentation follows a prominent mentor or set of mentors: in the first domain the political scientist Samuel Huntington; in the second the economist Amartya Sen; and in the last the philosophers Heidegger and Gadamer. By way of conclusion, the paper issues a plea for cosmopolitan or global democratic justice, as a counterpoise to prevailing modes of global inequality and inequity.


In the last few years, automated recommendation systems have been a major focus in the music field, where companies such as Spotify, Amazon, and Apple are competing in the ability to generate the most personalized music suggestions for their users. One of the challenges developers still fail to tackle is taking into account the psychological and emotional aspects of the music. Our goal is to find a way to integrate users' personal traits and their current emotional state into a single music recommendation system with both collaborative and content-based filtering. We seek to relate the personality and the current emotional state of the listener to the audio features in order to build an emotion-aware MRS. We compare the results both quantitatively and qualitatively to the output of the traditional MRS based on the Spotify API data to understand if our advancements make a significant impact on the quality of music recommendations.


Current and proposed high speed aircraft have high leading edge heat transfer (to 160 MW/sq m, 100 Btu/sq in/sec) and surface temperatures to 1370 K (2000 F). Without cooling, these surfaces could not survive. In one proposal the coolant hydrogen is circulated to the leading edge through a passage and returned to be consumed by the propulsion system. Simulated flow studies and visualizations have shown flow separation within the passage with a stagnation locus that isolates a zone of recirculation at the most critical portion of the passage, namely the leading edge itself. A novel method is described for mitigating the flow separation and the isolated recirculation zones by using a brush insert in the flow passage near the leading edge zone, thus providing a significant increase in heat transfer.


Indonesia's determination in realizing the Nationally Determined Contribution target as a follow-up to the Paris Agreement resulted in concrete steps in climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts, one of which is through social forestry. This paper aims to describe the various efforts to achieve Indonesia's targets on both conditional and unconditional, especially applying and linking social forestry schemes to climate change. This research finds that after the MoEF Decree No. 83/2016, social forestry regulations in Indonesia have begun to accommodate ecological elements. However, its accommodation remains partial in the policy context and is still not in line with the scope of activities of REDD+ programme. Several critical issues could be identified further: institutional, technical and methodological, legal, and most importantly, political-economic challenges.


The power amplifier (PA) used in wide-band code-division multiple-access (WCDMA) needs to perform better from point of view linearity and efficiency. In the PA circuit harmonic traps and RC feedback arrangement are provided for improvement of linearity and stability. The power amplifier at collector voltage Vc of 3.4 V under WCDMA excitation shows an excellent linearity (first ACPR<-33dBc) and more than 35% of power-added efficiency (PAE) at 28 dBm of rated output power. All the WCDMA wireless PA specifications like PAE and adjacent channel power rejection (ACPR) as specified in the Third-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) have been met even at extreme temperature conditions.


ABSTRACT Response surface methodology (RSM) was employed for the first time to optimize high pressure extraction (HPE) conditions of bioactive compounds from pansies, namely: pressure (X1: 0–500 MPa), time (X2: 5–15 min) and ethanol concentration (X3: 0–100%). Consistent fittings using second-order polynomial models were obtained for flavonoids, tannins, anthocyanins, total reducing capacity (TRC) and DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) radical scavenging activity. The optimum extraction conditions based on combination responses for TRC, tannins and anthocyanins were: X1 = 384 MPa, X2 = 15 min and X3 = 35% (v/v) ethanol, shortening the extraction time when compared to the classic method of stirring (approx. 24 h). When the optimum extraction conditions were applied, 65.1 mg of TRC, 42.8 mg of tannins and 56.15 mg of anthocyanins/g dried flower were obtained. Thus, HPE has shown to be a promising technique to extract bioactive compounds from pansies, by reducing the extraction time and by using green solvents (ethanol and water), for application in diverse industrial fields.


The soil and land resources play a vital role in sustaining the local livelihoods of rural communities in the Himalaya. Most of the arable land has already been brought under cultivation, hence the ever-increasing demand for food and fiber has left farmers with no choice but to intensify agriculture. However, producing more crops and greater quantities of food, fiber and other materials on the same parcel of land can to soil fertility and productivity decline with overall degradation of land quality. Therefore, ways and means to intensify agriculture to enhance productivity without degrading the soil and land resource base have become imperative. Agro-forestry, agro-slivi-pastoral systems, and the adoption of a variety of crop, soil and water management and conservation practices offer potential to deliver multiple benefits without sacrificing the very resource upon which the human population depends. Presented herein are findings on approaches to sustainable intensification of agriculture and land management related to soil OM management and C sequestration for multiple benefits, and, agro-forestry as a crop diversification strategy with both livelihood, and climate change adaptation/mitigation benefits. The results indicate that sustainable soil management practices could lead to significant SOC accumulations (4-8 t/ha over 6 yrs). SOC and soil C stocks tend to increase with elevation due to cooler climate and slow decomposition rates. Carbon stocks for the 3 LU types was in the order CF>AF/LH>AG, suggesting that diversified cropping practices including agro-forestry have good potential sequester C while providing livelihood opportunities and climate adaptive capacity for local farming communities. Biochar amendment increased growth of both coffee plants and radish with mixed grass/weed biochar being most effective. Biochar application also significantly decreased emission of GHGs, especially N2O.


Purpose
This paper aims to show how financial services firms determine whether customer transactions or behaviours meet the threshold for suspicious activity reporting mandated by the Terrorism Act 2000 and the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, and how suspicious activity reporting is executed in practice.

Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews have been carried out among compliance professionals in UK financial services.

Findings
Two issues related to suspicious activity reporting have been identified. Firstly, a widespread misunderstanding about the tipping-off offence under s. 333 Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 has been identified, which appears to be a root cause for poor quality as well as over-reporting of suspicious activity. Secondly, issues related to the notice and moratorium periods used by the UK's National Crime Agency appear to deter reporting of suspicious activity related to live transactions.

Practical implications
The paper makes suggestions for changes financial services firms and the UK's National Crime Agency can make to improve the effectiveness of suspicious activity reporting.

Originality/value
The paper provides valuable insights which can be used to limit the flow of criminal funds, improve the quality of suspicious activity reporting and enhance the effectiveness of law enforcement agencies.


Mining useful information or knowledge from a very large database to aid managers or decision makers to make appropriate decisions is a critical issue in recent years. Sequential patterns can be used to discover the purchased behaviors of customers or the usage behaviors of users from Web log data. Most approaches process a static database to discover sequential patterns in a batch way. In real-world applications, transactions or sequences in databases are frequently changed. In the past, a fast updated sequential pattern (FUSP)-tree was proposed to handle dynamic databases whether for sequence insertion, deletion or modification based on FUP concepts. Original database is required to be re-scanned if it is necessary to maintain the small sequences which was not kept in the FUSP tree. In this paper, the prelarge concept was adopted to maintain and update the built prelarge FUSP tree for sequence modification. A prelarge FUSP tree is modified from FUSP tree for preserving not only the frequent 1-sequences but also the prelarge 1-sequences in the tree structure. The PRELARGE-FUSP-TREE-MOD maintenance algorithm is proposed to reduce the rescans of the original database due to the pruning properties of prelarge concept. When the number of modified sequences is smaller than the safety bound of the prelarge concept, better results can be obtained by the proposed PRELARGE-FUSP-TREE-MOD maintenance algorithm for sequence modification in dynamic databases.


The absorption and emission properties of eight organic compounds in silica gel matrices of different chemical compositions and different types (bulk samples and thin films) are studied upon excitation by a XeCl laser and the second harmonic of a Nd:YAG laser. The mechanisms of the laser-induced changes in the spectral parameters of molecules in silica gel matrices are discussed and the photostability of the laser dyes in silica gel films is estimated.


