The tandem 1,3‐dipolar cycloaddition‐retro‐Diels–Alder (tandem crDA) reaction is presented as a versatile method for metal‐free chemoselective conjugation of a DTPA radiolabel to N‐δ‐azido‐cyclo(‐Arg‐Gly‐Asp‐d‐Phe‐Orn‐) via oxanorbornadiene derivatives. To this end, the behavior of several trifluoromethyl‐substituted oxanorbornadiene derivatives in the 1,3‐dipolar cycloaddition was studied and optimized to give a clean and efficient method for bio‐orthogonal ligation in an aqueous environment. After radioisotope treatment, the resulting 111In‐labeled c(RGD)‐CF3‐triazole‐DTPA conjugate was subjected to preliminary biological evaluation and showed high affinity for αvβ3 (IC50=192 nM) and favorable pharmacokinetics.


Objective: Patients with chronic renal failure have high burden of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. This study was carried out to investigate the development of cardiovascular disease in chronic renal failure among female patients on dialysis treatment in Nigeria. Materials and Methods : A total of 40 adult female subjects participated in this study. 20 of them were apparently healthy and served as control group while the rest 20 were female patients with chronic renal failure (CRF) on dialysis treatment. Fasting blood samples were collected and their lipid profile, Total Cholesterol (TC), Triglyceride (TG), High Density Lipoprotein –Cholesterol (HDL-C), Low Density Lipoprotein –Cholesterol (LDL-C), and Very Low Density Lipoprotein –Cholesterol (VLDL-C) were estimated using enzymatic methods. The percentages of these parameters in circulation were obtained. The cardiovascular risk ratios (TC/HDL-C and LDL-C/HDL-C) were calculated. Result: The lipid profile of the chronic renal failure patients (TC 5.70±0.80mmol/l, TG 1.46±0.40mmol/l, LDL-C 3.50±0.2mmol/l, and VLDL-C 0.67±0.2mmol/l) were significantly higher (p<0.05) than that of control group (TC 4.03±0.13mmol/l, TG 1.10± 0.3mmol/l , LDL-C 1.85±0.5mmol/l, and VLDL-C 0.50± 0.01mmol/l) except HDL-C. HDL-C of the CRF patients (1.40±0.2mmol/l) was significantly lower (p<0.05) than that of healthy women (HDL-C 1.70± 0.04mmol/l). These depict no difference in the percentage of VLDL-C & TG in circulation between the control (VLDL –C 5% and TG 45%) and chronic renal failure patients (VLDL –C 5% and TG 44%). In CRF group, it was observed that 28% of the total plasma lipid (12.73mmol/l) was LDL-C but in healthy women, percentage of LDL-C in circulation (out of 9.18mmol/l) was 20%. It was also observed that 11% of the total plasma lipid (12.73mmol/l) in CRF patients was HDL-C but in healthy subjects, the percentage of HDL-C in circulation (out of 9.18mmol/l) was 19%. The cardiovascular risk indices (TC/HDL-C and LDL-C/HDL-C) of the CRF patients (TC/HDL-C 3.91±0.24 and LDL-C/HDL-C 2.50±0.01) were significantly higher (p<0.05) than those of the healthy subjects (TC/HDL-C 2.40±0.09, LDL-C/HDL-C 1.10±0.08). Conclusion: These results indicate that chronic renal failure is a risk factor to development of cardiovascular disease in female patients on dialysis. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/jom.v16i1.22382 J MEDICINE 2015; 16 : 14-17


Criticism, theory and literature a historical survey of literary criticism new criticism reader-response criticism structuralism deconstruction psychoanalytic criticism feminism Marxism new historicism readings.


The fourteenth-century Amis and Amiloun emphasizes the oath of fidelity between two nearly identical male friends. Their 'queer' relationship is compounded by the diverse and pleasurable alliances they share with others, including Belisaunt and Amoraunt, thus making their relationships more akin to Karma Lochrie's heterosyncratic than modern notions of queerness. Amiloun's disabled body serves as the crux that forges these alliances, demonstrating that heterosyncrasy depends upon disability. Despite the poem's tragic end, which at first glance appears to 'prostheticize' the deviances produced by the text's non-normative bodies and unions, Amis and Amiloun aligns the queer/disabled with a pleasurable excess that promises a world-making both within and without the text that positions the heterosyncratic community as a valued and valuable way of life for people of all genders, sexualities, and abilities.


The article looks at health and human rights. According to the article, both the public health and the human rights paradigms are rapidly evolving. Furthermore, the challenge of applying human rights concepts in analysis and response to health problems, such as violence, has helped reveal previously unrecognized limitations in traditional human rights work. The article discusses elements of an ethic of health and human rights work, which includes the need for inclusiveness and tolerance and the avoidance of demonizing others. The article also discusses social history.


The culture of academic team,a kind of new organization for the academic innovation and talent training in colleges and universities,serves as adhesive for maintaining the teamwork and sets up an atmosphere for the growth of creativity and vitality.The grass-root Party organizations plays an indispensable leading role in the academic team cultural construction.To give a full play to its role of guidance,coordination,guarantee,supervision and demonstration in the establishment of excellent academic team culture,we should innovate new working conceptions,organization patterns and working agendas and plans.


This study investigates the relative contributions of global intonation and global segment durations to degree of foreign accent in Norwegian. Speakers of Norwegian as a second language (N2) from different native languages (L1s) plus one native Norwegian (N1) speaker are recorded reading the same sentence. The N2 utterances' global intonation and global segment durations are manipulated to match the N1 pronunciation. In this way every N2 speaker provides four utterance versions: the original, a duration corrected version, an intonation corrected version and a version with both features corrected. N1 listeners judge the degree of foreign accent between each speaker's four utterance versions. The results show that a) the combined correction of both features reduces the degree of foreign accent for all speakers, b) each correction by itself reduces the degree of foreign accent for all but two of the investigated L1 groups and c) some L1 groups benefit more from intonation correction whereas others benefit more from duration correction.


Boards of directors have expressed dissatisfaction with performance-based plans, leading some observers to predict their demise. However, acceptance of the shareholder value theory in the performance measurement process may actually increase their popularity.


Background: Anticholinergic and sedating medications are generally contraindicated in those with cognitive decline. We examined trends in medication use by patients presenting to a rural and remote memory clinic (RRMC) between March 2004 and June 2015 to determine whether patterns of medication use have changed. Methods: The first 445 patients seen at the RRMC between 2004 and 2015 were included in this analysis. Medication lists were collected at the patient's initial visit, and it was noted whether patients were taking anticholinergic or potentially sedating drugs. Statistical analysis (Spearman's Correlation) was conducted to examine trends in medication use over time. Results: Ninety-one patients (20.5%) were taking at least one anticholinergic medication. There was a statistically significant decline (25.0% in 2004 to 12.5% in 2014) in percentage of patients presenting with anticholinergic medications over the eleven years of this study (Spearman's correlation coefficient=-0.64, p=0.035). Conclusions: The most encouraging statistic to come from this study is a decline in anticholinergic medication use in this rural population. Prescribers must be properly informed to ensure that the number of medications per patient does not continue to rise, that medications are used only as necessary, and that potentially deleterious medications are avoided.


A novel image watermarking algorithm was designed by taking the advantage that the ridgelet transform domain is a more suitable representation of image's outline edge features than the wavelet transform domain.First,images were divided block by block,and each block was treated by finite ridgelet transform.Second,the direction of the largest energy of ridgelet transform coefficients was found for each block.At last,a reasonable quantitative watermarking method was used to the coefficients for embedding watermark in the largest energy direction.Odd-even quantitative method was used to embed watermark,and quantitative section attributive method was used to extract the original watermark.The watermark extraction method can efficiently restore the original watermark even if suffered terrible attack.The embed watermark in the ridgelet transform domain can ensure the fidelity of the covered image.Attack experiment results show that compared to the wavelet transform domain watermarking algorithm,the proposed algorithm can not only resist the common attacks such as compression,noise,filtering and cropping,but also resist the geometric rotation attack.


In this case report present late fate of complex treatment of rigid form of congenital flat-foot, which included reduce of osteoarticular interrelation and reduce of muscular balance. We used surgical treatment by Kummer-Kouel-Ramsei in our modification. For reduce riciprocal interrelation we used functional biomanagment. Result after 3 years.


Study of the morphologic peculiarities of free-living stages of nematodes of the Strongyloides genus is important in differential diagnostics of pathogens. We studied the parasite of goats (Capra aegagrus hircus Linnaeus, 1758) – Strongyloides papillosus (Wedl, 1856); the parasite of horses (Equus ferus caballus Linnaeus, 1758) – S. westeri Ihle, 1917; the parasite of swine (Sus scrofa Linnaeus, 1758 ) – S. ransomi Schwartz & Alicata, 1930; the parasite of dogs (Canis lupus familiaris Linnaeus, 1758) – S. stercoralis (Bavay, 1876). Rhabditiform larvae (L1, L2), filarial larvae (L3), mature males (M) and free-living females (F) were analyzed for each of the four species by five morphological parameters: body length (Lb), total maximum body width (Sb), length of the esophagus (Lo), length of the intestine (Le), length of the tail end (Lc); for females, we additionally examined length from the head end to the vulva (Lv) and the number of formed eggs in the uterus cavity (E), and for males – length of spicules (Ls). First stage larvae of S. papillosus and S. stercoralis significantly differed in all parameters, and first stage larvae of S. westeri and S. stercoralis significantly differed in four out of five parameters. By indices of ratios of total maximum body width (Sb) to body length (Lb), length of the esophagus (Lo) to length of the intestine (Le), length of the tail end (Lc) to body length (Lb), length of the intestine (Le) to body length (Lb), a reliable difference was recorded between L1 of S. papillosus and S. ransomi, L3 of S. papillosus and S. westeri, S. westeri and S. ransomi, between males of S. papillosus and S. westeri, S. westeri and S. stercoralis, between females of S. papillosus and S. westeri, S. papillosus and S. stercoralis. All four examined species were observed to have reliable differences of ratio of length of esophagus to length of intestine in third stage larvae.


