Between consensus and conflict. Media practices in the Italian movements against precarity of work This paper aims to explore the relationship between social movements and the media during the recent Italian cycle of struggle against precarity. Starting from two significant protest events related to the contentious issue at stake, the paper takes into consideration activists' media practices developed in a complex mediascape. From such a perspective, the paper examines empirically the quadruple A model proposed by Dieter Rucht (2004), partially revisiting its four main dimensions: abstention, adaptation, alternative and attack attitudes towards the mainstream media. The paper suggests that in a complex mediascape different kind of media practices intertwine and that: 1) a certain degree of abstention is also possible with regard to the more established independent media; 2) face-to-face interactions frequently mix with temporary, protest-related media; 3) activists could use the same media texts to communicate with disperse and different audiences. The main data sources consist of primary documents produced by activists and in-depth interviews with the activists themselves. Keywords: Social Movements; Mainstream Media; Information and Communication Technologies, Precarity; Media Practices.


The Petroleum Data System, a collection of general field and reservoir information, has been available for public use for approximately 3 years. Data have been used in a variety of studies by oil companies, consultants, and government agencies. In particular, many studies have been done in an effort to determine the potential of specific basins for future exploration and drilling, the feasibility of certain types of enhanced recovery techniques, and future reserves from existing fields. The different types of output are histograms, scatterplots, bargraphs, correlations, simple listings, and summary reports obtained by manipulation of the data in the file. These examples illustrate problems that have to be faced in working with large data bases, such as End_Page 542------------------------------ missing data, conflicting data, and fuzzy or nonstandard data definitions. End_of_Article - Last_Page 543------------


This updated and revised second edition is aimed primarily at new and current Turbo C++ users upgrading to Borland C++ and anyone converting from Microsoft C. The text covers the fundamentals of Windows concepts and using the Borland C++ compiler for creating Windows programs.


Abstract The thunderstorms of a June cold‐front passage have been observed by radar, on a constant‐altitude map at 6‐km height as "Larsen areas' ' within which the precipitation intensity level exceeds 30 dBZ, and by two sferics receivers, frequency 100 ± 50 kHz, one at the radar and the other 57 km distant. From the sferics, a distribution of storms with angular extent was obtained. This yielded the distribution with azimuth of the sferics random observational errors: normal with standard deviation 2.1°. Combined with radar‐determined ranges (between 100 and 200 km), it also yielded the distribution with cross‐range linear extent of the sferics sources: log normal with median 9.2 km, standard deviation corresponding to a factor 1.6, for widths 6 to 15 km. No correlation was found between storm width and sferics rate. A power‐law relation has been found between sferics rate and the Larsen area A, sufficiently good that the sferics rate can be predicted within a factor 2 from the Larsen area, but different...


This paper discusses in the text of Engels the "typical","typical characters","typical environment",and"historical perspective" concept,as well as "a typical environment" and "a typical environment of typical characters" relations.There are two kinds of "typical characters" in the text of Engels',one is the "typical characters" of the "atypical environment",the other is the typical characters of the "typical environment".The connotation of his artistic concept "realism" is that the details are true,and that one era(or society) that distinguishes itself from another should be marked,and a "historical development trend"——the social reality of a living characteristics of the "typical environment of typical characters" should also be marked,whereby to display the "typical environment."


A recombinant fusion protein linking recombinant coagulation factor IX (FIX) with recombinant human albumin (rIX-FP) has been developed to extend the plasma half-life of FIX, thus improving hemophilia B treatment by allowing less frequent dosing than required with standard plasma-derived (pd) and recombinant (r) FIX products. The PROLONG-9FP clinical program aims to evaluate the use of rIX-FP for prophylaxis and on-demand treatment of bleeding in patients with severe hemophilia B. In a completed Phase I pharmacokinetic (PK) study in subjects aged 15 to 58 years (y), the mean half-life of rIX-FP was 92 hours, 5 times longer than the half-life of the FIX products previously used by the subjects. The mean trough FIX activity after injection of rIX-FP was 7.4% (day 7) at a dose of 25 IU/kg, and 13.4% (day 7) and 5.5% (day 14) at a dose of 50 IU/kg (Santagostino E, et al. Blood 2012; 120:2405-11) . A Phase II study demonstrated the efficacy of weekly prophylaxis with rIX-FP, with excellent safety and an improved PK profile.

Following completion of these studies, 2 Phase III, open-label, multicenter studies have been conducted in previously treated patients (PTPs) with severe hemophilia B, aged 12 to 65 years ([NCT01496274][1]) and < 12 years ([NCT01662531][2]). Both studies, which were designed to evaluate the long term safety and efficacy of rIX-FP for both prophylaxis and on-demand treatment of bleeding episodes, consisted of an initial PK evaluation period followed by a treatment period during which subjects were administered rIX-FP as prophylaxis and on-demand treatment. Subjects from 42 hemophilia treatment centers in 12 countries participated; to date, the PROLONG-9FP clinical program encompasses over 100 hemophilia B subjects for the PK evaluation. Here, we report on the PK results from these 2 studies.

During the 14-day PK evaluation periods, blood samples for PK analysis were taken before dosing, and then at 30 minutes, 3, 24, 48, 72, 120, 168, 240 and 336 hours after injection of 50 IU/kg rIX-FP. A subgroup of subjects also completed a PK evaluation of their previously used Factor IX products (pdFIX and rFIX), with sampling before dosing, and then at 30 minutes, 3, 6, 12, 24 and 48 hours after 50 IU/kg FIX injection. Plasma FIX activity (FIX:C) was measured by a one-stage clotting assay (CSL Behring central laboratory).