Youth in Kenya are increasing accessing television which has become more saturated with sexual content. The content rarely includes messages on safe sex or consequences of engaging in premarital sexual behaviour. This exposure may influence the behaviour and attitudes of the youth negatively leading to them to engage in premarital sexual behaviour leading to unwanted pregnancies among other effects. The current study sough t to establish the sexual behaviour of the youth in technical training institutions, the extent to which the youth are exposed to sexual content and the effect of the exposure on the sexual behaviour of the youth. A descriptive survey design was adopted to generate data from the respondents of the study. Focus group discussions, key informant interviews and participant observation were used to generate additional data for the purpose of validating and supplementing survey information. A total of 420 questionnaires were administered to the respondents selected through stratified random sampling technique. From the study findings, it was established that majority of the youth  were sexually active and that they had multiple sexual partners. The study further established that the youth are exposed to sexual content on television and that they perceive the content they watch to have a negative effect on their behaviour. From the study findings, it was concluded that there exists a relationship between exposure to sexual content on television and the sexual behaviour of the youth. The study therefore recommends that media literacy as a skill needs to be improved to enable the youth to interpret media content correctly in order to avoid the possible effects that are sometimes not intended by the media practitioners. Keywords: Influence, Exposure, Sexual Content, Television, Sexuality, Youth, Institutions, Kenya


This paper describes a baseline system for maritime communications via satellite during the 1980s. The system model employs three geostationary satellites with global coverage antennas. Access to the system is controlled by a master station; user access is based on time-ordered polling or random access. Each Thor-Delta launched satellite has an RF power of 100 W (spinner) or 250 W (three-axis stabilized), and provides 10 equivalent duplex voice channels for up to 1500 ships with average waiting times of approximately 2.5 minutes. The satellite capacity is bounded by the available bandwidth to 50 such channels, which can serve up to 10,000 ships with an average waiting time of 5 minutes. The ships must have peak antenna gains of approximately 15.5 dB or 22.5 dB for the two cases (10 or 50 voice channels) when a spinner satellite is used; the required gains are 4 dB lower if a three-axis stabilized satellite is used. The ship antenna requirements can be reduced by 8 to 10 dB by employing a high-gain multi-beam phased array antenna on the satellite.


The influence of amino acids with contrasting conformational tendencies on the stereochemistry of oligopeptides has been investigated using an octapeptide Boc‐Leu‐Aib‐Val‐Gly‐Gly‐Leu‐Aib‐Val‐OMe, which contains two helix‐promoting Aib residues and a central helix‐destabilizing Gly‐Gly segment. Single crystal x‐ray diffraction studies reveal that a 3 10‐helix is formed up to the penultimate Aib residue, at which point there is a helix reversal in the backbone, reminiscent of a C‐terminal 6 → I hydrogen bond. The curious feature in the crystal is the solvation of the possible 6 → 1 bond by a CH3OH molecule, where the OH is inserted between O(3) and N(8) and participates in hydrogen bonds with both. The cell parameters are as follows: space group P212121, a = 10.649(4) Å, b = 15.694(5) Å, c = 30.181(8) Å, R = 6.7% for 3427 data (| F0| > 3σF) observed to 0.9 Å. Nuclear magnetic resonance studies in CDCl3 using NH group solvent accessibility and nuclear Overhauser effects as probes are consistent with a 3 10‐helical conformation. In contrast, in (CD3)2SO, unfolding of the central segment results in a multiple β‐turn structure, with β‐turn conformations populated at residues 1–2, 3–4, and 6–7. CD studies in methanol‐2,2,2‐trifluoroethanol (TFE) mixtures also provide evidence for a solvent‐dependent structural transition. Helical conformations are populated in TFE, while type II β‐turn structures are favored in methanol. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.


Volatile constituents were isolated from twig, leaf and root parts of Clerodendrum inerme by ligarine extraction and analyzed by gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). There were 6, 12 and 10 volatile constituents identified from different parts, respectively. All the extracts have in common a great percentage of esters (28.59–69.76%) and a high amount of fatty acids (19.27–41.85%), with the exception of the extract from root, which consisted mainly of meroterpene (37.61%). The antioxidant activity by DPPH test was investigated for all the extracts. The root extract exhibited strong antioxidant property with IC50 value of 67.5 μg/ml, about 26% of the potency of known antioxidantα-tocopherol, which probably due to the presence of 6-methylene-3,3-diphenyl-1,4-cyclohexadiene (2.12%). And the characteristic odor of root extract could be attributed to the presence of ferruginol (37.61%) with strong sensory property. The results present here indicated a potential source suitable for using as antioxidant agent and offered theoretic basis for utilization of the traditional folk herb C. inerme.


[Objective] The aim was to evaluate high and stable yield ability of new soybean varieties and provide the scientific basis for soybean production.[Method] Using high stability coefficient method to analyze high yield and stability of 15 soybean varieties which participate in national regional trials cultivars,and select high and stable yield soybean varieties for production.[Result] The results showed that: hybrid Fuyang beans、Zhonghuang37、Suike998、Ke9302、Xu0705 and Wansu01-15,such as 6 varieties which had wide adaptability,high and stable yield;Ji 4103 had a high yield potential,but stable and slightly bad.[Conclusion] High stability coefficient method was a simple and effective evaluation method of crop yield.


This dissertation contains the first critical edition of Exposicio super Apocalypsim, written by the Swedish 14th century theologian Magister Mathias Lincopensis. The commentary, which covers the f ...


The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of virtual reality bowling on emotional changes using EEG (Electroencephalogram). Sixteen bowling players who have at least three years of experiences in bowling participated in this study. Their aged ranged from 26 to 35 years old with a mean age of 29.6 years. The frontal lobes (Fp2-Fp1, F4-F3, F8-F7) of each player were measured while subjects were performing five games of bowling. And after performing every frame, their emotion was measured immediately with Visual Analogue Scale. The data were analyzed by one-way analysis of variance to test differences in the alpha value of each region of the frontal lobes. The dependent variable is the alpha power of the cerebral asymmetry. The results showed that players who scored a strike showed higher VAS values than those who missed the spares or cleared the spares; those who cleared spares showed higher VAS values than those who missed spares In addition, with respect to frontal R-L asymmetry score, the alpha-wave of the left frontal lobe was activated when scoring a strike and clearing spares and the alpha-wave of the right frontal lobe was activated when missing spares. In conclusion, the results of this study demonstrated that success or achievement in competition gives rise to positive emotions and vice versa. This study neurophysiologically proved that performance outcomes during a competition directly influence players' emotion and brain waves.


Based on the determination of soil moisture in farmlands in south of Xi'an and Chang'an,the changes of soil moisture from zero to six meters in different rainy year are studied in this paper.The results show that the soil moisture is higher than 12 percent from zero to two meters,soil moisture in farmland is normal.In plentiful rainy year,the soil moisture from zero to two meters is higher than 18 percent and the soil moisture from two to six meters is higher than 24 percent,which are higher than that of the layers in normal year.It shows that Xi'an district is the place suitable to the flat root crops.


We evaluated centrifugation techniques to isolate leukocyte‐free platelets from standard platelet concentrates. Among various settings of centrifugation force and time, we found the setting at 300 ×g for 10 minutes or 370 ×g for 5 minutes to be efficient and reproducible for recovering sufficient quantities of platelets free of leukocytes.


A new model for the origin of pelecypods based on physiological and biomechanical viewpoints is presented. It seems that some early molluscs developed a bivalved shell in response to their migration from firm bottom onto soft sediments as epibenthic crawlers. Here a univalved shell cannot sufficiently protect the mantle cavity from getting clogged by sediment particles. The evolution of the pelecypod shell, of the necessary adductors and ligament, of the byssus and the change from grazing to filter-feeding life habit is explained as a step-by-step change, each stage providing an adaptational improvement.