Freezing action always results in great damage to the pore structure and fractal characteristics of freezing–thawing soft soil. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) can help collect data to describe the microstructure of frozen–thawed soft soil. This paper conducted a series of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) tests to interpret the effect of freezing duration, freezing–thawing pressure and freezing temperature on soil's micro-pore structure and fractal characteristics. The pore size distributions (PSDs) of the tested materials were obtained from the NMR T2 spectra, and fractal theory was introduced to describe the fractal properties of PSD. The results demonstrate that the soil assembly with a larger pore structure tends to be a skeleton pore structure with strong fractal characteristics; the shorter the freezing duration is, the less damage caused by the freezing action; a larger pressure during freezing and thawing results in a lower fractal dimension value for thawing soil's structure, while a lower freezing temperature causes a larger fractal dimension of frozen-thawed soil.


The adaptable nature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has led to the emergence of multiple viral variants of concern. This research builds upon a previous demonstration of sampling human hand odor to distinguish SARS-CoV-2 infection status in order to incorporate considerations of the disease variants. This study demonstrates the ability of human odor expression to be implemented as a non-invasive medium for the differentiation of SARS-CoV-2 variants. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were extracted from SARS-CoV-2-positive samples using solid phase microextraction (SPME) coupled with gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS). Sparse partial least squares discriminant analysis (sPLS-DA) modeling revealed that supervised machine learning could be used to predict the variant identity of a sample using VOC expression alone. The class discrimination of Delta and Omicron BA.5 variant samples was performed with 95.2% (±0.4) accuracy. Omicron BA.2 and Omicron BA.5 variants were correctly classified with 78.5% (±0.8) accuracy. Lastly, Delta and Omicron BA.2 samples were assigned with 71.2% (±1.0) accuracy. This work builds upon the framework of non-invasive techniques producing diagnostics through the analysis of human odor expression, all in support of public health monitoring.


grey seals ( Halichoerus grypus ) were sampled in the Faroe Islands archipelago during the summer period in 1993 to 1995. Concentrations of Cd, Cu, Hg, Se and Zn were measured in liver, kidney and muscle. All e lements except Zn exhibited lowest concentrations in muscle. Liver displayed the highe st concentrations of Cu, Hg, Se and Zn while kidney exhibited the highest Cd concentration s. However, trace element concentrations within tissues were influenced by sex and age. Thus , females showed clearly higher Cd concentrations than males. Age was the most important factor influencing the concentration of Cd, Hg and Se in liver, and of Cd and Hg in kidney. A strong positive correlation between Cd, Hg and Zn in kidney suggests the occurrence of a de toxification process involving metallothionein proteins. Similarly, strong positiv e correlation between Hg and Se and molecular Hg:Se ratio close to 1 in liver suggest t he occurrence of the demethylation process leading to the formation of mercuric selenide granu les. High Hg concentrations might be related to fish consumption by grey seals. However, such a piscivorous diet cannot be


Promising agreement over land and sea has been obtained between NEXRAD 3-GHz radar observations of precipitation rate and retrievals based on simultaneous passive observations at 50-191 GHz from the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) on the NOAA-15 meteorological satellite. A neural network with three hidden nodes and one linear output node operated on 15 km resolution data at 183 ± 1 and 183 ± 7 GHz, plus the cosine of scan angle, to produce estimates that match well the morphology of NEXRAD hurricane and frontal precipitation data smoothed to 15-km resolution. A second neural network operated on the same three parameters used in the first network, but smoothed to 50-km resolution, plus spatially-filtered cold perturbations detected in three AMSU tropospheric temperature-sounding channels (channels 4-6), which also have 50-km resolution. Comparison with the same NEXRAD data smoothed to 50-km resolution yielded root mean square (rms) discrepancies for two frontal systems and two passes over Hurricane Georges of ∼1.1 mm/h, and ±1.4 dB for those precipitation events over 4 mm/h. Only 8.9% of the total AMSU-derived rainfall was in areas where AMSU saw more than 1- mm/h and NEXRAD saw less than 1-mm/h, and only 6.2% of the total NEXRAD-derived rainfall was in areas where NEXRAD saw more than 1-mm/h and AMSU saw less than 1-mm/h.


Time domain analysis of electromagnetic scattering and radiation problems has a wide variety of applications from nonlinear circuits and antenna feeds to electromagnetic pulse studies. The ability to model nonlinearities and to perform broadband analysis makes time domain methods attractive in comparison to their frequency domain counterparts. An integral equation framework for time domain analysis also offers a number of benefits, such as satisfying radiation boundary conditions, being dispersionless, and providing an effective method for truncating the computation domain in differential equation based solvers.


Accurate frictional contact is critical in simulating the assembly of rod-like structures in the practical world, such as knots, hairs, flagella, and more. Due to their high geometric nonlinearity and elasticity, rod-on-rod contact remains a challenging problem tackled by researchers in both computational mechanics and computer graphics. Typically, frictional contact is regarded as constraints for the equations of motions of a system. Such constraints are often computed independently at every time step in a dynamic simulation, thus slowing down the simulation and possibly introducing numerical convergence issues. This paper proposes a fully implicit penalty-based frictional contact method, Implicit Contact Model (IMC), that e ffi ciently and robustly captures accurate frictional contact responses. We showcase our algorithm's performance in achieving visually realistic results for the challenging and novel contact scenario of flagella bundling in fluid medium, a significant phenomenon in biology that motivates novel engineering applications in soft robotics. In addition to this, we o ff er a side-by-side comparison with Incremental Potential Contact (IPC), a state-of-the-art contact handling algorithm. We show that IMC possesses comparable performance to IPC while converging at a faster rate.


The growth and structure of a virus-induced tumour has been studied in normal and immunised animals. Retardation of tumour growth in immunised animals is accompanied by a lymphoreticular infiltrate; macrophages ingest apparently intact tumour cells.


The article based on the ability of single chips on-line programming and show the applications of AT89C51 on-line programming and the principle of on-line modify. This method explained how to program using a trade line at long distance and explained the basic theory of communication. It also illustrated the process of data transmitting and introduced the keystone of local station and long distance station integrately. Especially it illustrated the date bag's special meaning in transmission in details.


The eighteenth‑century English writer matthew Gregory Lewis wrote one of the most dramatic Gothic novels, The Monk ; over 200 years later, a film of the same name appeared, based on the novel and directed by dominik Moll. The film, a free adaptation of the book, presenting the story of the moral downfall of the monk Ambrosio, has inspired us to philosophical re‑ flections on sexuality, carnality and physical desire. In the context of these issues we have attempted to analyse and interpret this cinematic work of art. The method we have adopted is based on a thorough discussion on the topics developed in the film and related issues. This method, while not pre ‑ tending to scientific objectivity, enables us to outline an interesting field of research as well as to identify a number of theoretical problems and ques‑ tions which remain open. The formula we have adopted is to quote lines from the film The Monk which permit the analysis of selected issues related to sexuality, carnality and physical desire. Moreover, these quotes serve to order the text and en ‑ able the precise identification of interpretive trains of thought.


Risk management has assumed great importance in financial institutions. Banks disclose their exposure to market risks in the form of value-at-risk (VaR). This paper evaluates the disclosure of this risk management measure in the Spanish banking sector prior to the Spanish crisis started in 2008. Based on a content analysis of the annual reports of banks in Spain, twelve items were analyzed as to the quality of the information relating to VaR. This study shows that the disclosure made prior to the crisis was poor in terms of quality and comparability. Also it was observed that the quality of the information provided about the VaR was associated positively to bank size. The Spanish banking sector case highlights the importance of upgrading financial supervision and risk management practices.


Abstract: On December 21 of 1965, the General Assembly of the United Nations sent out an alarm signal because of the constant manifestations of racial discrimination and because of the governmental policies based on racial superiority or hatred. Result of that assembly was an agreement which condemned all propaganda and all organisations based on the superiority of one race or groups of persons of a specific skin colour or ethnic origin. It declared as illegal all organised propaganda activities, and anyone that would promote the racial discrimination and incite to it. One year later, on December 16 of 1966, the same assembly announced another international agreement by which it prohibited any propaganda for war, any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that incites discrimination, hostility or violence. Both were widely accepted and internationally ratified. However, more than four decades later, we still stand between Zenith and Nadir. Also Switzerland was not immune to these manifestations of superiority and hatred. Its famous historical hospitality has been affected in recent years; on one hand, due to Swiss skepticism in accepting international law, and on the other, because of the rise of ultra conservative political parties, which, through their speeches and propaganda, have managed in numerous occasions, to incite against minorities by breaking the international law of human rights and the national law. Minorities, who they consider threatening to the Swiss cultural and historical values .


Surface plasmons (SPs) have recently gained substantial attention due to their sub-wavelength localization and strong interactions in the near-field. Their unique properties are expected to be essential for the next-generation photonic nanodevices, for instance, to improve light extraction in light-emitting diodes (LEDs). We discuss and develop a rigorous and transparent method to model luminescence enhancement and absorption in grated multilayer structures. The method is based on Green's functions, obtained as a perturbative solution to Maxwell's equations, and the fluctuational electrodynamics description of the structures. The model provides an analytical alternative to numerical methods such as finite-element methods and gives insight beyond the numerical solutions, offering a direct means of studying emission and luminescence from the periodic structures. The model is applied to answer key fundamental questions regarding luminescence enhancement, absorption and reflection in realistic plasmonic GaN light-emitting diode (LED) structures. Two aspects are considered in particular: (1) modeling the reflectometry measurements of grated LED structures to explain and map the interference patterns observed experimentally by our collaborators, and (2) modeling the enhancement in plasmonic structures where the emission takes place in quantum wells in the vicinity of the metallic grating. The results clearly reveal e.g. the SP-related luminescence enhancement in InGaN quantum well structures incorporating periodic silver grating.