The mean plasma FIX half-life after injection of 50 IU/kg rIX-FP was 105, 92 and 84 hours in the respective age groups of 12 to 61 years (n = 46), 6 to 11 years (n = 15) and 1 to 5 years (n = 12); the baseline corrected mean incremental recovery (IR) was 1.3, 1.1 and 1.0 IU/dL per IU/kg, the mean area under the curve (AUC) was 7,360, 4,949 and 4,358 IU*hr/dL, and the clearance was 0.7, 1.1 and 1.3 mL/h/kg in the respective age groups. The time to 5% FIX:C after injection of 50 IU/kg rIX-FP administration was Day 10 for children and Day 14 for adults; at Day 14, the mean trough FIX activity in children was 3%. Compared with the FIX products previously used by the subjects, rIX-FP had a 30 to 40% higher incremental recovery, > 5-times longer half-life, larger AUC and lower clearance.

In conclusion, compared with standard FIX products, rIX-FP demonstrated an improved PK profile with a prolonged half-life in all age groups (1 to 61 years). At 14 days after injection of rIX-FP, the mean trough FIX activity is 3% in children and above 5% in adults, supporting a treatment interval of 14 days for routine prophylaxis. Treatment intervals of 7-, 10- and 14 days for routine prophylaxis were tested in the pivotal Phase III studies; every 21 day regimen will be tested in selected age groups during the Phase IIIb extension study. Detailed PK results will be presented during the meeting.

Disclosures Santagostino: CSL: Honoraria, Speakers Bureau. Jacobs: CSL Behring: Employment. Voigt: Csl Behring: Employment. Feussner: CSL Behring: Employment. Limsakun: CSL Behring: Employment.

 [1]: /lookup/external-ref?link_type=CLINTRIALGOV&access_num=NCT01496274&atom=%2Fbloodjournal%2F124%2F21%2F1491.atom
 [2]: /lookup/external-ref?link_type=CLINTRIALGOV&access_num=NCT01662531&atom=%2Fbloodjournal%2F124%2F21%2F1491.atom


Caustic sludge and coal ash are wet-mixed in the ratio of 0.25-0.70 to 0.30-0.75 to produce mobile suspension, and after ageing for 0.5-48 hr and solid-liquid separation backfill soil can be obtained. The present invention can treat caustic sludge and coal ash in large amount, which will otherwise produce pollution, and it is esp suitable for the construction engineering near ammonia soda plant.


offered by schools of education, should be a high-powered technician possessing an imposing assortment of skills and techniques. In addition to his teaching role, the teacher becomes, or is expected to become, something of a counselor, mental-hygienist, occupational adviser, tester, individual and group therapist, social worker, and community worker, all in one. When a new technique, full of promise, including diagrams, hovers on the horizon, the educator is likely to take it over and add it to his repertoire of techniques and roles. Thus, with the advent of sociometry, every teacher is also a sociometrician. The advent and nurture of a new


Peroxisomal disorders are rare life-threatening diseases and affected patients manifest seizures and hypotonia from birth. These symptoms are non-specific, and patients may remain underdiagnosed until they die in early infancy. d-bifunctional protein (DBP) is a multifunctional peroxisomal enzyme involved in fatty acid beta-oxidation. This article presents a case of DBP deficiency associated with 17-betahydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 4 (HSD17b4) gene mutations, which have never been reported before in the relevant literature. The patient had mild neurological symptoms and few distinct dysmorphic features, which demonstrates the phenotypic variation and diagnostic difficulties associated with the peroxisomal disorders. The patient was the second son of unrelated and healthy parents and had a birthweight of 2770 g. He was hypotonic from birth but he did not have feeding problems. He manifested generalized tonic seizures from day 2. The results of laboratory analyses, including analyses for common metabolic disorders and infectious diseases, were unremarkable. A cranial computed tomography scan and magnetic resonance imaging revealed no abnormalities. Chromosomal analysis revealed a normal male


Student Series Talks and Joint Meeting with the Royal Society for Asian Affairs, 20th November, 2008, Professor A. J. Stockwell (President) and Tullio Lobetti (Student Representative on Council) in the Chair. The President and the Student Representative first welcomed Peter Cole, recipient of the Sir Peter Homes Memorial Awards for Travel (2008), who lectured on 'Exploring a Local Identity in the Yemen'; then welcomed Hannah Warren, 'Female weavers in a Village in Madya Pradesh, North India: a photographic study, in conclusion he welcomed Dr Alasdair Pinkerton, finalist for the First Sir George Staunton Award, who lectured on 'Radio and the Raj: Broadcasting in British India'.


Presentations by NUS Discovering Statistically and Biologically Significant Clusters of 3D Protein-Protein Interfaces Zeyar Aung firstname.lastname@example.com supervisor: Kian Lee TAN The study of the structural properties of proteinprotein interfaces, which are responsible for interactions of proteins, can give us a better overview of protein functions, as compared to studying individual protein structures separately. In this work, we present a new method to encode, cluster and analyze the similar 3D interface patterns among various protein complexes. We represent the proteinprotein interfaces as 2D residue-residue distance matrices, and encode them as multi-dimensional feature vectors. Then, we cluster the interfaces using these feature vectors, and analyze the resultant clusters by various means. Experimental results show that we can discover a number of statistically significant clusters of interfaces. A visual inspection also confirms that the interfaces that fall into the same cluster are visually similar. We can find out the clusters of similar interface patterns in the protein complexes belonging to diverse structural fold types. We can also discover in some clusters the recurring interface patterns associated with biologically important functional motifs. Furthermore, we compare our method with the sequence-only clustering approach, and observe that ours is much better in terms of the statistical significance of the resultant