Background Personal Mobility Device (PMD) refers to 'Smart Mobility' or 'Micro Mobility' for one or two persons, and it is appreciated as an environmental-friendly means operated by electric resources (Burns, 2013). According to Transparency Market Research in 2016, the world's personal transport market is expected to grow two times bigger from 2014 to 2023. In fact, PMD has various product types, competence levels and safety problems, so it cannot help covering many user experiences (UXs). Thus, this study aimed to analyze previous researches about PMD in terms of UX and usability. Method In this study, 160 papers were collected through five search engines with keyword combinations of UX (e.g., user interaction and interface) and PMD (e.g., Segway and electric vehicle). Through two filtering processes, the 19 papers were finally selected, and each was analyzed by the next six criteria; device types, research environments, participants, user experience factors, UX evaluation methodologies, and UX measurement. Results The results showed that Segway was the most common device type rather than electric vehicles, powered wheelchair, proposed product, E-scooter, E-bicycle, and E-bike. In addition, the outdoor environment accounted for the biggest percentage of researches beyond indoor, semi-outdoor, and online survey. People who participated in researches were usually expert and novice, who got used to handle the assigned PMD for each paper. A total of 26 UX factors (e.g., effectiveness, safety, usability, and acceptability) was collected and classified considering each experimental context; safety and usability turned out to be the most two important factors. From the UX methodological view, the PMD were usually evaluated by a questionnaire rather than by objective methods, which enable the participant to give more instinctive reactions and the researchers to gather quantitative data easily. In this way, UX objective measurements on previous researches were categorized into body observation (e.g., body angle on device), usage behavior (e.g., running distance) and compatibility on field (e.g., riding against traffic). Discussion & Conclusion The collected 28 UX factors were classified by a methodology whether it was objective or subjective measure, and it was called the UX factors framework for PMD in this study. First of all, the four main UX factors were determined: usability, satisfaction, acceptability and safety. The rest of 24 UX factors belonged to the corresponding main UX factors. For example, usability included compatibility (objectively measured factors; OMF), effectiveness, device performance, efficiency, and physical load (subjectively measured factors; SMF). Satisfaction included intuitive, customer-services-quality, charging, operability, comfort, predictability, mobility, and maintainability (SMF). Acceptability included compatibility (OMF), aesthetics, device learnability, cost, and training (SMF). Safety included stability, risk behavior (OMF), independency, guard, controllability, security, and testability (SMF). These results implied that most UX factors for PMD were usually measured subjectively rather than objectively. In particular, satisfaction had not been measured objectively even though it plays a significant role in UX factors with usability, acceptability, and safety. In other areas, some researches used objective measurements such as heart rate, EEG, or action log for sensing satisfaction (Gao, 2012; Taylor, 2015), so it is also possible to measure PMD satisfaction using objective methods. In this study, the previous researches about UX and PMD were analyzed to identify the trend of the UX research of PMD. A total of 19 papers were collected and classified by device type, research environment, participants, UX factors, evaluation method, and objective measurements. As a result, it was found that various UX factors were introduced, and the systematized UX factors framework was proposed. Through this UX framework, we expect to apply more objective measurements on UX factors of PMD in future researches.


(1930). Physiology at the Service of Physical Education. The Journal of Health and Physical Education: Vol. 1, No. 10, pp. 20-57.


Presented is a methodology for efficient and effective monitoring of travel speeds throughout a roadway network based on global positioning system (GPS) data harvested from users of that roadway network. Described is the data architecture for the GPS data and the digital map database and the computational framework to generate time-of-day and day-of-week statistical measures for travel speeds throughout the roadway system. Results from an extensive application of the methodology to monitor the entire length of the Quebec City –Windsor, ON corridor are presented which validates the methodology.


Abstract Four new species of Araneus Clerck, 1757 from southern China are described: A.mayanghe Mi & Wang, sp. nov. (♂♀) from Guizhou, A.shiwandashan Mi & Wang, sp. nov. (♂♀) from Guangxi, and A.zhoui Mi & Wang, sp. nov. (♂♀) from Hainan are assigned to the A.sturmi group, and A.fenzhi Mi & Wang, sp. nov. (♂♀) from Hunan, Guizhou and Jiangxi is not assigned to any species group. A new combination is also proposed: Aoaraneusoctumaculalus (Han & Zhu, 2010) comb. nov.


Fundamentally, researching police communications exists on the boundary of two young sciences that have won independent recognition nearly simultaneously. Geza Finszter, the President of the Police Science subcommittee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, has given voice to his concern in recent years that the police is uncovering the dysfunctions of its organization by employing authoritarian communications and citing secrecy considerations, thereby inhibiting the transformation of the police into a high status occupation, cooperation with the citizenry, and the creation of mutual trust. In this article, I am going to review the history and opportunities, as well as the challenges of research in police communications; what dilemmas the communications researcher must face in the diversity of methodologies.


Reproductive technologies continue to make breakthroughs that present challenges to ways of theorising bodies and subjectivities. Debate surrounding these breakthroughs seeks constants on which to ground ethical practice for a society in which technological developments are placing new pressures on individual decisions about reproduction. As we enter a second generation of feminist debate about technological interventions in human reproduction, we face a situation in which ethical practice can no longer be grounded in any generally agreed view of natural law and limit. Francois Ewald sums up the late twentieth-century predicament:


Considering Edinburgh's prominence in the historical development of the sciences, it might be expected that the formal study of the history of science would appear as a significant feature in its university. Alas, this is not so, although there are signs that things are beginning to improve. If there is a deficit in historical studies of science, however, it is surely outweighed by Edinburgh's remarkable contribution to the sociological study of science and technology, which has even given rise to the designation 'Edinburgh School' to refer to a characteristic approach to the study of science that was developed in Edinburgh University. In this report I briefly consider the history of these and other aspects of the study of science, technology and medicine in Edinburgh as well as presenting an outline of the current picture.


The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has had to delay its final decision on two drugs for age related macular degeneration after mounting pressure from charities and healthcare professionals.

NICE, which advises health authorities in England and Wales on the treatments to use on the NHS, issued preliminary guidance in June on the use of ranibizumab (marketed as Lucentis) and pegaptanib (Macugen) for the treatment of the disease. Both drugs are already available in Scotland.

It argued that pegaptanib should not be used at all and that ranibizumab should be …


Video‐assisted thoracoscopy under local anesthesia (VAT‐LA) is a key investigation in the diagnosis and management of suspected malignant pleural effusion. Two problems encountered at VAT‐LA are accessing the pleural space and fibrinous intrapleural septa. Thoracic sonography (TUS) is known to facilitate thoracocentesis after dry tap but has not been studied in detail before VAT‐LA. We report a case of lateral decubitus pre‐VAT TUS that helped locate the optimal access to the pleural space and demonstrated fibrinous intrapleural septation, thereby affecting the decision to avoid thoracoscopic pleurodesis. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Clin Ultrasound, 2009


Users' awareness is a highly influential topic within all European and National research projects funded respectively by the 7th Framework Programme and by the Italian Smart Communities Technology Cluster. The idea to bridge the gap between high level knowledge that characterizes people involved in the development of scientific projects and the knowledge of the main public is widely shared nowadays. The need of a "spread of knowledge" is related to the engagement of common users in the Smart Cities developing process, in order to stimulate them to change their behaviors towards sustainability. The gamification approach helps to achieve this objective, because it envisages the use of video game objects in non-games systems. This way, the users' experience is amplified through new and interactive technologies that increase engagement and motivate changed behaviors. The experience of the District Information Modelling and Management for Energy Reduction (DIMMER) European project and the Zero Energy Buildings in Smart Urban Districts (EEB) Italian national cluster in the field of users' involvement is related to the dissemination activities carried out during the development of both studies. The greatest challenge was to find the right gamification approach that could be applied to different contexts and that could be used for several topics, on the basis of specific needs. Although the demonstrators of the projects are characterized by different aspects, the objectives are alike in some respect; both projects are focused on energy and CO2 emission reduction and the realization of Building Information Models (BIMs) is the starting point. For this reason, games for children were realized within both projects as a step forward compared to "traditional" dissemination activities. They include both Virtual (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) and require knowledge about energy efficiency and smart city-related issues. The focal point of the games is a map where the districts case studies are represented; while the DIMMER District Board Game is mainly focused on the importance of the District Heating Network (DHN), trying to introduce children to energy-related issues, the 3D BIM Map is designed to enhance the main concept of how to realize a "Smart City", giving children the chance to suggest their innovative proposals in this regard. To get the goal, the communication technologies have been introduced in order to involve people of all ages and make them aware of what a behavior towards energy efficiency and smart cities means and how new ways of data visualization can make demanding concepts more understandable.


is carried out a composite structural reinforcement inside the pipe, for in situ lamination of at least one strip of reinforcing fibers (21) and a resin matrix. The strip is arranged in a helical path along the inner face of the pipe.


two intermediate collective states, b oscillations in the two-photon correlation G 2 , c emission of two photons by one atom, and d the loss of directional correlation. We compare the population dynamics during the two-photon emission process with the dynamics of single-photon emission in the cases of a and a V scheme. We compute the temporal correlation and angular correlation of two successively emitted photons using the G 2 for different values of atomic separation. We find antibunching when the atomic separation is a quarter wavelength /4. Oscillations in the temporal correlation provide a useful feature for measuring subwavelength atomic separation. Strong directional correlation between two emitted photons is found for atomic separation larger than a wavelength. We also compare the directionality of a photon spontaneously emitted by the two atoms prepared in phased-symmetric and phased-antisymmetric entangled states ±k0 =e ik0·r1a1,b2±e ik0·r2b1,a2 by a laser pulse with wave vector k0. Photon emission is directionally suppressed along k0 for the phased-antisymmetric state. The directionality ceases for interatomic distances less than/2.