The luminescence spectroscopy of atomic cadmium isolated in the solid rare gases is recorded using pulsed synchrotron radiation excitation of the 5p 1P1←5s 1S0 resonance transition. Steady-state and time-resolved analysis of the ultraviolet (UV) emission bands recorded in the Cd/Ne, Cd/Ar, and Cd/Kr systems allows identification of the associated 227.3, 233.4, and the 241/262 nm bands to the singlet fluorescence of atomic cadmium. The origin of the pair of singlet emission bands at 241 and 262 nm in the Cd/Kr system is ascribed to the coexistence of two nondegenerate minima on the 5p 1T1u surface. The weak band present in the Cd/Kr system at 326 nm and the intense pair at 324.4 and 329.6 nm in Cd/Xe all have decay times longer than 1 μs and are associated with the triplet transitions of atomic cadmium. Line shape analysis of the near-UV emission pair in Cd/Xe allows a tentative assignment of the narrow 329.6 nm band to the 5p 3P0→5s 1S0 transition. The intensity of the triplet state emission was observed ...


The present invention relates to a cell element (11) for use in a device for subjecting a chloride compound to an electrolytic process, wherein several electrolytic cells are electrically connected in series, said cells consisting of said cell element, a bipolar electrode and a diaphragm or a semi-permeable membrane, wherein said cell element includes an electrolyte space (1, 2) and an electrode space. The invention is characterized in that the electrolyte space (1, 2) and the electrode space (6) are in direct communication with each other, wherein the electrolyte space is subdivided into a first and a second electrolyte chamber by a dividing element (3).


We consider S-unimodal Misiurewicz maps T with a flat critical point c and show that they exhibit ergodic properties analogous to those of interval maps with indifferent fixed (or periodic) points. Specifically, there is a conservative ergodic absolutely continuous σ-finite invariant measure μ, exact up to finite rotations, and in the infinite measure case the system is pointwise dual ergodic with many uniform and Darling-Kac sets. Determining the order of return distributions to suitable reference sets we obtain bounds on the decay of correlations and on wandering rates. Assuming some control of the local behaviour of T at c, we show that in most cases, e.g. whenever the postcritical orbit has a Lyapunov exponent, the tail of the return distribution is in fact regularly varying, which implies precise information on the mixing rate, and various distributional limit theorems. AMS subject classification: 28D05, 37A25, 37A40, 37E05, 60F05


PURPOSE: A keypad apparatus for a portable communication device is provided to reduce the thickness of a keypad by integrally forming a pressurizing protrusion on a number of dome switches instead of the keypad. CONSTITUTION: A key pad device for a portable communication device(10) includes a key pad(11) with a plurality of key buttons(11a), a front frame(12), a waveguide and a plurality of dome switches. The key pad is formed on the body of the portable communication device to pressurize the key button and the dome switch by finger. The front frame is formed on the upper surface of the key pad. The waveguide is formed on the lower surface of the key pad to diffuse light of a light emitting device formed on a printed circuit substrate(30). A pressurizing protrusion is formed on the upper surface of the dome switch.


from underlying neuronal dynamics (Nir et al., 2007; Shmuel and Leopold, 2008). Such observations have led to the postulate that these so-called resting-state networks represent an intrinsic property of functional brain organization (Fox and Raichle, 2007). They therefore provide an attractive means by which to characterize functional connectome properties. One method for understanding rs-fMRI connectivity at a whole-brain level is graph analysis. Within this framework, the brain is represented as a graph comprising N nodes connected by M edges. In fMRI analyses, the nodes typically correspond to brain regions and the edges to some measure of interregional interaction, such as a supra-threshold temporal correlation between regional time series. Representing the brain in this way enables the application of a rich set of mathematical tools and theoretical concepts to understand brain network topology and dynamics In particular, graph analytic studies of rs-fMRI data have demonstrated that functional brain networks display a small-world topology which provides high communication efficiency for relatively low connection cost, high resilience to random and targeted attack, and a hierarchical modular organization which offers optimal adaptability to varying circumstances, and may therefore provide important connectivity-based markers of neural integrity.


BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Following a severe hardship for the past 4 decades, the Iraqi Ministry of Health initiated many activities to enhance the knowledge and skills of health professionals. The American University of Beirut was approached to deliver a workshop to update the skills of Iraqi physicians in constructing an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE).

METHODS
This is a descriptive study of the 3-day workshop delivered to Iraqi physicians as train the trainer. The participants were given reading material and participated in interactive hands-on exercises. Performance was determined by direct observation of participants performing a mock OSCE. Pretests and posttests were conducted to assess change in knowledge.

RESULTS
The participants demonstrated a significant improvement in their mean score of the posttest in comparison to pretest (8.6 versus 6.4, respectively). Moreover, they revealed mastery of the OSCE in the final mock OSCE activity. The participants highly evaluated the workshop and were positive in their future ability to conduct an OSCE.

CONCLUSIONS
Adopting an interactive hands-on workshop to train the trainer is feasible and appears to be effective.


Governing death and loss: empowerment, involvement and participation Edited by Steve Conway. Published by Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, 2011. ISBN 978-0-19-958617-2, paperback, 152 pages, cost £24.95

A key message of this new book edited by Steve Conway is that the conception of death as an exclusive responsibility for clinical and professional governance, has inhibited the way we respond compassionately and socially to meet the needs of the dying and their loved ones. While this message might unnerve professionals working in the fields of supportive and palliative care, they can feel reassured that the publication of this text does not, completely, negate their professional purpose. The book …


Trafficking of the NKCC2 cotransporter to the apical surface of thick ascending limbs (TAL) regulates excretion of urine, ions and blood pressure. We showed that vesicle fusion proteins VAMP2 and VAMP3 mediate NKCC2 exocytosis to the TAL plasma membrane. VAMP3 also mediates NKCC2 expression. We showed that VAMP3‐/‐ mice have lower blood pressure in normal and low‐Na diet. However, it is not know whether surface NKCC2 is decreased in VAMP3‐/‐ mice and the contribution of VAMP3 to renal function is unclear. We hypothesize that VAMP3‐/‐ mice have decreased surface NKCC2 expression and increased excretion of water and ions. First we studied VAMP3‐/‐ kidney histology and we found no abnormalities. Next, we measured surface NKCC2 in TAL suspensions by surface biotinylation. Surface NKCC2 was decreased by 46 ± 4% compared to wt. We also observed 23% higher urine volume (wt= 1.3 ± 0.1 ml/day vs VAMP3‐/‐ = 1.6 ± 0.2 ml/day) and lower urine osmolality (wt= 3433 ± 166 mOsm vs VAMP3‐/‐ = 2924 ± 131 mOsm). UNa, UK and UCl excretion was normal, however UCa was higher (wt= 0.60 ± 0.02 µmol/day vs VAMP3‐/‐ = 0.81 ± 0.05 µmol/day). To test whether VAMP3‐/‐ mice adjusted Na excretion after reduced Na intake, we fed them a low Na‐diet. VAMP3‐/‐ mice excreted 51% more Na than wt in 24h (wt= 39 ± 8 µmol/day vs VAMP3‐/‐= 59 ± 13 µmol/day), but at 48h they were comparable (wt= 15 ± 6 µmol/day vs VAMP3‐/‐= 20 ± 8 µmol/day). Finally, we tested whether VAMP3‐/‐ mice adjusted ion excretion after 24h of water deprivation. VAMP3‐/‐ mice properly concentrated the urine, but UNa, UCl and UK were 33%, 36% and 38% higher than wt respectively. We conclude that VAMP3 is required for surface NKCC2 expression in vivo and urine excretion in baseline conditions and during low‐Na diet or water deprivation.


This paper presents the data on studying of administration of guelder-rose (Viburnum sargentii K.) extract «Kalifen®» for restoration of disorders antioxidant protection system indicators of an organism of doctors in the course of professional activity. In blood plasma of participants it was found the increasing level of malone dialdehyde, superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase activity, reduction of the antiradical activity and reduced glutathione level, which testify to stress of the antioxidant defense system. Administration of Kaliphen during 6 weeks resulted in restoration of biochemical parameters of blood to control levels. Approved the restoration effect of extract from a guelder-rose on indicators of antioxidant defence system of an organism. «Kalifen®» could be recommended as a prophylactic remedy under the high stress levels.


Purpose:To observe the imaging features of intraosseous ganglion of the carpal bones. Methods: The radiography(n=7),CT(n=5) and MR(n=2) in 8 cases of surgically confirmed intraosseous ganglion were retrospectively reviewed.Results:Typical intraosseous ganglion was sharp margined and cystic lesion with sclerotic margin. Six cases showed no communication with joint, 2 cases displayed communication with joint through little cortical defect. CT was able to detect the lesions better than radiograph. Intraosseous ganglion demonstrated hypo-intense on MR T1WI images, and hyper-intense on T2WI images.Conclusion:Intraosseous ganglion of the carpal bone was typically seen as sharp margined cystic lesion in the proximal carpal row, which could be better demonstrated by CT and MR.


Negotiating Afropolitanism brings together scholars in African studies from across the world in order to critically examine the representations, transgressions, disruptions, and/or redrawings of borders and spaces in contemporary African literature, culture and folklore. The essays collected here offer innovative and fresh critical perspectives on postcolonial themes within contemporary Africa. Individually they investigate such themes as identity, diaspora, hybridity, translation, the space between, textual frontiers, translocation and multilocalities, migration, nomadology, polylingualism, and multiculturalism. Together they map the rich terrain of culture, literature and folklore in contemporary Africa, from the works of writers such as Idris Chraibi, Wole Soyinka, Ben Okri, E. B. Dongala, Calixthe Beyala, Patrice Nganang, Nuruddin Farah and Abdulrazak Gurnah, to those of Pepetela, Goretti Kyomuhendo, Jamal Mahjoub, Yusuf Dawood, M. G. Vassanji, and J. M. Coetzee, as well as Afrophone oral artists and radio performers. This volume will be of interest to anyone with an interest in African studies, postcolonialism, cultural and literary studies.