An amphiphilic triblock copolymer poly(lactic-co-glycolic-acid)-polyethyleneglycol-A10 aptamer(PLGA-PEG-Apt) was synthesized,and its characteristic peaks were investigated with 1H nuclear magnetic resonance(1H NMR).Nanoparticles gene delivery system was prepared by the water-in-oil-in-water(w1/o/w2)double emulsion solvent evaporation(DESE) method.Nanoparticle size measured by dynamic laser light scattering was(225.2±8.1) nm(Mean±SD,n=3),and zeta potential was(-35.5±-3.3) mV.SEM graphs show that the nanoparticles look round,and have smooth surfaces and uniform size distributions.The TFO encapsulation efficiency and drug loading percentage were(25.4±3.1)%(n=3) and(1.34±0.16) μg/mg,respectively.In vitro drug release study with TFO-NP-Apt,a sustained slow release was observed after an initial burst.A10 aptamer modified nanoparticles could penetrate into targeted LNCaP cells more efficiently,then inhibit the proliferation of cells.In this study,the targeted PLGA nanoparticles for gene delivery were prepared successfully.


The invention discloses self-compacting concrete and a manufacture method thereof. The self-compacting concrete comprises water, coarse grit, fine grit, cement, coal ash, steel fiber and a swelling agent. The self-compacting concrete further comprises a water reducer and silicon ash. The self-compacting concrete manufactured by the manufacture method has the advantages of low air bubble, high flow, micro expansion and good self-compaction performance, thereby being suitable for being constructed in complex terrain environment.


A hydrogen generation system for fuel cell hybrid electric vehicles (FCHEVs) which generates large amount of hydrogen rapidly by hydrolysis of powdery sodium tetrahydrob-orate (NaBH4) has been proposed and developed. The system has some problems; one of the problems is difficulty of controlling the supply amount of the hydrogen which is generated by the system to a fuel cell (FC) stack. This problem may cause the degradation of the FC or the imbalance of generated electrical power between each cell because of the continuous fluctuation of the hydrogen pressure at the stack under the rapid load variation. As a solution of the degradation of FC caused by specific frequency components in the output power of the FC stack, a control method of a multiple power converter to suppress the rapid variation of the stack output power and to absorb surplus or supply shortage of the power required by inverter was proposed. In this paper, it is verified in simulations and test runs using a prototype vehicle that the proposed control can suppress the specific components in the FC stack output power and improve the performance of the hydrogen pressure control.


A model for filament buckling at finite temperatures is presented. Starting from the classical worm-like chain model under constant compression, we use a mean-field approach for filament inextensibility to find the complete partition function. We find that there is a simple interpolation formula that describes the free energy of chains or filaments as a function of end-to-end separation, which spans the whole range of filament stiffnesses. Using this formula we study the buckling transition of semiflexible filaments and find that kinetics plays an important role. We propose that the filament buckling is essentially the first order-like transition governed by the kinetics of escaping a local free energy minimum. A simple model for the kinetics is put forward, which approximates the critical buckling force for a filament at non-zero temperatures. We find that the approximate value for the finite temperature buckling force is smaller that the zero temperature buckling force by a fraction that has a simple scaling with temperature.


The aim of the research is to identify challenges and obstacles to stronger and sustainable development of the Croatian agri-food sector in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and the European Green Plan, and the purpose of this paper is to design cross-sectoral measures to simultaneously increase the contribution of this sector to the national product, agri-food self-sufficiency, food security and eco system protection. Primary data were collected by methods of analysis, comparison and classification, while the design of proposed measures is based on methods of synthesis and descriptive logical modeling. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has not been curbed, the associated effects and challenges for the national agri-food sector have been recognized, as has the need for strong change in this sector. The short-term danger of shortages of basic agri-food products and "food insecurity" must not be repeated if national food self-sustainability is strengthened, all branches of agricultural production are self-sufficient, especially those with trade deficits, and sufficient food supplies and security of supply are ensured. The added value to sufficient and quality agricultural raw materials will increase through profitable and controlled investments in processing plants primarily financed by EU funds. Agricultural subsidies should belinked to increased production, but also to the accelerated development of digitalisation and web commerce and adaptation to new trends in consumer eating habits – eg local origin and "short chains" of food distribution, nutritional quality, positive environmental impact, fast meals for preparation at home, etc. Food production will also increase through strengthening synergies between the food, tourism and catering sectors, especially through branding, marketing and protection of indigenous food products.These products will strengthen the export potential of domestic producers and to some extent neutralize the negative influences of foreign retail chains. Reforms of the agri-food sector will have to be implemented in the context of the new challenges associated with the European Green Agenda. In addition to the environmental benefits of the green transition, the plan will have a strong impact on agri-food policy as it requires decarbonisation of production, reduction of pesticide and fertilizer use, afforestation and biodiversity protection, but can also increase production costs, raise prices, reduce demand, and weaken production and "food security."


The main objective of this paper is to find a minimal set of measures that allow the immediate, intuitive characterisation and visualization of the syntactic structure of models covering a particular application domain. The measures are validated against a test bed of twenty-two generic enterprise models. Traditional system engineering metrics were not very useful in characterizing or differentiating the different models. Instead, it was found that the frequency distribution of the entity fan-outs for each model provided a distinct model signature. Although the characteristics of these distributions are visually immediately apparent, traditional descriptive statistics for frequency distributions fail to capture the essential shape of fan-out distributions. This is due to their extreme skewness and the presence of extreme outliers. This paper proposes four summary statistics to describe the fan-out distributions, thus providing a compact and intuitive signature for a model: one categorical classification ('waves' and 'slides'), and three numeric metrics namely the harmonic mean fan-out (to replace the arithmetic mean), a smoothness/bumpiness value and a shape curvature coefficient.