By their nature, case-based reasoning (CBR) systems, have a built-in set of test cases in their case library. Effective use of this feature can facilitate the validation process by minimizing the involvement of domain experts. This can reduce the cost of the validation procedure, and eliminate the subjectivity introduced by experts. This paper proposes a validation technique that makes use of the system's own case library to validate a CBR system. Called the case library subset test (CLST) technique, it evaluates the correctness of the retrieval and adaptation functions of the CBR engine with respect to the domain as represented by the case library. It is composed of three phases, 1) the retrieval test, 2) the adaptation test, and 3) the domain coverage test. A complete description of the technique and an application of it to validate an existing CBR system are included in this paper.


Abstract—The study investigates the accuracy and loss of deep learning algorithms with the set of coronavirus (COVID-19) images dataset by comparing Bayesian convolutional neural network and traditional convolutional neural network in low dimensional dataset. 50 sets of X-ray images out of which 25 were COVID-19 and the remaining 20 were normal, twenty images were set as training while five were set as validation that were used to ascertained the accuracy of the model. The study found out that Bayesian convolution neural network outperformed conventional neural network at low dimensional dataset that could have exhibited under fitting. The study therefore recommended Bayesian Convolutional neural network (BCNN) for android apps in computer vision for image detection.


Susan Shirk is the Chair of the 21st Century China Center and Research Professor at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California - San Diego. She is also director emeritus of the University of California's Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC). Susan Shirk first visited China in 1971 and has been teaching, researching and engaging China diplomatically ever since.  From 1997-2000, Shirk served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Eas...


THE SOUND RADIATION OF A RAILWAY RAIL FITTED WITH ACOUSTIC SHIELDING Xianying Zhang, David Thompson, Jungsoo Ryue, Hongseok Jeong, Giacomo Squicciarini, Matthias Stangl Institute of Sound and Vibration Research, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK School of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering, University of Ulsan, Ulsan 44610, South Korea DB Systemtechnik, Völckerstraße 5, 80939 München, Germany


Abstract : A supersonic nozzle has been used to produce N2(A) by the reaction of NF2 and H. The NO has been added to the flow via a hypersonic wedge. Excited state NO has been observed from energy transfer. The importance of showing chemically-produced N2(A) transfer of energy to NO is for possible use as a purely chemical ultraviolet laser. The densities observed here are not sufficiently high for use as a laser; however, these experiments indicate that in principle the transfer occurs with good efficiency in a chemical system. Keywords: Nitrogen fluoride, Excited nitrogen, Metastable nitrogen, Energy transfer, Chemical laser.


Magnetic refrigeration is a cooling technology based on a magnetocaloric effect, which is a temperaturechanging phenomenon caused by the entropy change of magnetic refrigerants exposed under magnetic field alterations. Recently, it is commenced to apply for a refrigeration or air conditioning, as the magnetocaloric device does not use any F-gases that greatly influence global warming. The magnetic refrigerants have been also developed, and it is found that manganese related materials have superior magneto caloric specifications. However, it is difficult to shape or model the material to expected dimension according to the fragility or brittleness of the manganese material. This paper presents the experimental results of three dimensional molding of manganese-related magneto caloric material (MCM) using selective laser sintering (SLS) machine. Relationship between manganese MCM powder layer and molded layer by laser sintering has been examined and determined. By these results, it is expected to model a magnetic refrigerants to desired geometry


The purpose of this article is to present the results of a case analysis conducted at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. The objective of this case study was to identify the benefits sought by undergraduate students and to form meaningful groups, or segments, based upon these benefits. A sample of427full-time at Laurentian University was usedfor this investigation. A questionnaire to gather information on the student, this included 19 questions using Likert statements to measure the perceived benefits of a university education. Factor analysis was used to identify five underlying benefit dimensions which were subsequently labelled as: personal skill development; personal advancement; social pressure; learning and discovering; and intellectual development. Cluster analysis, based upon the factor scores, was used to form groups of students seeking similar benefits. Six groups, or segments, wereformed and named as: self improvement; pressure; learning; self development; career; and continue to study favourite subject. These groups were found to have significantly different scores on a wide range of variables. Whilst this study was limited to the students at Laurentian University nevertheless university administrators should find this study useful as a case study of applying market segmentation to educational markets.


Released, or a monochrome image sensor having a plurality of colors in response composed of an organic semiconductor. The image sensor is composed of image sensing elements (pixels), wherein the image sensing elements (pixels) all contain one (or more) sandwiched between the organic semiconductor thin layer conductive electrode. The image sensor may be integrated on the same or a blend of different substrates or electronic or optical device. Electrical output signal caused by the input image from the image sensor, detected by a circuit connected to the electrode. By selecting a material, by adjusting the thickness of the device and / or by an optical method such as filtration, it may be the spectral response of the image sensing element or the correction is adjusted to a desired spectral region. It announced several ways to achieve red, green and blue full-color detection. Similar methods may be applied in the spectral range desired response range and other desired multi-band detection (wavelength multiplexing).


Big data technology is a new stage of information development. In recent years, it has been widely used in many fields, especially in social science research. This paper analyzes the development status and significance of the combination of big data technology and social science research, on the basis of summarizing and combing the concept of big data and its important role. Taking the application of big data method in the research of innovation education as an example, this paper makes a series of visualization analysis with Citespace software on the related literature with the theme of "big data and innovation education" collected by CNKI, such as annual analysis, literature source analysis, co-occurrence analysis of authors, organization analysis, keyword clustering analysis and keyword timing analysis. This paper also draws the corresponding knowledge mapping, clarifies its research status, hot spots and development trend, and provides scientific basis for the research of innovation education. Thus the paper believes that the research on big data and innovation education needs to strengthen interdisciplinary communication and cooperation, refine and deepen the research theme and content.


The usability of security systems within an organization is impacted not only by tool interfaces but also by the security management model (SMM) of the IT security team. Finding the right SMM is critical and yet can be challenging, as there are tradeoffs inherent with each approach. We present a case study of one post-secondary educational institution that created a centralized security team, but disbanded it in favour of a more distributed approach three years later. The case study consists of interviews with ten IT staff from across the organization who gave us their diverse perspectives of the realities of managing security in a decentralized post-secondary organization. We contrast this organization's experiences with SMMS with expectations from industry standards and derive organizational factors that impact the success of the models. These factors highlight the importance of considering both the organization's security goals as well as its structure when evaluating potential SMMs. Furthermore, top management support, security policies, and a security team with vested authority, along with the organization's prior security management history, impact the success of a given SMM.


This paper deeply analyzed the reason for frost damage of channel in seasonal frozen soil regions,summarized the main structure forms of seepage prevention with frost heaving resistace at present.Combined with the successful technology of GCL in abroad,the new canal structure forms of seepage prevention are discussed which can resist frost heaving and are economical and resonable.There are some reference for further research of seepage prevention of channels in seasonal frozen soil region.


The essential characteristics of harmonious society is to put equality and justice as the core.Euch a society mart to be guaranteed by perfect law system.Its aim is to be human-oriented,energetic,stable and orderlying,which embodies the harmony of social relations,people and nature,would be both embodied.


Introduction When a product is launched, extensive care is taken to study to the potential consumers in the area of launch and their taste preferences and their characteristics. Similarly when the private educational institutions provide education. They start an educational institution with the local consumers (Parents and students) in mind. So this study attempts to compare the household characteristics to test if there is such a vast difference in the household characteristics of the students of the private and public (government) schools. A better understanding of these household factors would enable the public educational institutions also to modify their marketing approach. Objectives of the study This study was under taken to identify the household characteristics, which influence the choice of schooling (between the private and public education), at the higher secondary level. Methodology


Effective organizational decision-making often requires deep understanding of various aspects of an organisation such as goals, structure, business-as-usual, operational processes etc. The large size of an organisation, its socio-technical characteristics, and fast business dynamics make this a challenging endeavor. This tutorial presents a model-based simulation approach to organisational decision-making. We introduce a new technology that supports the approach and illustrate how it is applied to real life problems using real world case studies.


In this paper, a backside silicon-embedded inductor (BSEI) using a magnetic layer is proposed and studied for magnetic flux shielding and inductance enhancement. With the magnetic layer, the magnetic flux that goes under the BSEI chip is reduced by 2 to 3 times, and consequently the significant BSEI performance degradation in presence of a Cu die pad is effectively suppressed. The inductance of the BSEI is also enhanced by 30% with the magnetic layer. This makes the BSEI more promising for power supply-on-chip applications.