Abstract : The horrific attacks of September 11, 2001 - ostensibly carried out in the name of Islam - focused American attention on militant Islam and raised important questions about the fundamental nature of the world's second-largest religion and the violence carried out in its name. Is Islam, as asserted by President Bush, a religion of peace? Is the violent jihad (a central concept of Islam, which can mean both to strive to lead a good Muslim life in the path of God and to rise up in arms against unbelievers) proclaimed by Osama bin Laden consistent with the tenets of this religion? In a March 2003 Discovery Spotlight television report, New York Times commentator Thomas L. Friedman remarked, "Until we understand the roots of 9/11, I don't think we'll ever be safe."1 In keeping with Sun Tzu's counsel to know one's enemy, contemporary American military strategy must be informed by an understanding of the beliefs and goals of our self-proclaimed Muslim enemies. In Unholy War and The Crisis of Islam, professors John Esposito and Bernard Lewis, respectively, introduce the non-Muslim reader to Islam's principles, customs, and history, with a particular focus on the defining element of jihad, in order to better understand the mindset and motivations of terrorists claiming to act in the name of Islam. They also explain the growing grassroots Islamic identity that appears increasingly hostile to the West generally and America in particular. Esposito and Lewis, both respected American scholars having written or edited between them some 40 books on Islam, present clear and dispassionate explanations of the teachings of Islam - from the Quran, the example of the Prophet Muhammad, and Islamic law developed over the past 13 centuries - on jihad and legitimate warfare, the use of violence, and the terrorist tactics employed today by al-Qaeda, Hamas, and other nominally-Islamic militant groups. Both authors distinguish between Islam as an expression of faith and political Islam,


Abstract When listeners process segmentally relevant properties of the speech signal they do so in a rate-dependent manner. This is seen as a shift in the perceptual category boundary; as rate declines and overall syllable duration increases, the category boundary moves toward a longer value of the acoustic property in question. Focusing on the /b/-/p/ distinction specified by voice onset time (VOT), we investigated whether the acoustic modifications that occur with an alteration in speaking rate accord with this pattern of perceptual boundary shift. Two main findings emerged. First, as speaking rate became slower and overall syllable duration became longer, the VOT value of the consonant, especially that of the voiceless /p/, also became longer. Second, and most important, the VOT value that optimally separated the /b/ and /p/ VOT distributions also changed with rate, increasing with increasing syllable duration. However, the magnitude of the boundary shift obtained for these production data was greater than that typically found in perceptual experiments. This suggests the existence of constraints on the extent to which the perceptual system can accommodate for alterations due to rate of speech.


This article frames James Rebanks' The Shepherd's Life (2015) – an account of farming in the English Lake District – as a contemporary "travellee polemic", using a term developed by Wendy Bracewell...


Introduction: Aggressive periodontitis is an infectious disease of the periodontium affect young adults, causing damage teeth, leading to rapid bone resorption and tooth loss. 1,25-dihydroxy vitamin D3, the active metabolite of vitamin D, is known for the maintenance of mineral homeostasis and normal skeletal architecture and is increasingly recognized for its potent anti-proliferative, antidifferentiative and immunomodulatory activities. Aim: To visualize the localization of Vitamin D receptor and its role in gene expression in aggressive periodontitis patients. Materials and methods: A total of 72 patients divided in to two groups, Patients with Aggressive Periodontitis constituted Test Group, Systemically and periodontally healthy individuals constituted The Control Group. The non-invasive measures of plaque Index and Sulcus bleeding index along with the probing depth (PD), and clinical attachment level (CAL) were assessed in both groups. Gingival tissue samples (~50–100 mg) were collected aseptically and divided in two parts, one part in Soujanya Khetavath, Syed Asimuddin, Rekha Rani Koduganti, Veerendranath Reddy Panthula, Surya Prasanna Jammula, Raj Kiran. Nuclear Localization of Vitamin D Receptor in Aggressive Periodontitis Patients to that of Healthy Group A Comparative Study. IAIM, 2019; 6(3): 341-348. Page 342 phosphate buffered saline for immunohistochemical analysis and other part was cut into small pieces for RNA isolation. Results: The degree of VDR nuclear expression in control 64.31% was significantly greater than 44.13% test group (P<0.01), Inter group analysis of RANK, RANKL and OPG expression showed that RANK 80.0%, RANKL 100.0% was significantly higher in test group and OPG 87.5% in control group (P<0.01). As the percentage of nuclear receptors increased there was decrease in the intensity of expression of RANK and RANKL and increase in the expression of OPG. Conclusion: Decreased nuclear expression may have an influence on generalized aggressive periodontitis and may also have a significant role in the predisposition towards GAP.


PURPOSE: A polyolefin-type hot melt adhesive composition is provided, which has electric insulation, voltage breakage resistance, flame retardancy and good adhesive power to a substrate. CONSTITUTION: The polyolefin-type hot melt adhesive composition comprises 30-50 wt% of a homopropylene polymer as a base resin; 20-50 wt% of a rosin-based, petroleum-based or phenol-based adhesive property imparting agent; 2-10 wt% of an olefin-based rubber; 1-6 wt% of wax; 20-40 wt% of a filler; 0.1-2 wt% of an antioxidizing agent; 2-10 wt% of a viscosity controlling agent; and 2-8 wt% of a phosphorus-based flame retardant. Preferably the filler is selected from the group consisting of silica, calcium carbonate, talc, and aluminum oxide. The adhesive property imparting agent is preferably a rosin-based glycerol ester.


One era that will be faced by SMEs and economic actors is ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015. The problem is that SMEs in West Sumatra have to contend with the economic actors who come from other ASEAN member countries relatively more developed and stronger in terms of capital, technology, human resources and other resources. Without any serious effort from all parties, the Indonesian economic actors (such as SMEs in West Sumatra) will be spectators in their own country. Therefore, we need to do research to analyze the readiness of SMEs in West Sumatra to face AEC in 2015 and found the empowerment model to support the competitiveness of SMEs in the region. The population was food-producing SMEs in the city of Bukittinggi and Padang with snowball sampling techniques. Data analysis techniques are qua nti tative descriptive analysis .


Two Airmen Crash to ' Death Making Trial Flight . -OAKLAND, Callr., Aug. 10 (AP)A Itudy of "lame duck" entran~ In .... "&,000 Dole flight to Honohllu .,.t F.rlday progreMe(l today al the dale neared for the first gro&,t _lal ilfrby. lnepeclors of the department of IOIImeree busied themselvel In thta ~t1on today but a"nounced no Mdllon.. They have until .undown .,....,rrow 10 approve a certified IIsl ... Ibe Dole committee In c .... ge ot Ihe tIIght. °Hollle made" equipment on any ttl Ihe contesUng planes will "ot .... t with approval by the starting committee nor will nny untried de· fICa be permitted. It wae announced 'r Fra~k A. F'Iynn, 8eeretar), ot the NaUonal Aereonautlcal &880clatlfln. Be II In charge of the raCe for the .... Dole committee. Nell'I ot the craah of a monoplane at Pol\.t Lorna which sent Lieut •. 0t0rIe W. D. Covell and R. S. Wtg· "ner to theh' d .... ths set a pall of ,......,w over the al,· port here where .,on Ilarters for the derby have lathered tor final tuning up of Ihelr lCIulpment. Both rtye .... were entered III Ihe Honolulu ra ce. The tragedy roduced to twelve tho number of tltr, plan.... Covell and Waggener .. 4 drawn number 13 on the gtart· iIII order.


That uncinariasis exists throughout many sections of the southern states has been known and frequently stated in the last few years. Cases have been reported here and there, but apparently the only case reported from Mississippi is one by Weiss of New Orleans in 1904. The patient was a student nurse from Wilkinson County. E. H. Martin reported finding a hookworm in the ear of a negro girl in Clarke County in 1905. C. W. Stiles, zoologist, United States Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service, read a most instructive paper on the subject before the state medical association in 1904, and presented some cases picked up from the Baptist Orphanage in Jackson. This study was undertaken with a hope of still further calling attention to the disease. In March, 1906, I mailed the following letter to 821 physicians in Mississippi, whose names appear on the rolls of membership of the state


Abstract Although the orthogonal systems are predominantly employed within modern technologies, some general systems can be found principally in nature. Progress in the field of nanotechnologies based on a condensed matter will reach its limit at a certain moment, which may be caused by material limits or limits of manufacturing technologies. This limitation will affect both approaches, the top-down as well as the bottom-up. Another way to obtain a nanostructure will be based purely on nature and its ability to grow, which requires a deep understanding of the world of biology. This natural approach is closely connected with a precise mathematical description which is necessary for employment of both the analytical and synthetic tools which are presently available within the frame of current technological methods. In this paper, we present an analysis of a model based on a spiral arrangement on a series of elements.


Reliable and accurate position estimation of "agent" nodes is essential for many wireless applications. Typically agents perform position estimation through ranging with respect to "anchor" nodes with known positions. In range-based localization techniques, system accuracy and energy efficiency are affected by both transmit power and signal bandwidth. We thus investigate the joint power and bandwidth allocation (JPBA) problems in wireless localization networks. We first formulate a general optimization model, which is proved to be non-convex. An approximate algorithm based on single condensation method is proposed to solve the problem. We then formulate the robust counterpart of the problem in the presence of uncertainty of the agents' positions. An low complexity method is also proposed to solve the robust JPBA problem. Numerical results validate the accuracy and robustness of the proposed algorithms.


We probe the role that the directional asymmetry, between relativistic outflows and kilo-parsec scale jets, play in the acceleration of cosmic rays. For this reason we use two powerful, nearby Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs). These radio galaxies are atypical compared to the usual AGN as they contain ring-like features instead of hotspots. Our VLBI radio data have revealed a substantial misalignment between their small and large scale jets. Taking into account the overall information we have obtained about the AGNs themselves (VLA and VLBI radio data at 18 cm) and their clusters (X-ray observations) our study supports the present ideas of powerful radiogalaxies (radio quiet and radio loud) being sources of cosmic rays as well as their ability to accelarate the latter to ultra high energies.