Recently, our laboratory has been involved in a research program designed to assess the effect of variations in viewing conditions on performance, with several versions of the pseudoisochromatic (PIC) tests of color vision. This work could have strong implications for diabetologists, because several recent articles have addressed the utility of color-vision testing in the management of diabetic patients." PIC tests are generally assumed to be equivalent and hence interchangeable measures of color vision. It has been determined, however, that the performance of color-normal observers on several popular PIC tests is differentially affected by variations in exposure duration, viewing distance, and stimulus clarity. Long et al.' examined the effects of variations in viewing distance and duration on performance with three PIC tests used to detect congenital defects: the American Optical Corporation Pseudo-Isochromatic Plates for Testing Color Perception (AOC), the Dvorine Pseudo-Isochromatic Plates, and the Ishihara Tests for Colour-Blindness. They found that increasing viewing distance and decreasing viewing duration significantly increased the number of errors made by color-normal observers. In addition, the three tests were found to differ markedly between themselves, such that the AOC and Dvorine tests produced significantly more misdiagnoses than the Ishihara test. In a second experiment, Long et al. found that decreasing stimulus clarity (by imposing target blur) generally produced more errors. However, the effects of both experimental manipulations were not equivalent across the three tests, with the AOC and Dvorine adversely affected and the Ishihara relatively insensitive to the manipulations. Recently, we extended this line of research to two tests developed to screen for acquired deficiencies in addition to congenital defects: The City University Colour Vision Test (CUCVT) and the Standard Pseudoisochromatic Plates (Part 2, for Acquired Color Vision Defects) (SPP-A). The findings from these studies are particularly interesting to diabetologists because at least two recent articles suggested that a large percentage of patients with diabetes may suffer from acquired color defects. Results from our work with colornormal subjects indicate that the CUCVT is adversely affected by variations in viewing distance >46 cm. The SPPA appears to be especially sensitive to the manipulations of both viewing distance and exposure duration (unpublished observations). Under a 76-cm viewing condition, 100% of the color-normal subjects produced at least one error on the SPP-A and would be misdiagnosed as color defective. Even under the conditions specified exactly by the test publishers, 90% of the subjects produced some errors on the SPP-A. The combined results of the studies described above strongly indicate that these PIC tests are not equivalent measures of color vision under a range of conditions likely to be encountered in applied settings. The findings clearly demonstrate the need for careful selection of the tests that assess color vision of diabetic patients. We recommend that the Ishihara test be used to screen for congenital defects, because this test is relatively impervious to variations in viewing conditions. Bresnick et al. have noted that, given the incidence of congenital defects in the general population (8 10% of men), it seems likely that some diabetic patients will exhibit this form of color-vision deficiency. Thus, screening patients for congenital defects seems warranted. The selection of a reliable PIC measure to assess acquired deficiencies may be more difficult. In addition to our findings, other investigators have reported that several of the PIC tests available for screening tritan defects often yield inconsistent data and demonstrate poor diagnostic sensitivity for acquired defects when used in evaluating color-defective individuals. Therefore, we recommend that diabetologists employ a small battery of tests. The value of a diverse test battery is that testing with a variety of color-vision measures allows examiners to determine more accurately the color-discriminative ability of the patients under evaluation, while effectively avoiding any weaknesses idiosyncratic to a single test. Such a battery could include multiple PIC measures of both congenital and acquired defects. Furthermore, perhaps a very different type of test should also be included in this battery. The Farnsworth D-15 test is a color-arrangement test (rather than a PIC measure) and may not be susceptible to the same kind of variations in viewing conditions. However, additional research is necessary to identify the most effective components of this battery.


The invention discloses a computer fault detection device and a detection and maintenance method. The computer fault detection device comprises a detection control master board, wherein a system main processor, a master board power supply detection interface, an SATA power supply detection interface, an IDE power supply detection interface, an IDE/SATA power supply indicating lamp group, a temperature display screen and a master board detection information screen are arranged on the detection control master board, the temperature display screen is connected with a temperature probe, and the master board detection information screen is connected with a master board diagnosis card. The method comprises the steps of utilizing the power supply detection interfaces of the device to detect a host machine power supply and detecting a CPU, an internal memory and the master board of a computer through the master board diagnosis card and further comprises the steps of displayer detection, display card detection and hard disk detection. The computer fault detection device and the detection and maintenance method can help people to quickly find reasons of computer faults and remove the faults and shorten the computer maintenance time.


The potential health benefits of Foeniculum vulgare (FV), commonly known as fennel, is related to the treatment of cardiovascular disease, digestive disorders, carminative, diuretic, etc. The present study was carried out to evaluate F. vulgare plant as new source of natural bioactive molecules having antioxidant potential and DNA damage protection activity caused by reactive oxygen species (ROS). Among ethanol, methanol, hexane, chloroform, butanol, acetone and aqueous extracts, ethanol extract of mature F. vulgare plant leaf showed the highest total phenolic content (TPC; 44.11 mg of gallic acid equivalent (GAE)/g) and the lowest inhibitory concentration (IC50) for free radical scavenging activity (FRSA) (1.95 mg/ml), superoxide anion radical scavenging activity (SARSA) (7.02 mg/ml) and hydroxyl radical scavenging activity (23.53 mg/ml). Methanol and hexane extracts had the lowest IC50 for lipid peroxidation (LPO) (9.68 mg/ml) and ferric thiocyanate assay (FTC) (0.92 mg/ml), respectively. Ethanol extracts showed the highest reducing power (RP, 1.22 ascorbic acid equivalent (ASE)/ml) proving itself to be the best solvent. In further studies, the antioxidant activity at early and mature stages of plant was compared. Ethanol extract of mature F. vulgare leaf had the highest TPC and maximum percentage inhibition for FRSA, SARSA, RP, LPO, FTC, hydroxyl radical scavenging activity and had maximum protection against  DNA damage in pBR322 plasmid. Results showed that F. vulgare is a rich source of many biomolecules having antioxidant activities and showed potential utility of mature plant for use in herbal drug system or as nutritional supplement.