The present paper is an effort to examine the consequences of GST particularly on small informal businesses especially on garments in spatial structures in India. The significance of the study lies in selecting a region, namely Sodpur, Naihati, Titagarh in Kolkata, dominated with small garments businesses which suffered the most immediately after the event of GST implementation due to sudden unexpected rise in the rate of taxation which lead to increase in the price of garment products. Our paper is a mere effort to detect sudden losses on small informal garments businesses due the absence of technological knowledge of the businessman in which they are unable to pay GST on garment products. The study is based upon primary data collected through purposive random sampling, then compared and analyzed in order to refer the influences of GST on a small urban informal economy. Keywords— Informal businesses, Taxation, GST.


The problems discussed in this study aim to determine whether there is an effect of reading interest in science majors on writing skills in learning Indonesian at SMA Negeri 5 Lebong. The approach in this research is quantitative and the type of research used is regressional. The population of this study were students majoring in science at SMA Negeri 5 Lebong and the sample of this study amounted to 65 students. The variables in this study consisted of the independent variable, namely reading interest and the dependent variable, namely the ability to write. The data collection technique was carried out by distributing a questionnaire (questionnaire) for the variable X and a poetry writing test for the Y variable. For testing the validity and reliability of this study using the SPSS version 20 program. Based on the results of data analysis, the t- count value obtained is 5.519 and the t- table is 1.998 , then the t- count value is 5.519 > from t- table 1.998, so it can be concluded that H o rejected and H a acceptability which means "There is the influence of interest in reading (X) on the ability to write (Y) in the Indonesian language learning in SMAN 5 Lebong".


Arrays of pivoted GaN microdisks have been fabricated on a GaN∕Si material by a combination of dry and wet etching. The Si material beneath the GaN microdisks is removed by wet etching, leaving behind a fine pillar to support the disks. Raman spectroscopy reveals substantial strain relaxation in these structures. Resonant modes, corresponding to whispering gallery modes, are observed in the photoluminescence spectra. Stimulated emission is achieved at higher optical pumping intensities.


C. Brewster and S. Tyson (eds) (1991) International Comparisons in Human Resource Management. London: Pitman. P. J. Dowling and R. S. Schuler (1990) International Dimensions of Human Resource Management. Boston, MA: PWS-Kent. R Pieper (ed.) (1990) Human Resource Management: An International Comparison. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. This review article assesses three major recent works in international human resource management. The author argues that the international character of human resource management can be said to rest on three things: (1) the increasing internationalization of business, which brings organizations into contact with different national cultures and promotes the spread of management practices across national boundaries, (2) underlying economic and technological trends, arising in part from the activity of multinational firms but mediated also by international institutions, which may produce similar patterns of adjustment in the organization and management of employment at the national, s...


To study ionospheric climate, to model the ionosphere (e.g., the International Reference Ionosphere—IRI) and to investigate its long‐term changes and trends, solar activity proxies/indices have been used, because long and homogeneous data series of solar ionizing flux are not available. To identify the optimum solar activity proxies, we use yearly average foF2 data of 11 ionospheric stations from middle and low/equatorial latitudes of four continents over 1976–2014 and six solar activity proxies, F10.7, sunspot numbers, F30, Mg II, He II, and solar H Lyman‐α flux. Mg II and F30 are found to be the best solar proxies for variability of foF2 at middle latitudes, not the usually used F10.7 or sunspot numbers. At equatorial latitudes the situation seems to be different with likely He II as the optimum solar proxy but all low/equatorial results are very preliminary. Solar activity describes 99% of the total variance of yearly foF2 and the foF2 dependence on solar proxies is highly linear at middle latitudes. The dependence of foF2 on F10.7 and sunspot numbers is significantly steeper in 1996–2014 than in 1976–1995, whereas for F30 both intervals provide the same dependence. We recommend for investigating the midlatitude yearly values of foF2 the solar proxy F30 followed by Mg II as the second one, not traditional F10.7 or sunspot numbers.


Introduction Elastic scattering of ions by atoms Inelastic ion-atom collisions - coupled channel models Charge exchange at very low energies - the peturbed stationary state model The impact parameter model Applications of the coupled channel impact parameter model Approximate solutions of coupled channel equations Intermediate energies Many-electron systems Non-relativistic models at high energies Charge exchange at relativistic energies Appendices References Index.


This paper examines the effects on competition, freedom of speech and democracy as a whole, of the use of behavioral targeting in the online news sector, and the institutional alternatives available to tackle them. It also relies on new empirical research on behavioral tracking in the online news sector. By revealing the network of parties involved in the process and the users' data they share, this research demonstrates the central role of social platforms in shaping demand and the different levels of competition existing between ad networks, publishers and newspapers. Accordingly, the paper begins by mapping out the relationships between advertisers, publishers, data aggregators and other third parties. It then considers the different dimensions of competition in the collection and elaboration of the data needed to perform behavioral targeting, therefore also discussing whether competition law intervention would be justified.

The paper also considers the effects of digital platforms and targeting on the quality of news reporting, on the diversity of information disseminated and on democracy as connected to the competitive dynamics established in the market. Targeted advertisement and tailored web-pages are part of a new type of behavioral targeting hinging on the elaboration of data obtained from the digital identities of the users. In the market for news, information (and ultimately ideas) the creation of a tailored digital environment may bring about not only economic effects but also distortions of the democratic process.

In Part I, this paper presents the mechanisms through which behavioral targeting is made possible on the internet in particular through audience targeting. Part II describes the structure of this industry and examines the characteristics of 'algorithmic curation'. It also reports the result of the empirical analysis performed by recording all tracking cookies on a selection of 100 different news websites and examines the (potential) competitive issues existing between publishers, ad networks and newspapers. Part III explores the different legal tools available to tackle unfair trading practices and anti-competitive conducts in this market. Part IV discusses whether competition law may expand its reach beyond the pricing mechanisms, promoting the protection of constitutional rights and public interest concerns, such as the one to correct information, and compares the application of competition laws to the other institutional alternatives.


An approximate analytical expression is derived for the equivalent capacitance of three-dimensional (3D) singly split ring resonators (SRRs) with square cross section. The total capacitance is expressed as the sum of the usual gap capacitance and the surface capacitance associated with the charges on the ring's surfaces. The surface capacitance is determined from analytical expressions for the electric field of a split square cylinder which are derived by conformal mapping. The proposed model can be used for the preliminary assessment of the resonant properties of square SRRs at any frequency. The validity of the developed formulas is assessed by comparing the resonant frequency of sample SRR configurations found analytically with the corresponding values obtained by numerical simulations.


"People-oriented" educational outlook is the important directional thought for Xu Teli's foundation of new democratic education and socialist education.The main ideas are as follows: education belongs to the people and is the right of the people;universal and equal education should be implemented in education;education comes from the people and for the people;all the people rather than the students are the objects of education;education should meet the requirement of different people according to the social condition;qualified education should be offered to the people with reasonable allocation of educational resources."People-oriented" educational outlook makes sense for many factual problems in education,such as insisting on the public interest nature,promoting balanced development of compulsory education,realizing "teaching according to requirements",etc.


An implementation of the non-collinear Alexander–Anderson model for itinerant electrons in magnetic systems is presented where self-consistency is reached for specified directions of the magnetic moments. This is achieved by means of Lagrange multipliers and a variational principle for determining the transverse and longitudinal components of the magnetic moments as well as the average number of d -electrons using direct optimisation. Various optimisation algorithms are compared and the limited memory Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno algorithm is found to give the best performance. An application to antiferromagnetic Cr crystal is presented where spin-dynamics and curvature of the energy surface are calculated to compare results obtained with and without the constraints on the orientation of the magnetic moments.


Kenneth Lo is an outstanding representative among the overseas Chinese in Chinese cuisine industry.He left behind him over forty volumes of masterpieces of recipes,which are influential in America and Europe.Kenneth Lo,as an ambassador of Chinese cuisine culture,is irreplaceable in diffusing Chinese cuisine culture and plays an important role in Chinese-foreign catering culture communication history.


Service-based geographic information system (GIS) technologies can enable an open-architecture cyberinfrastructure to provide standards-compliant data products and computing services for both earthquake research and disaster planning and response. Here, a service-based GIS framework is evaluated using examples from two earthquake science projects: QuakeSim and E-Decider.


In a compact space with non‐trivial cycles, for sufficiently small values of the compact dimensions, charge conjugation (C), spatial reflection (P) and time reversal (J) are spontaneously broken in QCD. The order parameter for the symmetry breaking is the trace of the Wilson line wrapping around the compact dimension, which acquires an imaginary part in the broken phase. We show that a physical signature for the symmetry breaking is a persistent baryonic current wrapping in the compact directions. The existence of such a current is derived analytically at first order in perturbation theory and confirmed in the non‐perturbative regime by lattice simulations.