Herbicide-resistant weeds in Arkansas cause problems for growers. Up-to-date information and new technologies can help plan mitigation strategies to slow resistant weeds. The objectives of this research were to provide a 'snapshot' of herbicide-resistant Echinochloa spp. in rice producing counties, determine how much resistance has spread across the state, and understand the effectiveness of 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase (HPPD)-inhibiting herbicides for control of glyphosate-resistant (GR) Palmer amaranth relative to commercial standards currently labeled in soybean. To assess the prevalence of Echinochloa spp. resistance, 82 samples were collected from 23 rice producing counties in 2010. The samples were tested for resistance to commonly used rice herbicides: propanil, quinclorac, imazethapyr, fenoxaprop, clomazone, and glyphosate. Of the 82 samples collected, 29 were resistant to propanil, 13 were resistant to quinclorac and 9 samples were resistant to both propanil and quinclorac. Accessions were also treated with 0.5x the labeled field rate for glufosinate and isoxaflutole to determine background variation in sensitivity among populations to these herbicides as Echinochloa is among the major weeds in crops where these herbicides are used. No resistance to imazethapyr, clomazone, fenoxaprop, or glyphosate was observed; likewise all accessions were sensitive to glufosinate or isoxaflutole. One strategy for controlling herbicide-resistant weeds is the use of transgenic crops. The expected release of soybean in 2016 and cotton in 2020 with resistance to HPPD-inhibiting herbicides provide alternative mechanisms-of-action to control weeds. Experiments were conducted in 2010 and 2011 to determine the efficacy of HPPD-inhibiting herbicides as a preemergence (PRE) option for Echinochloa spp. and Palmer amaranth control and as a postemergence (POST) option with and without glyphosate or glufosinate. The PRE applied HPPD-inhibiting herbicides do not carry the residual control as the current industry standards; however they are still capable of providing 4 weeks of control of Palmer amaranth and Echinochloa spp.. For both years in the POST trials, all treatments, except glyphosate alone, provided >90% control of 2.5to 10-cm tall GR-Palmer amaranth at 3 wk after treatment. When herbicides were applied to larger Palmer amaranth, 15to 25-cm tall, control with isoxaflutole + glyphosate, tembotrione + glufosinate, and tembotrione + glyphosate were greater than 90%. Applications made to Palmer amaranth larger than 25 cm was not effective (< 80% control).


The present work deals with a detailed parametric thermodynamic analysis of all the possible configurations of turbofan engine (two and three spool with or without mixer and/ afterburner) employing transpiration cooling technique for turbine blade cooling. The study is focused on design point performance and is of general nature rather than an application specific parametric study. The analysis has been carried out by selecting/developing models for various components of engine. A computer program has been written which is capable of predicting engine dependent parameters (i.e. specific thrust, thrust specific fuel consumption, propulsive efficiency, efficiency of energy conversion and overall efficiency) at varying independent parameters at any flight condition and for any set of operating parameters. A set of multi-dimensional carpet plots predicting the effect of dependent in terms of independent parameters has been presented considering transpiration cooling for turbine blades and the temperature effect on specific heat of air/gas. Besides giving the comparative design point performance for a class of turbofan engine, these results could also be useful in assessing the relative benefits of extending technology to new engine configurations. Though, for a realistic mission application, the difference in performance at various thrust sizing conditions and at cruise conditions critical for fuel burn is a key characteristic in selecting the appropriate cycle, however this study could be useful in selecting in general the cycle configuration for a particular need with its optimum operating parameters.


Objective: To study an epidemiological methodology for domestic violence. Methods:A program was drawn,the epidemiological instruments were developed, investigators were trained, not only according to the principles of epidemiology but also being suited to Chinese condition. Then,We win over the support of government bodies, arouse the messes to action, and all clues from investigation were confirmed by interview with persons concerned.Spot check randomly was used for control of quality.Results:The reliability of the epidemiological instruments was 97%, the sensitivity was 95%, the specificity was 100%. The prevalence of domestic violence in life-time and past year was 16.2% and 11.6% respectively.Conclusion:This was a practical methodology in epidemiological survey for domestic violence in China.


Cast-iron joint has been widely used as a new type of steel joint in large-scale and complicated steel structures in China.Based on the steel roof design of Nanjing Olympic Center,the paper researched on the formation,design and full-scale test of cast-iron joint.


Social and economic transformations have a profound impact on farmers' livelihood strategies, and changes in these strategies, in turn, deeply impact the agricultural system. Based on four waves of China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) tracking data, this paper uses a Markov transfer probability matrix to explore changes in farmers' livelihood strategies and builds multiple logit and fixed-effect models to empirically analyze the impact and lag effect of these changes on agricultural diversification. The results show that (1) farmers who choose not to shift away from an agricultural livelihood show no significant change in agricultural diversification. Compared with households showing an increase in the agricultural diversification index, households showing a decrease in this index are more inclined to diversify if they choose to maintain an agricultural livelihood either part-time or full-time. For households with an unchanged agricultural diversification index, their index value is more likely to remain unchanged if they choose to maintain a part-time or full-time agriculture-oriented livelihood. Moreover, (2) the impact of livelihood strategy changes on agricultural diversification displays regional heterogeneity. The index value of farmers in the central region shows no statistically significant change over the sample period, while the index value of farmers in the eastern region increases. Farmers in the eastern and central regions with unchanged index values are more inclined to show persistent index values. (3) Changes in farmers' livelihood strategies have a lag effect on agricultural diversification that becomes significant at two lag periods.


Aiming at the problem of correlation diagnosis in multi-variate process quality management,a diagnosis algorithm based on grouping technology was proposed.The integral relationship of all quality components was decomposed as a series of component pair's correlationship by using correlation analysis theorem.According to the relationship between components,the quality components were grouped by factor analysis method to maximize the correlations in same group and minimize the ones between groups.On the basis of neglecting the correlations between groups,the corresponding T2 control charts were built in same group of component pairs to form the diagnosis model.Theoretical analysis and practice proved that the grouping technology could reduce the scale of correlation diagnosis system greatly for the multivariate process quality whose relationships of different components had significant differences.


Adiposity assessment is a part of the evaluation in coronary artery disease (CAD) prevention. Waist to height ratio (WHtR) is one of adiposity parameter in CAD management guidelines. This cross sectional study enrolled 30 subject with stable CAD undergone elective coronary angiography. Eightyfive subjects has abnormal WHtR (≥0,5). Median WHtR is 0,54 with 0,471-0,706 range, and Duke CAD prognostic index with median 37 (range 19-82). Analysis using spearman's rank correlation show a significant moderate positive correlation (r=0,425; p=0,019) between WHtR and Duke CAD prognostic index. Waist to height ratio could be one of valuable indicator for coronary artery stenosis severity. We conclude that there is a relationship between WHtR and Duke CAD prognostic index.


The present invention relates to a control method for saving a video stream playback terminal device, the terminal device studio video stream is provided with a support dynamic power management and dynamic voltage regulation frequency processor, the power saving control processing module and a memory, the said energy-saving control processing module comprises a monitoring unit, a control unit and an adjustment unit, the power saving control method comprising: real time monitoring unit acquires the user information and the QoS metrics current processor operating status information, and transmits the information to the control unit; the control unit according to the current user service QoS index information, acquires information about the current user service QoS index information corresponding to the operating state of the processor, and the processor operation state adjusting unit transmits a control signal; adjusting unit according to the control signal received by the processor working condition to adjust. Compared with the prior art, the present invention has a good energy saving effect, the advantages of cheap production and installation.


This paper offers a chronological overview of the most significant moments in the process of drafting the EU Charter of Fundamental rights. It argues for the extension and modernization of the current social policy.


The major immediate-early (IE) promoter (MIEP) of cytomegalovirus (CMV) controls the transcription of IE genes, IE1 and IE2, to encode proteins p72 and p86, respectively. Laboratory-based diagnosis is usually required to identify congenital and perinatal CMV disease and to diagnose and monitor viral levels in immunosuppressed hosts. The laboratory techniques commonly employed are the conventional tube and shell vial viral culture techniques, immunological techniques for histopathology, immunohistochemical techniques, antigen and antibody detection, and nucleic acid detection. Acyclovir, which is successfully used against other herpesviruses, such as herpes simplex virus (HSV) and varicella-zoster virus (VZV), is less potent against CMV. As one's understanding of the CMV genome and protein functions further advances, novel vaccine candidates and strategies will evolve that give equivalent or better humoral and cellular immune responses than natural immunity. The availability and versatility of VZV cosmids, which are large DNA fragments of the viral genome that can be recombined to form replication-competent VZV, have allowed targeting of different ORFs with point deletion mutants. A live attenuated vaccine was most effective in persons 60 to 69 years of age, but it also decreased the severity of incident zoster in people 70 years or older. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection in the immunocompromised host is accompanied by the risk of developing lymphoproliferative disease. Using cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) therapy in combination with other treatment modalities for aggressive PT-LPDs that are unresponsive to reduced immunosuppression has successfully induced remission without significant side effects.