 Key words: Total phenolic content, antioxidant, reducing power, herbal drug.


Most literature about cooperative diversity focus on ad-hoc networks. In this paper, we study cooperative diversity in cellular networks. Our work is based upon virtual antenna arrays (VAA). We show that VAA is superior not only in maximum mutual information but also in outage probability performance. We also propose a distributed method to select multiple relay mobile terminals (MTs) in opportunistic way.


PURPOSE: A multi-axis geocomposite and a method for manufacturing the same are provided to predict exterior change as well mechanical property change of the multi-axis geocomposite. CONSTITUTION: A multi-axis geocomposite is fabricated by stitching a woven fabric layer(30) which are alternately arranged with a non-woven fabric layer at angles of 0, 90, and +/- theta degrees. The non-woven fabric layer is fabricated by integrating a first non-woven fabric layer(10) of a melt blown method and a second non-woven fabric(20) of a needle punching method.


In order to study testing methods and find sensitive parameters in total dose effects on SRAM-based FPGA,XC2S100 chips were irradiated by 60Co γ-rays and tested with two test circuit designs.By analyzing the experimental results,the test flow of configuration RAM and bock RAM was given,and the most sensitive parameter was obtained.The results will be a solid foundation for establishing test specification and evaluation methods of total dose effects on SRAM-based FPGAs.


We analyze the efficiency properties of the negligence rule with liability insurance, when the tort-feasor's behavior is imperfectly observable both by the insurer and the court. Efficiency is shown to depend on the extent to which the evidence is informative, on the evidentiary standard for finding negligence, and on whether insurance contracts can condition directly on the same evidence as used by courts to assess behavior. When evidence is not directly contractible, the negligence rule with compensatory damages is generally inefficient and can be improved by decoupling liability from the harm suffered by the victim.


AST and JONES (1919) and CASTLE (1930) reviewed the significant experiE ments with plants and laboratory animals that contributed to the formulation of the modern viewpoints concerning the effects of inbreeding. The phenomena associated with inbreeding: decline in vigor, increased uniformity within the inbred stock, increased prepotency in outside crosses, isolation of abnormal types, etc., were shown to be consequences of the increase in the proportion of homozygous gene pairs. While the inbreeding results obtained with laboratory animals are believed by geneticists to apply to cattle in a general way, such beliefs, representing, as they do, an extrapolation to relatively unknown genetic material, must of necessity be tentative until a sufficient number of adequately controlled experiments dealing with the effects of inbreeding upon cattle have been reported. The literature dealing with inbreeding experiments with cattle covers only the last two decades and is not extensive. This situation is understandable since perfectly regular inbreeding systems are not feasible for cattle. Furthermore, economic considerations and the relatively great time intervals between generations (four to five years) hamper the design of adequately controlled experiments. These obstacles have been materially reduced within the last three decades by means of improved statistical techniques and by WRIGHT'S (1922) publication of a method of calculating the coefficient of inbreeding which is strictly proportional to the probable loss in heterozygosis as a result of inbreeding alone. This inbreeding coefficient can be calculated for pedigrees exhibiting any degree of irregularity. In general, the reported experiments dealing with the effect of inbreeding upon various size characteristics in dairy cattle have suggested that inbreeding exerts a depressing affect upon these characteristics. WOODWARD and GRAVES (1933) found that intense inbreeding of grade Guernsey and grade Holstein-Friesian cattle caused a decrease in birthweight, a retardation in the growth rate of calves, and a reduction in mature weight. However, the reduction in mature weight was not proportionally as great as


Recently, an interesting meta-analysis concerning the risk of cancer in patients submitted to I administration for diagnosis or therapy of benign thyroid diseases has been published by Hieu and co-workers. These authors examined seven studies including 22,029 exposed subjects in the therapeutic cohorts and 24,799 in the diagnostic cohorts, summarizing data on 64 different organs or organ group subsets. Outcome was pooled as the relative risk (RR) using both standard and bias adjusted methods. While no increase in the overall burden of cancer was observed, a higher and significant risk for kidney (RR 1.70, 95%CI: 1.15-2.51) and thyroid cancer (RR: 1.99, 95%CI: 1.22-3.26) was demonstrable in the group of patients submitted to I administration.


WEDNESDAY, 26 JUNE – For the development of seaweed in Malaysia, Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) through the Seaweed Research Unit (UPRL) in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and AgroBased Industry, Fisheries Department Malaysia and the Federal Agricultural Marketing Authority – FAMA) had taken a proactive step to organise a seminar on Entrepreneurship and Marketing of Seaweed Products Serie 1 for the year 2013.