One of the goals of feminism over the decades has been to create the new women, those who construct themselves independently of others. The plural is significant as a means of escaping from monolithic modernist definitions of the feminine and, thus, the female. The hope may be that women-and men-may finally find a cultural landscape that allows multiple constitutions of experience and being. In modernity, the assignment of the feminine to the sphere of consumption, in the private domain, has definitely played an important role in shaping the lives of women. A stream of new scholarship documents and assesses the links between gender and production/consumption. Two recent books that collect such scholarship are His and Hers: Gender, Consumption, and Technology, edited by Roger Horowitz and Arwen Mohun, and The Material Culture of Gender, The Gender of Material Culture, edited by Katherine Martinez and Kenneth L. Ames. The essays collected in these volumes represent a good cross-section of studies that examine the history of women's roles in relation to the marketplace, women's relationships with objects of consumption, and women's experiences with some products of their own labor, such as art and crafts. His and Hers is a collection of eight essays following an introduction by the editors. A sampling of the contents will give a sense of the aims of the


A numerical simulation in term of the routing selection algorithm is proposed in this paper. The result shows that the traffic has an obvious balancing trend; the block probability of connection requests has been reduced. At the same time, this algorithm has an excellent performance on bandwidth utility and sharing of the restoration resources.


Numerous attempts have been made to find simpler grids than that of the SMITH CHART on which waveguide transmission and reflection functions could be displayed. This chapter presents one solution to the problem which does not alter the basic SMITH CHART coordinates and which because of its inherent simplicity has certain practical advantages.


A method based on properties of simplex co-ordinates is proposed to be used in dual finite-element calculations in magnetostatics. The method considers the source's distribution within the field region and the interelement boundary conditions. The provision of upper and lower bounds, in connection with the obtained high rate of convergence, makes the method extremeley powerful and flexible. The simplicity and applicability of the method is shown by an example, where some previous results are also discussed.


COVID-19 made an immense impact on the educational system worldwide. The unexpected disruption of face-to-face instructions and the sudden change in the academic curriculum stressed the learning and well-being of Deaf students. However, during the pandemic, their voices were primarily unheard. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the coping responses of selected Deaf college students in the Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic. This qualitative study employed a narrative inquiry method through in-depth interviews and conversations. Convenient purposive sampling was used to identify the participants. The instrument was a customized interview questionnaire, developed through the guidance of Special Education professors and pilot tested with students with similar interests as those who participated in the research. The transcript was examined, coded, and categorized. Four themes emerged: overwhelming feelings , managing time and responsibility , conveying the message , and nurturing faith in God, categorized into reaction, reality, request, and response, analyzed and interpreted using attribution and self-determination theories. The situation during COVID-19 brought overwhelming feelings to Deaf students. To convey their message, especially to their non-signing families, was challenging. However, this situation motivated them to manage their time and responsibilities at home and online schoolwork. Through family support, they accepted and understood the reality of the pandemic. It also opened an opportunity to nurture their faith in God. Further research exploring more profoundly deaf spirituality, resilience, well-being, and coping needs is recommended to give voices to the Deaf, especially during unexpected difficult circumstances.


The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how two media firms, Sky Plc and Pearson Plc, adapted, reconfigured, and transformed their businesses to meet the demands of an operating environment characterized by inexorable changes in digital technologies.,The over-arching vision, corporate strategies, and financial performance for both firms are examined over two business cycles.,These findings illustrate why firms need to create a portfolio business that takes advantage of the market opportunities created by innovative digital technologies, while off-setting the risks associated with digital disruption.,Business leaders should not dispense with the basic principles of good strategic business unit portfolio management in their attempts to take advantage of the market opportunities provided by a disruptive digital environment.,This paper provides a highly original insight into how two firms placed ambitious levels of growth at the heart of their corporate strategies to seize the market opportunities provided by an increasingly digital operating environment.


13 Melt generation and volcanism at subduction zones may result from several possible 14 processes: hydration of the mantle wedge by fluid released from the slab, subduction- 15 induced mantle upwelling beneath the back-arc, heating of downgoing 16 sediments/oceanic crust atop the slab. Each process predicts a distinctly different spatial 17 pattern of melt generation and can thus be distinguished with high-resolution seismic 18 imaging. Here we construct an upper mantle model of the Pacific Northwest using a full- 19 wave ambient noise tomographic method. Normalized vertical components of continuous 20 seismic records at station pairs are cross-correlated to extract empirical Green's functions 21 at periods of 7-200 s. We simulate wave propagation within the 3D Earth structure using 22 a finite-difference method and calculate sensitivity kernels of Rayleigh waves to 23 perturbations of Vp and Vs based on the Strain Green's Tensor database. Phase delays are extracted by cross-correlating the observed and synthetic waveforms at multiple frequency bands. Our tomographic result reveals three separate low shear-wave velocity anomalies along the back-arc in the upper mantle ~200 km east of the Cascade volcanic arc, with the 28 central one being the largest in size and lowest in velocity. These back-arc low-velocity 29 anomalies are spatially correlated with the three arc-volcano clusters. The geometry of 30 the low-velocity volumes relative to the slab and arc is consistent with the pattern of 31 subduction-induced decompressional melting in the back-arc. Their along-strike variation 32 suggests that the large-scale plate-motion-induced flow in the back-arc mantle wedge is 33 modulated by small-scale convection, resulting in a highly 3D process that defines the 34 segmentation of volcanism along the Cascade arc. The phase delay times between the EGFs and synthetics are measured by cross- correlation at multiple overlapping period bands, with the central periods of 55 s, 75 s, 112.5 s, 150 s, and 200 s for level 1 and 22.5 s, 37.5 s, 56 s, 75 s, and 112.5 s for level 2. The corresponding Rayleigh waves have peak sensitivities to structures from the mid- crust to 250 km depth. In this paper, we focus our interpretations on the mantle structure (50-140 km). Before the delay measurement, the EGFs are convolved with the source- time function used in the calculation of Green's functions to account for the finite- frequency nature and initial time shift of the simulated Green's functions. To ensure high- quality signals, the signal-to-noise ratio of EGFs is required to be at least eight, the inter- 215 station distance at least 1.5-wavelength, and the cross-correlation coefficient between the 216 EGFs and synthetics greater than 0.90. The number of measured phase delays varies from 217 ~3,000 to 20,000 within different frequency bands.


We were very impressed by the relatively high rate of respondents trained in the use of gastric ultrasound for pulmonary aspiration risk assessment (10.2%) reported in a recent international survey by Zdravkovic et al. [1] regarding worldwide clinical practice associated with rapid sequence intubation. This result highlights the growing interest in this technique among clinicians around theworld, in the setting of emergency surgery. Several ultrasound techniques have been proposed for the pre-operative assessment of gastric content in the emergency context [2–4]. Among these strategies, measurement of the antral cross-sectional area in the semi-recumbent position (supine position with the head of the bed raised to 45°), is of particular interest, because it does not require turning the patient onto their right side, which is often not feasible or contraindicated in emergency patients [3]. Currently, most authors define a patient at risk for pulmonary aspiration by the presence of solid material in the stomach and/or a gastric fluid volume > 1.5 ml.kg 1 [5]. To date, no study has assessed the potential ability of measuring the antral cross-sectional area performed in the semi-recumbent position to identify a stomach at risk for pulmonary aspiration in adult non-pregnant patients, using this definition. We performed a secondary analysis of data from a previous published study [4], that included 76 emergency and 104 elective adult patients. Ultrasound examination of the gastric antrum was performed in the semi-recumbent position with measurement of the antral cross-sectional area on patient arrival in the operating theatre, before induction of anaesthesia, by an operator blinded to the history of the patient. After the patient's trachea was intubated, gastric suctioning was performed for at least a 15-min period through a multi-orifice 18-French gastric tube, while moving the tube backward and forward and massaging the patient's epigastrium, with the patient placed in five different positions. The volume and consistency of gastric content were recorded. Among the included patients, 34 (19%) had a stomach at risk of pulmonary aspiration, that is, with solid particles and/or a gastric fluid volume > 1.5 ml.kg . The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of the antral area in the semi-recumbent position to identify a stomach at risk for pulmonary aspiration was 0.852 (95%CI 0.792–0.900) (p < 0.001). The optimal threshold value according to the Youden index was 446 mm2, with a sensitivity of 91% and a specificity of 72%. This cut-off value may be of interest for the fast pre-operative assessment of the gastric content status in cases of emergency surgical procedures in the non-pregnant adult, notably when the right lateral position is not feasible or contraindicated. This data could be implemented, in the future, in clinical decision-making algorithms for stratification of the risk of pulmonary aspiration at the bed-side.