Neurospora crassa, a model organism has been extensively used to explore fundamental cellular processes, such as recombination and for construction of high-resolution maps because of its excellent biological characteristics. In this thesis we bring to bear statistical techniques to integrate genome map information gleaned from two different sources with varying resolution to create a high resolution integrated physical and genetic map. Those two different sources of genomic information in our case are a high resolution restriction frequent length polymorphism (RFLP) DNA markers and hybridization based physical data. Recombination has long been used to create genetic maps starting from the rudimentary but powerful empirical pair-wise frequency analysis to sophisticated statistical models with generalized cross-over phenomena. Most of these approaches are theoretical lacking any practical model estimation, or fail to capture the details of the crossover process. In recent times the need has come up to analyze more number of genes to answer more complex problems as gene discovery and disease tracing. In the first chapter we give a synopsis of the entire work. In the second chapter of the thesis we have included published work that formulates a detailed mathematical model of the recombination process. In the third chapter we detail on a novel recursive linking algorithm that overcomes a computational bottleneck often faced in gene mapping, the exponential time complexity of the algorithm in the number of markers. In the fourth chapter we integrate physical and genetic maps to produce a high resolution integrated physical and genetic map and study various genomic questions. For example, we construct empirical mapping functions that relate the amount of genetic recombination to physical distance. At the end we study the distribution of repeated DNA markers and outline the potential for progress in future endeavors. Index words: Genetic Map,Physical Map,RFLP Data,Hybridization Data,Recombination, Simulated Annealing, Maximum Likelihood Estimator, Whole Genome-shotgun Sequencing,Tetrad Analysis,EM Algorithm,Recursive Linking,Time Complexity Construction of High-Resolution Likelihood-Based Integrated Genetic and Physical Map of NEUROSPORA CRASSA


Preeclampsia complicates 4-7% of pregnancies and remains the leading cause of maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality worldwide. Despite improvements in health care over the last decade, preeclampsia remains the second most common cause of maternal mortality in Indonesia. This study aims to determine whether the mean arterial pressure (MAP) is related to the incidence of preeclampsia in pregnant women at the Bontobangun Puskesmas, Bulukumba district for the period 2018 to 2019. This research uses a descriptive-analytic approach with Historical Cohort Studies, namely by looking at the cohort book of the history of blood pressure measurement results for pregnant women at the Bontobangun Public Health Center, Bulukumba Regency for the period 2018 to 2019. Determining the sample using the sampling method taken by purposive sampling. 31 samples of pregnant women who experienced preeclampsia and 31 controls were pregnant women with normal conditions who had certain criteria (matching) with the sample. The results explained that from the paired T-test results, the value of α> 0.037 so that it is said that there is a relationship between mean artery pressure (MAP) and the incidence of preeclampsia in pregnant women at Bontobangun puskesmas for the period 2018-2019.


Revealing the molecular dynamics of cell fate determination is fundamental to our understanding of stem cell biology, tissue homeostasis and disease genesis. In this work, we constructed a coarse-grained endogenous network by integrating the accumulated molecular knowledge. Quantifying this coarse-grained endogenous network, we classified myeloid cell types by the structurally robust stable states generated from the endogenous network. We further predicted a series of intermediate states (transition states) in the cell-fate transition process. Accordingly, we established a quantitative scheme from the endogenous network dynamics to understand the early myelopoiesis. It not only explained the trans-differentiation events upon specific gene manipulation, but also predicted the molecular dynamics along each cell fate transition process. The quantitative scheme of early myelopoietic development can lead to a better understanding of the establishment and maintenance of tissue homeostasis and further contribute to elucidating malignant or aplastic diseases genesis systematically.


Sardis, capital of Lydia, has long attracted the attention of scholars. Beginning with Cyriacus of Ancona in the fifteenth century, many illustrious travellers had visited the site, and some small scale digging had been undertaken at the temple of Artemis and in the Royal Cemetery of Bin Tepe (" Thousand Mounds "), which is located at the northern edge of the wide Hermus Plain some four miles to the north of Sardis. Some of these excavations were reported, mostly sketchily, others not at all.' A major effort to do justice to this important and extensive site, effectively organized by Howard Crosby Butler, was undertaken by the now defunct American Society for the Excavation of Sardis from 1910 to 1914. The tremendous task of freeing the Early Hellenistic temple of Artemis in the side valley of the famous gold-bearing torrent Paktolos was accomplished, a survey of the general area of Sardis (but not of the Royal Cemetery) was made, and more than a thousand graves were opened, largely cut into the so-called Necropolis or Cemetery Hill, a precipitous ridge which forms the western flank of the Paktolos valley. Some work was done at Bin Tepe,2 and a sounding northeast of the temple of Artemis, holding out promise of stratigraphy, was just getting underway in 1914 when the First World War intervened.3 The premature death of Howard Crosby Butler disrupted the enterprise. Theodore Leslie Shear, a member of the Sardis excavations in 1914, attempted to resume the work in 1922, only to be stopped by the Turkish-Greek War. Butler's plan of publication was carried on by his


Purpose: This study was to examine the effects of the Danjeon Breathing Exercise Program on physical fitness, levels of serum lipid and physical symptom of people using public health center at Yangju city. Method: One group pretest-posttest design was utilized for this study. This study has been done from July 6 to September 28, 2005 and the subjects of the study were 28 persons. Danjeon breathing exercise was carried out for 60 minutes a day, 3 times a week for 12 weeks. Physical fitness was measured using the Health Management System developed by the Korea Physical Science Institution. Serum lipid level was measured in public health center at Yangju city. Questions of physical symptom (35 items) were chosen from Cornell Medical Index. The collected data were processed by using the SPSS PC program and analyzed by using Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test. Result: 1. The scores of back strength, flexibility and balance of post-test were more increased after Danjeon breathing exercise than those of pre-test. But the score of muscular endurance of post-test was not significantly increased. 2. The degrees of total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol and triglyceride of post-test were more decreased after Danjeon breathing exercise than those of pre-test. But the degree of HDL-cholesterol of post-test was not significantly increased in statistics. 3. The score of physical symptoms of post-test was not significantly decreased in statistics after Danjeon breathing exercise than that of pre-test. Conclusion: It is concluded that the Danjeon Breathing Exercise Program could increase the physical fitness and decrease levels of serum lipid. So Danjeon breathing exercise could be utilized to promote physical fittness and to decrease level of serun lipids.


To observe the effect of the apatite implant on the functioning jaw bone structure, we conducted an experiment. In the lower jaw bone (the sites corresponding to P3, P4 and M1) of adult dogs whose teeth were extracted several months ago, 3 or 4 pieces of 2-piece apatite implant each of the same size as the extracted one were placed on one side and the sites on the other side were left as they were extracted as controls. At about 4 months after the implants were placed, an occlusion having a normal vertical height was given to each implant and at 1 month and 10 months after occlusion began, specimens were taken for histological observation of the tissues surrounding the implants and around the control sites.Simultaneously, the sites on the implant-placed and control sides were compared and their the changes with time were also studied. As the result, the jaw bone with the sites left as they were after extraction tended to atrophy. But, the jaw bone on the functioning side showed various changes resulting from accommodating itself to the functional pressure applied to the implants. It was also observed that these changes were associated with the bone structure both in the implant-placed and opposite regions.


This study was carried out to determine the water-use characteristics of bean irrigated with drip irrigation and irrigation was applied in five different programs as 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100 % replenishment of water depleted. As a result, seasonal evapotranspiration was measured as 732 mm for 100 % replenishment of water depleted. The linear relationships were found between grain yield vs seasonal irrigation and grain yield vs seasonal evapotranspiration. The yield response factor (ky) was determined as 1.04. Irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) and water use efficiency (WUE) ranged from 0.34 to 0.41 kg/m 3 , 0.20 to 0.37 kg/m 3 , respectively.


Combination of anti‐metastasis antagonists with cytotoxic agents has shown clinical activity, yet is constrained with unconditional activation and low tumor selectivity. Here, a chemokine receptor‐targeted metallo‐nanodrug is reported for in situ generated and hyperthermia‐enhanced oxidative stress and metastatic pathway blockade with tumor specificity to treat breast cancer metastasis. The self‐assembled metallo‐nanodrugs trigger reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation in situ with tumor stimuli, self‐amplify ROS level upon intrinsic photothermal heating, and accurately block chemokine receptor CXCR4 to suppress tumor cell anti‐apoptosis, migration, and invasion. CXCR4‐targeted metallo‐nanodrugs plus laser irradiation induced complete inhibition of tumor growth in 80% of mice, and caused 92.8% reduction of the number of gross metastatic lung nodules in murine breast carcinoma models. The present work provides an intelligent and bioactivatable platform for precision nanomedicine of metastatic breast cancer.


AbstractThe enterprises many times in our days, are confronted with pleasant challenges of personnel adaptation among people with many credentials and prowess. In the other side, they have all the time the dilemma that a wrong choice especially in the high and the medium level is possible to navigate the enterprise in wrong employ decisions out of the main direction and the targets due by the strategy and the width of activity.In this presentation we aim to detect the way and the procedures that the Hellenic medium sized enterprises are adopting and employ high and medium level staff and also the credentials that they must have in order to satisfy the requirements of them. In that way it seems that day by day, the enterprises emphasizes in the human element, the right choice and the training of them, in a second level. These personnel may be from inside or outside of the enterprise according the strategy plan.


User behavior auditing is one of the powerful means to cope with internal threats in cloud computing and the key component for user behavior auditing is information extraction. The authors in this paper present a method, which automatically extract audit information from session image transported by remote desktop protocol. This method is realized by deep learning based scene text reading. To address the challenges of applying scene text reading model in cloud audit system, the authors modified the structure of aforementioned model, attached a pre-process to it and presented a synthetic data generation method for training models. The evaluation part testifies that this information extraction method could attain high accuracy rate of 93.4 % on the real scene data.


This website has been compiled by scientists, wildlife carers and citizens concerned over the culling of grey-headed flying foxes in the Melbourne Botanic Gardens.Our aim simply, is to inform the public of Australia that the MBG resolution to cull flying-foxes will not solve any of the long-term problems faced by Gardens - but will instead produce a senseless loss of life, and disastrous consequences for flying-fox conservation for many years to come. But most of all,we wish to raise public awareness about the very real threats this species is facing. With this knowledge, we hope you will work with us and many other organisations to stop the culling that is currently taking place.