As an important component of the tokamak, divertor is mainly responsible for extracting heat and helium ash, and the targets of the divertor need to withstand high heat flux of 10 MW/m2 for steady-state operation. In this work, we proposed a new strategy, using microchannel cooling technology to remove high heat load on the targets of the divertor. The results demonstrated that the microchannel-based W/Cu flat-type mock-up survived successfully the thermal fatigue test of 1000 cycles at 10 MW/m2 with the cooling water of 26 L/min, 30 °C (inlet), 0.8 MPa (inlet), 15 s power on and 15 s dwell time; the maximum temperature on the heat loaded surface (W surface) of the mock-up was 493 °C, which is much lower than the recrystallization temperature of W (1200 °C). Moreover, no occurrence of macrocrack and 'hot spot' at the W surface, as well as no detachment of W/Cu tiles were observed during the thermal fatigue testing. These results indicate that microchannel cooling technology is an efficient method for removing the heat load of the divertor at a low flow rate. The present study offers a promising solution to replace the monoblock design for the EAST divertor.


Li xMO2 (M= Mn, Ni, Co) composite materials with layered structures have received attention as hi gh-capacity, low cost, and safe cathode materials for lithium-ion batteries [1]. The conventional synthesis method for these materials is co-precipitation, which has challenges associated with scale up [2] . Therefore a spray pyrolysis synthesis was developed by this group as a scalable, low cost production method [3]. Due to the formation mechanism of the particles, the product contains hollow spheres, which cause low bulk density [4-5]. Recently, Washington University in St. Louis and X-Tend Energy, LLC developed a scaledup spray pyrolysis process for the synthesis of non-hollow, solid lithium transition metal oxide materials [6]. The method at present is capable of producing high quality battery materials at close to 50 gram/hour scale. In the present study layered Li xMO2 (M= Mn, Ni, Co) materials, spinel LiMn 2O4 and similar oxides are produced and their electrochemical properties discussed: Fig. 1 shows the XRD spectrum of Li 1.2Mn0.53Ni0.13Co0.13O2. The material is phase pure and the spectrum is typical for the Li 1.2Mn0.53Ni0.13Co0.13O2 material. Fig. 2 shows the cycle performance of Li 1.2Mn0.53Ni0.13Co0.13O2 at C/10 and C/3 rate. The material displays capacities in excess of 200 mAhg-1 after 100 cycles at 22°C. The results indicate that the material synthesized by flame assisted spray pyrolysis demonstrate excellent electrochemical performance and the method is a promising technique for synthesizing battery cathode materials in a scalable process .


Wheel hub unite is an important component in the vehicle system,and its mechanic performance of wheel hub unite directly determines the security of vehicle.Using accurate and rational finite element analysis of the wheel hub mechanic properties,the designers can optimize the design of wheel,secure the strength,cut down experiment number and reduce the design time.Based on the a first generation wheel hub unite,a simulation of stress field was made under rotary fatigue conditions by finite element software ANSYS with parameters finite element method,stress field distribution of wheel hub were acquired,which can provide the important design guide for wheel design engineers.


NOD‐like receptors are a family of pattern recognition receptors that plays a role in the control of inflammation and have been associated with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Na+/H+ exchangers (NHE) are responsible for the net uptake of sodium, electrolyte homeostasis and decreases in pHi during inflammatory process.


The cable system (2) is towed behind the ship (1), which is equipped with a depth sounding sensor (2). The cable is lowered to the sea bed, so that the electrodes (A, B, M, N) are in contact with the top layer of the sea bed. Voltage signals applied to the end electrodes (A, B) result in currents between the intermediate electrodes (M, N). The resultant current depends on the resistivity of the sea bed. The current signals are analyzed as the cable is towed along the bed.


The availability of the literature of the law, an aspect of legal culture rarely considered in twentieth century Canadian commentary on the 'reception' of imperial laws, must have had a great deal to do with the way that sources of law informed and reflected the developing jural values, doctrine, and methodology of the British North American provinces. Yet locally-prevalent versions of legal positivism, which find expression in formalistic, contemporary constitutional scholarship on transferral issues, have tended to suppress or render irrelevant inquiries into the way that such intellectual forces as law books actually affected the development of the legal culture of Upper Canada/Ontario.


The effect of phosphate rock quality on the production of wet process phosphoric acid, including crystallization and filtration of phosphogypsum, concentration and postprecipitation of the acid is summarized., Some measures for its treatment are proposed.


The collapse of a tailings dam of a Pb-Zn mine, caused by a storm in 1978, resulted in severe heavy metals contamination in the valley downstream the mine, located in the Guangxi Province, southwest of China. The metals still pose a risk to the adjacent fragile karst environment. Especially, the potential for leaching of the heavy metals to the adjacent environment is of concern due to the high average annual precipitation of >1500 mm in the subtropical climate. Previous studies have classified areas of the valley as slightly (SP), moderately (MP) or heavily polluted (HP) based on heavy metals content (Pb, Cd, As, Cu, Zn) of the upper 20 cm of the soils. We analysed soil and sediment profiles up to 2 m deep, obtained in areas of the three pollutions levels, for basic chemical and physical parameters including pH, total organic carbon (TOC), soil moisture, particle size, total metals concentrations (Pb, Zn, Cd, and Cu), and δ18O and δ2H of soil moisture. Further, we measured the δ34S of soil extractable sulphate, and the content of chromium-reducible sulphur (CRS) and soluble sulphates (SS), to investigate the link between sulphur cycling and heavy metals mobilization. Today, four decades after the dam collapse, heavy metal concentrations are still highly elevated in the valley. In the HP profile concentrations of Pb, Cd, Cu and Zn range between 800–8120, 8–132, 156–616, and 2647–12250 mg/kg, respectively, between surface and 2 m depth. Concentrations of CRS in the HP profile of 287–5530 mg/kg were observed, while no CRS could be extracted from the SP and MP soil profiles. The δ34S-SO42- of the HP profile (0.4‰–16.0‰) matches values previously measured in the original tailing. The matching δ34S-SO42- and elevated CRS values of the HP profile indicate that the valley contains thick deposits (up to at least a 2 meters) of resettled tailings sediments of the original upstream tailings dam. However, these sediments are clayey, with >50%wt being <0.002 mm in particle size, allowing only a slow advective water and solute movement to or from (leaching) the sediment. A currently low, yet possibly significant(!), heavy metals leaching is further indicated by the only slightly acidic pH (6-6.5) which indicate a lack of oxygen intrusion into the sediments and reaction with the CRS content. Also, the HP profile had soluble sulphate concentrations of 532–1156 mg S/kg which were reasonably comparable to the values measured in the less polluted areas, implying a history without large amounts of CRS oxidation. Further, Pb and Cu concentration in the HP profile shows a continuous (high) distribution vs. depth which also suggests a history without extremely low pH. Finally, deuterium-excess values can be interpreted as showing diffusive, rather than advective, water and solute movement. While, accordingly, the heavy metals currently appear relatively well stabilized towards leaching, any management that increases oxygen intrusion or water exchange will impose a high risk of immediate and severe environmental pollution to the adjacent aqueous environment.