Robots are becoming a part of humans' social life as assistants, companionbots, therapists, and entertainers. One promising application of the socially assistive robots is in autism therapy, where robots are employed to enhance verbal and nonverbal skills (e.g. eye-gaze attention, facial expression mimicry) of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). One important question is "How the gaze responses of individuals with ASD differ from that of Typically Developing (TD) peers when interacting with a robot?" We present the results of our recent studies for modeling and analyzing the gaze pattern of children with ASD when they interact with a robot called NAO. This paper reports the differences of gaze responses of TD and ASD group in two conversational contexts: Speaking versus Listening. We used Variable-order Markov Model (VMM) to discover the temporal gaze directional patterns of ASD and TD groups. The results reveal that the gaze responses of the TD individuals in speaking and listening contexts, can be best modeled by VMM with order zero and three, respectively. As we expected, the result show that the temporal gaze patterns of typically developed children are varying when the role in the conversational context is changed. However for the ASD individuals for both conversational contexts the VMM with order one could best fit the data. Overall, the results conclude that VMM is a powerful technique to model different gaze responses of TD and ASD individuals in speaking and listening contexts.


Lipids play essential roles in health and disease. The discovery of novel alterations in lipid levels related to human diseases could lead to the development of novel biomarkers and shed light on the etiology of many human diseases. The challenge with global lipid analysis is the chemical complexity and the large range of concentrations of thousands of lipid species that are present in biological samples. Here we present a robust workflow for global lipid profiling, which employs UPLC, ion mobility mass spectrometry and TransOmics software for high throughput discovery of lipid alterations in biological samples.

Lipid extracts from biological matrices were separated using Charged Surface Hybrid (CSH) C18 UPLC according to acyl chain length and number of double bonds. Major lipid classes were identified using both positive and negative ESI. After chromatographic separation, lipids were analyzed using a hybrid QTOF system upgraded with an Ion Mobility Separation (IMS) cell capable separating lipids according to their size and shape. For example, differences in the acyl chain length or number of double bonds affect the shape and size of lipid molecules, resulting in characteristic migration times across the drift cell. Therefore, IMS provided an additional degree of separation besides chromatography, improving peak capacity and increasing selectivity over conventional UPLC. Data were analyzed using TransOmics software developed for visualization, processing, and interpretation of multi-dimensional MS data.

In conclusion, we present a simple and robust solution for the high-throughput, automated identification of lipid alterations using novel analytical and informatics tools. The use of UPLC coupled to ion mobility provides multiple degrees of orthogonal separation, delivering unprecedented peak capacity required for the confident identification of lipid species in a biological mixture.


This article looks at recent developments in reducing environmental impact and reducing the cost of operating total loss lubricating systems.


Enormous Literature indicates that agriculture remains a source of livelihood for about 86% of rural people and generates job opportunities for approximately 1.3 billion small-scale farmers and landless workers. Over the past couple of years, the South African government has been offering varied support to households that are engaged in small-scale farming to improve their livelihoods, income and food security. Although the various rounds of the General Households Survey (GHS) gathered information on the type of agricultural support received by the farmers about their food production, agricultural income and food security status, there is still limited pragmatic evidence on the extent to which programme is yielding the intended results. The main aim of the study was to use GHS data spanning the period 2013 to 2016 to assess how government agricultural development support influences the livelihoods of small-scale farmers in South Africa. Using both descriptive analyses with Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and Logistics estimations, the result of the study indicates that the proportion of households who have access to the agricultural development support have decreased marginally by two percent from 16% in 2013 to 14% in 2016. The study also reveals that agriculture development assistance given by the South African government is effective in reducing food insecurity, improving agricultural production and income of the beneficiary small-scale farmers. Following the observed marked gender, racial and geographical differences in households' access to the agricultural development support, the Ministry of Agriculture and its allied ministries and departments responsible for the implementation of the agricultural development support programmes must streamline policies to account for the lack of support to farmers in general. Addressing such differences is necessary to ensure that the programme achieves its intended overall objectives.


This paper deals with feature selection for classification with wrapper framework. We develop a new algorithm for feature selection, based on a fuzzy clustering technique and an iterative process verifying classification accuracy. By monitoring discrepancy between two cluster systems, one derived with full features of the dataset, the other one with a subset of features, we are able to evaluate representation power of the subset of features with respect to the original feature set . Experimental results confirm efficiency of the proposed algorithm


In recent years the desirability of an extensive Welfare State, especially in European countries, has been increasingly questioned on the grounds that economies with less social intervention by the Government are more competitive and productive. But even if countries are hit by fiscal austerity measures, and cannot increase public expenditures, changing the composition of the Welfare State might foster growth by rescaling their intervention in domains that are productivity enhancing. Education and health are the most striking examples given their role as sources of human capital, a fundamental ingredient in many growth models. It is thus important to empirically assess the impact of public expenditures on education and health on educational attainment and health status indicators, and real income. We do this for three groups of countries: a group of high income OECD economies, the EU before the enlargement and the EU enlargement group. This assessment can have important implications for Welfare State policy design in the EU and its OECD partners. Our empirical study is innovative in the sense that we identitfy long-run relationships across the main variables using the DOLS estimator corrected for cross-sectional dependence, and we also do this when testing for the presence of unit roots in our series. Additionally, we estimate short-run relationships that include an ECM term from the associated long-run equation by applying Fixed-Effects and Pooled Mean Group estimators. The data used comes from the World Development Indicators and covers the period 1960-2012. The results of the estimation of the long-run equilibrium relationships point to a positive, direct or indirect, influence of (public) education expenditures and of (public, private or total) health expenditures on output for the three groups of countries. Causality relationships exhibit mixed results concerning policy variables, within and between country groups, with the results for the high-income OECD (non EU) group supporting the use of social policy variables to foster economic growth.


This paper will review the challenges brought by lead‐free soldering and some preliminary experimental evaluation results will be discussed. The initial results show that the lead‐free soldering process with 260°C reflow peak temperature does not directly cause failures for bismaleimide‐triazine (BT)‐based fine pitch ball grid array (FPBGA) packages. However, the strict lead‐free soldering condition could degrade the integrity of weak interface joints and potentially damage the package in subsequent unbiased highly accelerated stress test (unbiased HAST) evaluation. The impacts of lead‐free soldering with high reflow temperature on concurrent available electronics components could be more severe than previously believed. In the future, new materials and design concepts should be applied to enhance the package reliability under strict lead‐free soldering conditions.


We report that contrary to common belief, it is possible to achieve very low timing jitters of less than (≊100 fs) in gain‐switched semiconductor lasers, which is comparable to actively mode‐locked semiconductor lasers. A vertical cavity surface emitting laser was used to achieve these results, with a gain‐switched pulse width of 12 ps.


In this study, antioxidant, oxidant and oxidative stress index of Thymbra spicata L. collected from Duhok (Iraq) region were determined. The aerial parts of the plant were extracted with ethanol. Rel Assay Diagnostics kits were used for detect TAS, TOS and OSI values. As a result of the studies, it was determined that TAS value of plant extract was determined 8.399±0.102, TOS value was 6.530±0.115 and OSI value was 0.078±0.001. As a result, it was determined that T. spicata has high antioxidant potential and in this context, can be used as a natural resource.


The present age of internet and the rising of business have resulted into many folds of increase in the volume of data which are to be used for various applications on a day to day basis. Therefore, it is an obvious challenge to reduce the dataset and find useful information pertaining to the interest of the organisation. But another challenge lies in hiding sensitive information in order to provide privacy. Thus, attribute reduction and privacy preservation are two major challenges in privacy preserving data mining. In this paper, we propose a sensitive rule hiding model to hide sensitive fuzzy association rules. Proposed model uses rough set on intuitionistic fuzzy approximation spaces with ordering to reduce the dataset dimensionality. We use triangular and trapezoidal membership function to get the fuzzified information system. Finally, decreasing the support of right hand side of the rule is used to hide sensitive fuzzy association rules.


The Mold Design Expert System(Toolmaker) function of the software of DELCAM is strong,the guide working,easy to learn use easily,is a Die Design staff very good assistance way.This paper discusses how to use this software in the Automobile Injection Mold Design andApplication.