Abstract Photoperiodic insects are able to distinguish between long days and short days. In various models the long day response is classifically considered the "actively" induced state. The short day response is thought to be "passive", caused by failure of light to coincide with a photosensitive part of the night or failure of coincidence of constituent oscillators. The photoperiodic response curve of Pieris brassicae showed that diapause is induced by short days (4–14 h), and non‐diapause state by several conditions (natural and non‐natural): long days (16 h or more), LL, DD and ultrashort days (0.1 h). By reciprocal transfers of larvae between non‐diapausing determining and diapause determining conditions, it was proved possible to estimate the differential capacity of four non‐diapausing conditions vs. the diapausing action of LD 8: 16 in decreasing sequence: LD 16:8 > LL > DD = LD 0.1: 23.9. DD may be considered a "neutral" condition. In darkness the development seems to be determined by an endogeno...


The "Superman" complex is often found in LI Bai's poems,concretely manifestated in the worship of expert on the history and the immortal.This complex was formed directly by LI Bai's own personality,his family background,his searching for immortality and his lifestyle.The "Superman" complex led to the failure of LI Bai's career,but filled his poetry with exaggerated,exotic,grand,broad-minded and bold style,so his poems are full of romantic magnificent art features,making him a great "Superman " on top of the mountain of poetry in Tang Dynasty.


Through the evaluating of sulfate detection results comparison with the relative error method and the quarterback robust statistics in a lab,it turned out that the quarterback robust statistics was superior.The application of the quarterback robust statistics could make the inspection institutions that took part in the laboratory comparison to find problems more easily in the testing process and improve inspection standards.


Applying a first pressing force to the powder mixture in a 0.2 ~ 0.1% charge a powder mixture mixed by the first mold, the first mold a Yun Hwalje powder having a low melting point in the group of metal powder in a weight ratio to the true density ratio of 80% to 90% a mixed powder forming an intermediate compression element and the actively heated to a temperature of the drawn mixed powder intermediate compressed body by heating the mixed powder intermediate compressed body from the first mold to the melting point corresponds to the temperature of such Yun Hwalje powder, the elevated temperature mixture powder medium applying a second pressing force of the compression member to the set of the second mold, and the second mixed powder is compressed in the intermediate mold element to form a mixture of the high density powder complete compression member.


We explore several aspects related to the propagation of high energy cosmic rays (CRs) of galactic origin (i.e. in the range $E\simeq 10^{15}- 10^{18}$ eV). In particular, we study in detail the diffusion/drift scenario, a rigidity-dependent model that explains the origin of the knee and the second knee of the CR spectrum, as well as the most recent observations of composition and anisotropies. Moreover, the behavior of the diffusion tensor for charged particles propagating in highly turbulent magnetic fields is determined numerically. We also investigate the high energy neutrino fluxes induced by CRs, and we show that a rigidity-dependent scenario for the CR knee reduces the background of atmospheric neutrinos, hence encouraging the search for astrophysical neutrino sources. After exploring this effect in the detection channel of lepton tracks, we investigate the less studied ``shower'' channel, which turns out to be particularly effective for isolating the prompt atmospheric neutrino component. Finally, we consider in detail the nuclear photodisintegration model as an alternative explanation for the knee in the CR spectrum, in which CR nuclei emitted by a source are disintegrated during their propagation through a surrounding optical/UV photon field. In this case, the composition is predicted to turn lighter across the knee, in constrast to the results obtained in rigidity-dependent scenarios.


Polymer nanocomposites markedly improved packaging properties due to their nanometer size dispersion. These enhancements include increased modulus and strength, decreased gas permeability, and increased water resistance. Additionally, biologically active ingredients can be added to impart the desired functional properties to the resulting packaging materials. Accordingly, polymer-based nanocomposites packaging materials with bio-functional properties have a huge potential for application in the active food packaging industry. In this review, recent advances in the preparation and characterization of polymer nanocomposites, and their potential use in packaging applications are addressed.


HERA will allow one to extend the study of leptoproduction to four-momentum transfers of 103<Q2<105 GeV2 and Bjorken x 10-4<x<10-2. Detailed Monte Carlo simulations are necessary in order to describe standard model processes and to understand backgrounds to possible new physics in this unexplored kinematic region. The Monte Carlo programs which describe the perturbative QCD processes, leading to inclusive hadron production, at HERA are outlined. They may be conveniently but artificially separated into the two areas of leptoproduction (large Q2) and photoproduction (Q2 approximately=0).


The aim of the present study is to demonstrate the quantitative measurement of the spatio-temporal fluctuation of the heat transfer in a water pipe flow around an orifice plate. In the present study, a technique using high-speed infrared thermography was used to measure the heat transfer. The measurement was first performed for a fully developed pipe flow without installing an orifice plate in order to verify the validity of the measurement technique. The spatio-temporal distribution of the heat transfer coefficient was evaluated based on the temperature fluctuation of a heated thin-foil measured using high-speed infrared thermography, and the results indicated that quantitative measurement was possible not only for time-averaged values, but also for fluctuating values. The technique was then used to measure the heat transfer to the flow around an orifice plate (the bore ratio was approximately 0.5). As a result, it was revealed that the heat transfer downstream of the orifice fluctuated violently, and the instantaneous structure of the heat transfer was remarkably finer than the streaky structure for the fully developed pipe flow. The time-averaged value of the heat transfer had a maximum at approximately two diameters downstream of the orifice, where the rms value of the fluctuation and its characteristic frequency also became much higher than those for the fully developed pipe flow.


Bekasi City is a large city with a population of 2,803,283 people (BPS, 2016). The area of Bekasi City is 210.49 km². Grand Galaxy Park Mall is one of the malls located in the city of Bekasi precisely on Boulevard Raya Roads Grand Galaxy City Jakasetia. The area is of  land approximately 19.000 meters² with a floor area of 17.000 meters² which consists of 5 floors. Grand Galaxy Park Mall became one of the popular shopping centers because this mall is known as a modern mall and was built with an environmentally friendly concept and the location of this mall is also very strategic and integrated with the residential area of Grand Galaxy City, Schools, Shops and Offices. The method used in this research is the observation method. The Observation Method is a method by conducting direct survey of spaciousness. This is absolutely necessary to determine the actual condition. The survey method used in this analysis is the method of recording the number of vehicles. The largest accumulation of parking for cars on Saturday as many as 132 vehicles occurred between 18.00-18.59 WIB, while for motorcycles on Saturday as many as 167 vehicles occurred between 19.00-19.59 WIB. The average duration of vehicle parking is 3 hours 42 minutes for cars and 3 hours 30 minutes for motorbikes. The largest parking index is 85.16% for cars occurred on Saturday at 18.00-18.59 WIB and 41.75 for motorcycles occurred on Saturday at 19.00-19.59 WIB. The biggest Parking Turn Over is 4 vehicles / SRP / observation time for cars and 3 vehicles / SRP / observation time for motorcycles and that happens on Saturdays. Judging from the analysis of the Jalan Raya Raya Boulevard Jalan Jakasetia for the survey speed at peak hours in the morning, afternoon and evening get the level of service or Level of Service (LOS), namely B and C.


Effects of ionizing radiation on the activity of lipoxidase in vivo on soya bean, peas, beans, wheat, and corn were investigated. It was observed that ionizing radiation induced changes in the lipoxidase system at much lower doses in vivo than in vitro, and that the activation in the fermenting system is present at small doses and short incubation period after radiation. (R.V.J.)


In view of the status that the air flow of the actual goaf deviate Daxi law and obey non-linear seepage law in sizable area,Basing non-linear seepage equation of Bachmat, set up two-dimension non-linear seepage equation model of mixed air in the goaf and dispersion equation model of nitrogen ,gas in the goaf. Impart different boundary condition.and discrete it adopting finite volume method, so get distributing status of press、velocity of flow of seepage and concentration of nitrogen, gas which offer dependable gist for the optimization of the parameter extinguishing and preventing fire.


A communication apparatus which transmits data to another communication apparatus through a transmission channel, includes: a display which displays a plurality of communication rates; and a controller which permits the display to display the communication rates. The controller acquires a first communication rate received from the another communication apparatus and based on a predetermined signal transmitted to the another communication apparatus through the transmission channel at a first time. The controller acquires a second communication rate received from the another communication apparatus and based on a predetermined signal transmitted to the another communication apparatus through the transmission channel at a second time. The controller calculates a plurality of communication rates on the basis of the first and second communication rate. The controller permits the display to display the plurality of the communication rate when a difference between the plurality of communication rates is larger than a predetermined value.


The Medical Journal of Australia ISSN: 0025729X 18 July 2005 183 2 73-74 ©The Medical Journal of Australia 2005 www.mja.com.au Marketing — editorial pharmaceutical companies, also tread this fine lin the largest funder of medical research and pro medicines and vaccines. The timelines, costs product develop ent are substantial — around 80 ceutical and vaccine candidates which enter hu trials do not make it to registration, and the road t is formidable. An average of around a decade Combining commercial interests and public good is a broad social, political and ethical challenge


A new method to solve Chinese text chunking was introduced as conditional random fields (CRF) model, by which Chinese text chunking transformed into labeling the words with their chunk tags and establishing a model for tagged corpus according to conditional random fields so as to predict the chunk tag of each word. An F1 score of 85.5% is achieved by using the evaluation dataset of Chinese treebank of Beijing university, and obviously better than those of hidden Markov model and maximum entropy Markov model. Experimental results show that conditional random fields model is an effective way on Chinese text chunking and the strict Independence hypothesis and the label bias problem are avoided.


A method (100) for managing a connected portable device comprising at least one wireless communication means, said method (100) comprising the steps of: - detecting (102) a transmission phase of said device portable connected by at least one sensor fitted to said portable device connected, - modifying (114) operation of said portable device connected according to said detected transportation phase. It also relates to a connected mobile device implementing such a method for adapting the operation of said device to one or more phases of transport, in an automated manner (s).