Zigbee networks can be found in a wide range of smart environments that incorporate low-power devices to report sensed events and accept actuation commands wirelessly. However, there is a lack of open-source software tools that consumers can use to monitor their Zigbee networks and ensure that they remain secure. There are several attacks that malicious users can launch against Zigbee networks that would go unnoticed by their network administrators if they are not making use of an appropriate network security monitoring system, which is especially concerning in cases where the Zigbee devices have critical capabilities such as unlocking doors. In this work we introduce the architecture of a distributed system for monitoring the security of Zigbee networks, called HiveGuard. Additionally, we present an energy depletion attack against battery-powered Zigbee devices that we use to test the monitoring capabilities of our prototype implementation. We show that it is possible for an outside attacker to completely deplete the energy of commercial Zigbee devices that are powered by one 3-volt CR2450 lithium battery in less than 16 hours. Our prototype implementation of HiveGuard successfully generated an alert for each attack that we launched and provided additional information about the operation of the Zigbee network for further inspection. We are publicly releasing the source code that we wrote and the packets that we captured during our experiments in order to enable researchers to closely examine our prototype implementation and study novel intrusion detection techniques for Zigbee networks.


In order to evaluate the effect of zinc sulfate on acne vulgaris, this study was performed during 3 months' period from October, 1979 to December 31, 1979. Total number of acne patients visited at the Department of Dermatology, Han Gang Sung Shim Hospital were 130, but among them 58 patients had completed this atudy. The patients were classified in 3 groups, A, B, C, as follows. Group A (23 patients) who were treated with zinc sulfate (600mg/day) and 2. 5% benzoyl peroxide
Group B (20 patients) who were treated with tetracycline (initial: 750mg/day,
after 2weeks: 500rng/day) and 2. 5% benzoyl peroxide.
Group C (15 patients) who were treated with only 2. 5% benzoyl peroxide. To evaluate the efficacy of treatment in these 3 groups, the number of open comedone, closed comedone, papule and pustule were counted every other week for 8 weeks.
(countiuned..)


A kind of codeword synchronisation scheme in decoding adder channel CCMA sequence is presented. By making use of the correlation between adjacent added codewords and the shifting properties of the received sequence, the scheme can provide very good codeword synchronisation information about the received data stream. Simulated results in various noisy environments show that the scheme is very effective.


With the increasing data processing ability of System-on-Chip (SoC), real-time systems are more and more implemented by off-chip interconnection architecture, which is small in size. Meanwhile, real-time applications demand time-triggered communication. Therefore, it is important to find a routing and scheduling approach for time-triggered messages in off-chip interconnection architecture. To achieve trade-offs between the cost of routing and scheduling while meeting the requirements of Time-Triggered Ethernet (TTE) is the main challenge for real-time communication. In this paper, we propose a scheduling and routing synthesis using an immune algorithm that is suitable for off-chip interconnection architecture. Given a set of time-triggered messages and the topology of the off-chip network, this approach is able to provide feasible routing and scheduling solutions which guarantee the schedulability of messages in off-chip time-triggered communication. Evaluation results show that the proposed approach can ensure the schedulability of all messages when the load of the network reaches 0.9, and achieves a significant improvement in runtime compared with approaches that do not consider synthesized optimization.


It is well documented that both quantitative and qualitative changes in the murine hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) population occur with age. In mice, the effect of aging on stem cells is highly strain-specific, thus suggesting genetic regulation plays a role in HSC aging. We have previously mapped a quantitative trait locus (QTL) to murine Chr 2 that is associated with the variation in frequency of HSCs between aged B6 and D2 mice. In C57BL/6 (B6) mice the HSC population steadily increases with age, whereas in DBA/2 mice, this population declines. A QTL regulating the natural variation in lifespan between the two strains was mapped to the same location on mouse Chr 2, thus leading to the hypothesis that stem cell function affects longevity. B6 alleles, associated with expansion of the stem cell pool, are also associated with a ~50% increase in lifespan. Using a congenic mouse model, in which D2 alleles in the QTL interval were introgressed onto a B6 background, genome wide gene expression analyses were performed using sorted lineage negative hematopoietic cells, which are enriched for primitive stem and progenitor cells. Three variables were examined using Affymetrix M430 arrays:

1. the effect of strain--congenic versus background;

2. the effect of age--2 months versus 22 months; and

3. the effects of 2 Gy of radiation because previous studies indicated that congenic animals were highly sensitive to the effects of mild radiation compared to B6 background animals.