Objective To study the changes of chemokine receptor 5(CCR5)in breast cancer and metastatic axillary nodes.Methods CCR5 was detected by immunohistochemistry in 72 specimens of breast invasive ductal carcinoma(IDC)and its corresponding axillary nodes,and 50 cases of fibroadenoma of breast.Results The positive expression rate of CCR5 in IDC was 84.72%(61/72),which was higher than that in fibroadenoma of breast(14%,P0.01).The positive axillary node diversion rate in 61cases of CCR5 positive patients was 75.41%,which was higher than that of CCR5 negative ones(P0.05).In 50 cases with axillary node metastasis,there were 39 ones with positive expression of CCR5 in primary cancer and its corresponding axillary metastasis.Conclusions CCR5 plays a role in carcinogenesis,development and metastasis of breast cancer.CCR5 may be one of important tumor markets to predict axillary lymph node metastasis and prognosis of breast cancer.


The purpose of the study, by fulfilling stretching therapy aimSLJS patients who caing at n manage daily life, is to investigate the effect on malposition and pain of sacroiliac joints and improvement of flexibility. The target of the study is total 12 people of 7 male padents and 5 female patients with over 6 month medical history of SLJS. After participating in lower extremity stretching for 8 weeks, in the result of measuring and analyzing lumbar flexibility, measurement of malposition of lower extremity, and subject pain, participation of 8 week lower extremity stretching appeared to have effect on improvement of pain, flexibility, sense of foot, and hip joint in SIJS patients (p<.001). Active and planned muscle stretching like this activates myotasis and increases motion range of muscle and so can minimizes body malposition which can occur by the regresstive contraction symptom of muscle, muscle stress, or symptom contracting and pulling muscle strongly.


(1931). A Technique for Measuring the Vocabulary Burden of Textbooks. The Journal of Educational Research: Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 127-134.


AIM: Baicalein possesses several pharmacological activities including induction of apoptosis in human cancer cells; however, the mechanism is not fully understood. This study is to characterize baicalein-induced apoptosis and explore the underlying mechanism in human hepatoma cells. METHODS: Human hepatoma cell lines were treated with baicalein followed by cell number counting microscopically, flow cytometric analysis, TUNEL staining and DNA fragmentation assay. As for mechanistic studies, cells were incubated with baicalein and various inhibitors including Fas and caspases, or exogenous Bcl-2. The recovery of cells from apoptosis was then determined and calculated to delineate the baicalein-provoked apoptotic signaling. Factors involved in apoptosis were evaluated by Western blot for their potential involvement in the herbal medicine-induced cell death. RESULTS: Baicalein with different concentrations could trigger either partial S-phase arrest or apoptosis. Fas, with pro-apoptotic activity, was upregulated; and Bcl-X(subscript L) involved in anti-apoptotic pathway was downregulated in the cells challenged with baicalein. Application of the Fas-neutralizing antibody or overexpression of Bcl-2 prevented cells from baicalein-induced apoptosis. Caspase-2, -3, -8 and -9 were activated and engaged in mediating cell-killing cascades. CONCLUSION: Baicalein is capable of eliciting S-phase arrest at low concentrations and cell apoptosis at higher concentrations, and the latter is mediated by intrinsic and extrinsic pathways. The study may provide a molecular basis for the potential therapeutic use of baicalein in cancer treatment because of its multiple cell toxicities and underlying mechanisms.


Recently a novel approach to perform multi-turn extraction was proposed based on beam splitting in the transverse phase space by means of trapping inside stable islands. During the year 2002, preliminary measurements at the CERN Proton Synchrotron with a low-intensity, singlebunch, proton beam, confirmed the possibility of generating various beamlets starting from a single Gaussian beam. The experimental campaign continued also during the year 2003 to assess a number of key issues, such as the feasibility of trapping with high-intensity beam and capture efficiency. The experimental results are presented and discussed in detail in this paper.


Over the past year and a half, the globe has been facing the deadly Coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. COVID-19 can affect anyone at any age and cause serious illness or death. World Health Organization (WHO) recommends staying a minimum of one meter away from others to reduce transmission to stop and hinder transmission, which is known as social distancing. The government's directives or its guidelines are not followed by the people, which is unfortunate. Proximity sensors and ultrasonic sensors are used to measure distances between users and other people, so that an audio alert is generated if the distance is less than a predetermined limit. The Mobile Application displays the user's body temperature measured via a temperature sensor through Bluetooth.


A palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling of α-oxo ketene dithioacetals and bromodifluoroacetate derivatives has been developed for the synthesis of a class of CF2-containing tetra-substituted olefins, which has potential to extend to drug design and material application. The process is proposed to involve two single electron transfer processes accompanied by an alternative loop from palladium(0) to palladium(I), likely due to unique structural properties of ketene dithioacetals with β,β-dialkylthiol substituents on the olefin double bond.


A large number of genocides have taken place in our history. The purpose of this essay is to examine how genocide is treated in five high school history textbooks. I have studied a large number of ...


Interdisciplinary orientation and inter-institutional collaboration have become increasingly important in agricultural research institutes. The present study is focused on understanding the team orientation and behaviour of scientists in agricultural research institutes in India, the roles played by them in teamwork and the extent of difficulties faced by them in different stages of teamwork. The values were found to account for only 13.4 to 28.5 per cent of the variations for the task and maintenance skills, indicating that a host of other factors affect the team performance to a considerable extent. Scientists were found to be moderate to strong in all the four roles in teamwork, viz. leader, doer, thinker and carer roles. Notwithstanding these, the scientists do face problems in various stages of teamwork, more specifically in performing and credit sharing stages. The study also brings out certain implications for enhancing the effectiveness of teamwork in organizations.


VERSUS A LONG-DURATION GLOBAL IMPACT RESURFACING ~800 MA AGO FROM A MODELING PERSPECTIVE. Y.-H. Huang, D. A. Minton, J. R. Elliott, C. Andronicos, P. Q. Nguyen and N. E. B. Zellner Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA (email@example.com), Department of Earth, Atmopsheric, and Planetary Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907 USA, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan 48824 USA, Department of Physics, Albion College, Albion, Michigan 49224 USA.


The uplink of navigation constellation is a complex satellite range scheduling problem. The traditional heuristic method is difficult to tackle large scale optimal problem. We proposed a genetic algorithm (GA) to deal with the problem. The method is a multi-objective algorithm considering the maximum task and minimum switch times based on multi-hierarchical encoding method. Several sets of simulation are performed to test the performance of the proposed algorithm. Numerical results show that the proposed method can achieve the minimum switch times with a negligible loss in task number (approximately 7.65%). The genetic algorithm is suitable for different scale of uplink problems and its performance is related to population size and elite size.


The history of passage through the skin and of attachment to bone to treat fractures is briefly sketched since the work of Malgaigne in 1843. Attachment of metal to bone for many months is now routine after open reduction of fractures and is quite successful for many years for completely buried hip prostheses. Passage through the skin, the gums, or the cornea has been used in many specialties. At least half a dozen investigators have attempted skeletal attachment of artificial limbs.

Even if absolute solutions are impossible, perhaps temporary successes might be extended by one or two orders of magnitude (adequate for a lifetime) by increased attention to engineering details. The role of ASTM Committee F–4, Surgical Implants, is noted. An important principle may be matching of stiffness, or at least tapering of the transition in stiffness, between implant and tissue. This precaution should reduce local stress concentrations tending to loosen attachment to bone or to reopen mechanical adherence of tissue to implant, opening a pathway for infection.


Considering an integer $d>0$, we show the existence of convex-cocompact representations of surface groups into SO(4,1) admitting an embedded minimal map withcurvatures in $(-1, 1)$ and whose associated hyperbolic 4-manifolds are disk bundles of degree $d$ over the surface, provided the genus $g$ of the surface is large enough. We also show that we can realize these representations as complex variation of Hodge structures. This gives examples of quasicircles in $\mathbb{S}^3$ bounding superminimal disks in $\mathbb{H}^4$ of arbitrarily small second fundamental form. Those are examples of generalized almost-Fuchsian representations which are not deformations of Fuchsian representations.


In this paper we consider traveling waves for the Gross-Pitaevskii equation which are $ T $-periodic in each variable. We prove that if $ T $ is large enough, there exists a solution as a global minimizer of the corresponding action functional. In the subsonic case, we can use variational methods to prove the existence of a mountain-pass solution. Moreover, we show that for small $ T $ the problem admits only constant solutions.


Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) needle longevity and gradation of needle shedding (the time span with 90–10% needle survival) in the middle and northern boreal vegetation zones were studied. The d...