A spatial information system connected to a moving picture recording device and an operating method for the spatial information system are disclosed. An embodiment of the present invention relates to the operating method of the spatial information system comprising: a step : receiving a moving picture file and a GPX file; a step of outputting a map including a point based on the GPX file; a step of outputting a path mark on the map corresponding to the moving picture output by executing the moving picture file; a step of receiving moving input for the reproducing point of the moving picture; a step of executing first synchronization for the path mark and the moving picture in response to the moving input; and a step of controlling the output point of the path mark according to the first synchronization by connecting to the reproducing point of the moving picture according to the moving input. [Reference numerals] (100) Spatial information system;(110) System control unit;(120) Image processing unit;(130) Map processing unit;(140) Synchronization processing unit;(150) Content storage unit;(210) GIS server;(220) Content generation unit (ex. smartphone);(AA) Network


aecBma thematic ye£5.us. eersonally -relevant stimuli, to analyze the differences in the frequency of subjects using CBRs with abstract and thematic stimuli, a two-way ANOVA (group x stimulus type) was performed on the mean frequency of "p" plus "pq" responses made during the initial presentation of the thematic and abstract stimuli, regardless of sequence of presentation. The group effect was significant (F=9.71, df=5,78, p <■ .001), results already demonstrated in previous analyses. There were no effects of stimulus type nor a group by stimulus type interaction (p < .05). Another two-way ANOVA was performed on the second presentation of the thematic and abstract stimuli, regardless of sequence of presentation. Again, group effects were significant (F=6.55,


AbstractWith the help of virtual reality (VR), architectural design can be visualized interactively and at full scale. Viewers of VR models also gain an additional sense of spatial depth and volume...


A sunfish of the Xenotis of average proportions, rather thin in front, the dorsal outline before the fin well arched, with a decided depression at the nape. Length 4 inches, depth 2.25 ill length. Color dark, with a purplish tint; sides striped with rows of bronze blotches, one to each scale, about seven rows below the lateral line. Sides of the head in alcoholic specimens with an appearance of irregular lines. Opercular flap large, about two-thirds the length of the eye. bordered above and below, but not posteriorly with pale. Head 2.75 to 2.9 in length: nose 3.9 to 4.25: interorbital space slightly greater than length of eye.—3.4 to 3.75 in head. Mouth normal, moderate; rudimentary maxillary bone minute; upper jaw below the middle of the pupil; maxillary 2.85 to 3.1 in head, scarcely reaching the front of the pupil; lower jaw 2 to 2.4; teeth on vomer, not on palatines.


In order to research thermal fatigue of corner welding line of the 125MW dynamotor boiler reheater, the pipe wall's temperature has been measured for a 420t/h boiler reheater collecting steam box and evacuating water pipe. It is been proved under various working condition, the welding line suffer frequent thermal stress so as to produce crack there. This text give step of guard against crack above the temperature measure.


The influence of organic matter and soil moisture on the spatial distribution of methane (CH4) oxidation was examined in temperate zone soils by laboratory incubations. CH4 oxidation in soil cores exhibited distinct vertical zonation with maxima at 3 to 6 cm. The kinetic parameters of CH4 oxidation were measured in soil composites. The maximum rate of CH4 uptake, Vmax, ranged from 6.8 to 7.4 nmol hr−1 g dry soil−1 and the apparent half saturation constant, Km, ranged from 17.4 to 19.9 (parts per million by volume) ppmv. Oxidation in random samples was observed to be influenced by both soil moisture and organic matter contents. The rate of oxidation in each sample increased to a maximum with increasing water content and decreased with additional water. Maximum oxidation rates ranged from 2.2 to 9.0 nmol hr−1 g dry soil−1 at sample moisture contents of 18 to 51%. Organic matter content appears to explain the spatial variability of methane oxidation at optimal soil moisture contents. The oxidation maximum at this site was coincident with an organic matter content of 14% by weight and a gravimetric moisture content of 33%.


ABSTRACT Background: Prophylactic nucleos(t)ide anologues against hepatitis B virus (HBV) recurrence after liver transplantation (LT) include lamivudine, entecavir, tenofovir, adefovir. Since the most effective strategies for post-LT remain inconclusive, we aimed to compare 6 different treatment options (lamivudine, entecavir, tenofovir, adefovir, lamivudine plus adefovir, lamivudine plus tenofovir) in terms of HBV recurrence after LT using network meta-analysis. Methods: The search identified seventeen studies involving 6 different prophylactic regimens covering 7274 patients. Results: Compared with entecavir, lamivudine plus tenofovir (OR 2.00, 95%CI 0.02-183.29), lamivudine plus adefovir, (OR 2.83, 95%CI 0.18-33.57), tenofovir (OR 1.11, 95%CI 0.22-5.80), adefovir (OR 3.78, 95%CI 0.59-22.16), lamivudine (OR 4.62, 95%CI 1.75-11.39) were associated with an increased risk of HBV recurrence. Conclusion: Entecavir resulted with the highest probability (31%) as the best prophylactic option on reducing the risk of HBV recurrence. Entecavir is the preferred oral NAs treatment compared to other five different prophylactic regimens in the prevention of HBV recurrence after LT.


The present study investigated electrodermal activity (EDA) and skin blood flow (SBF) in different facial areas during a mental arithmetic task (MA) and singing task (SONG). While MA required in-tensive internal attention and was supposed to be a weak task in the social context, SONG accompanied expressive behavior and was assumed to have a strong social context. EDA in the forehead, cheek, and nose; SBF in the forehead and cheek; heart rate; and normalized pulse volume were measured during the tasks. The patterns of change in each physiological response were compared between MA and SONG under non-observation and observation conditions. The results indicated no changes of facial EDA and SBF during MA in both conditions. On the other hand, increases of EDA and SBF in the forehead were indicated during SONG regardless of the presence of the observer. It was suggested that EDA and SBF in the forehead reflect the strength of the social context. The function and meaning of EDA and SBF increase in the forehead were discussed physiologically and psychophysiologically.


Introduction A positive focus on the present, the only time zone which we experience directly and permanently, is at least as relevant as perspectives on the past and future in a balanced time perspective and its relation to wellbeing. Yet, few instruments examining a positive present time perspective exist. Two present-directed concepts, mindfulness and flow, that are intrinsically linked to mental wellbeing were analyzed and used to formulate a present-eudaimonic scale that complements the past and future scales of the balanced time perspective scale. The present study addresses the psychometric properties of the present-eudaimonic scale and the modified balanced time perspective scale. Method 131 participants filled out the present-eudaimonic scale, the balanced time perspective scale, the Zimbardo time perspective inventory, the five facet mindfulness questionnaire – short form, the Swedish flow proneness questionnaire and the mental health continuum – short form. Balanced time perspective was operationalized using the deviation from a balanced time perspective coefficient. Results The present-eudaimonic scale showed good psychometric properties including internal consistency, factor structure, and convergent validity. The present-eudaimonic scale explained an additional eleven percent of variance in mental health beyond the other time perspective scales. Balanced time perspective as measured with the modified balanced time perspective scale correlated significantly stronger with mental health than balanced time perspective measured with the Zimbardo time perspective inventory. Conclusions The present-eudaimonic scale fills a gap in the assessment of time perspective and the modified balanced time perspective scale is a promising way to study balanced time perspective.


In this article, the couple-group secure consensus of a kind of heterogeneous multi-agent systems (HMASs) with cooperative-competitive relation and time delays has been investigated if it receives malicious attacks. Based on cooperative-competitive relation and time delays, a new couple-group secure consensus protocol is designed. By applying the graph theory, linear algebra theory, probability theory, the linear combination theory and Getschgorin theorem, several sufficient conditions have been obtained to realize the couple-group secure consensus for this system. The obtained results also show the upper limitation of input delay can be computed if the parameters of system are given. It worth pointing out the topology of HMASs is no more needed to contain a spanning tree or meet with the balance of in or out degree in the obtained results. In additional, an adaptive function is added to speed up the convergence of consensus. Combined these obtained results with T-test, a novel detection algorithm has also been designed to determine that the nodes are security or not. Some examples have been given to prove the effectiveness of these obtained results and the improved secure detection algorithm.


The entire educational system from elementary to higher education level has been collapsed in the duration the COVID-19 pandemic situation across the globe. Higher education in India is currently following the theoretical and practical teaching and learning methods. Higher education students acquire knowledge from face-to-face interaction through classroom and laboratory. These traditional pedagogical approaches are abruptly closed by COVID-19 pandemic situation and adopted virtual teaching and learning techniques. The virtual method initiated novel teaching and learning techniques in higher education. Firstly this paper made a few important discussions on virtual versatility and disorders of teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic conditions. Secondly this paper also explores the virtual teaching and learning pedagogical approaches during the COVID-19 situation.


Burnishing is a chipless finishing process, which employs a rolling tool, pressed against the work piece, in order to achieve plastic deformation of the surface layer. The burnishing process increases the surface hardness of the work piece which in turn improves wear resistance, improves tensile strength, increases corrosion resistance, maintains dimensional stability and improves the fatigue strength by inducing residual compressive stresses in the surface of the work piece. In the experimental study, presented in this paper, ball burnishing of brass was done using standard L-18 array Taguchi's design of experiments. The aim of work was to find optimum burnishing parameters for enhancing the surface quality and surface hardness of the workpiece. In the experimental analysis, it is found that all the process parameters significantly affect the quality. The results revealed that the use of optimum burnishing parameters resulted in improvements in the surface finish and increase in the surface hardness.


Based on orthogonal experiments, the influences of grinding process parameters including depth of cut (ap), workpiece infeed velocity (vw) and transverse regrinding value (Cr) on hardened layer depth (HLD) of 40Cr steel are studied in the grind-hardening process. The grind-hardening orthogonal experiments of 3-factors are performed on the 40Cr steel with the L16 (45) orthogonal table and the experimental optimization design theory. To understand quantitatively the effects of three grinding process parameters, the experimental data are modeled by regression. Among three grinding process parameters, the most important parameter is ap, followed by vw and Cr respectively. The experimental results indicate that HLD would increase with the increasing of the depth of cut and the decreasing of the workpiece infeed velocity in grind-hardening process, but HLD would decrease with the increasing of the interaction between the depth of cut and workpiece infeed velocity.