Extensive analysis of the expression arrays pointed to a single strong candidate, the gene encoding ribosome binding protein 1 (Rrbp1). Real-time PCR was used to validate the differential expression of Rrbp1 in lineage negative, Sca-1+, c-kit+ (LSK) cells, a population highly enriched for stem and progenitor cells. Further analysis revealed the presence eight non-synonymous, coding single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and at least one of them because of its location and nature may significantly alter protein structure and function. The Rrbp1 gene consists of 23 exons in mouse and is highly conserved among mammalian species including mouse, human, and canine. The Rrbp1 protein is present on the surface of the rough endoplasmic reticulum where it tethers ribosomes to the membrane, stabilizes mRNA transcripts, and mediates translocation of nascent proteins destined for the cell secretory pathway. It is well established that the interaction of HSCs with microenvironmental niches in the bone marrow is crucial for their maintenance and self-renewal, and that this interaction is mediated in part by the molecular repertoires displayed on the cell surfaces of both HSCs and niche stromal cells. Therefore, we hypothesize that age and strain specific variation in Rrbp1, through its role in the secretory pathway, affects the molecular repertoire at the cell surface of the HSC, thus altering the way stem cells interact with their niches. This altered microenvironmental interaction could have profound effects on fundamental properties relevant to stem cell aging such as pluripotency, self-renewal, and senescence.


Combined with practical work the advantages of partial prestressed concrete structure and its specifications on concrete are elaborated.Detailed introduction is also made on the design principle of partial prestressed concrete plate as well as calculation steps.Author points out that large partial prestressed concrete plate structure can reduce the storey height with so many advantages: convenient in construction,safe and reliable,which is worthy of being popularized.


The preparation of PLZT ceramics via mechanical alloying was studied. The result shows that PLZT powders can be synthesized via high energy ball milling for 5h with nano-TiO2 powders, while only very weak PLZT peak can be found from the XRD pattern of the oxide mixtures milled for 30 h without nano-TiO2 powders. So nano TiO2 particles are very important to synthesize PLZT powders via mechanical alloying. High density PLZT ceramics were obtained by using the ball milled powders by sintering from 1000 to 1200℃. Piezoelectric and ferroelectric measurement results of the sintered PLZT ceramics were comparable with the values reported in the literature for the same composition.


The article is an overview of the key provisions of the Guidelines for the diagnosis of Cushing's syndrome, developed by the Society for Endocrinology United States (2008). After excluding exogenous glucocorticoid use, this guide recommends testing for Cushing's syndrome in patients with multiple and progressive features compatible with the syndrome, and patients with adrenal incidentaloma. It is recommend initial use of one test with high diagnostic accuracy (urine cortisol, late night salivary cortisol, 1 mg overnight or 2 mg 48-h dexamethasone suppression test).


On the basis of the approach suggested by the authors and resting on functional characteristics of pedogenic organic substance the content of humus is determined in soil heaps of coal-mining sections reclaimed following different technologies. It is shown that the distribution of nitrogen-containing organic substances across the profile reflects the specificity of organic substances transformation systems in the soils examined. This index is the most reliable in estimating the content of humus in initial embryoearths where nitrogen consumption by plants is minimum and in humus-accumulative ones where pedogenic organic substance is deposited. The humus content increase is revealed in the evolutionary series of soils, on average, from 2.4% in the initial soils to 3.6 and 4.2% in organ-accumulative and cespitose soils, respectively, the 4.7% increase being marked in humus-accumulative embryoearths. The content of humus in embryoearths is identified to depend much more on reclamation technology applied and soil formation stage, the same content depends much less on organic substances system status inherited from soil formation rocks.


Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry with selected ion monitoring (GC/MS SIM) was evaluated for 53 pesticides by selecting multiple characteristic target ions for all the pesticides. These pesticides could be assayed simultaneously and effectively by GC/MS (SIM). In the final clean up, most of the pesticides were concentrated in the n-hexane/acetone (17: 3) eluate from a Florisil column. This approach seems effective for simple multi-residue analysis of pesticides in foods. (Received April 11, 1994)


As a result of increased utilization of the forest resources in Canada and large losses to forest fires, insects and diseases natural regeneration has been found to be inadequate and artificial regeneration by seeding and planting has been developed on a large scale during the past 30 years. This expansion of the reforestation program has provided the stimulus for the development of tree improvement programs in all 10 provinces. The role and cooperation of federal and provincial organizations, forest industries and universities in research and development is described.


Based on the widely used CNKI full text database and the famous English date bank Elsevier Science throughout the country, this paper aims at comparing the received content, report time difference, easy serviceability and readability, and puts forward the suggestion on the construction of the network full text database.


The purpose of this study is to explore factors that impact use of the internet for information search. Drawing from transaction cost analysis, technology adoption model and trust literatures, we propose a model explaining use of the internet for information search. An empirical investigation involving 291 consumers reveals significant impact of Medium Specific Investment (MSI) and trust on perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness. Both perceived ease of use and usefulness significantly impact use of the internet for information search. Managerial implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.


Conventional wisdom suggests that individual members of Congress have no real incentive to act in ways that might improve public evaluations of their collective body. In particular, the literature provides no clear evidence that public evaluations of Congress affect individual races for Congress, and little reason to expect that voters would hold specific individuals responsible for the institution's performance. We suggest that this conventional wisdom is incorrect. Using multiple state-level exit polls of Senate voting conducted by Voter News Service in 1996 and 1998, we arrive at two key findings. First, we find that evaluations of Congress do have a significant effect on voting within individual U.S. Senate races across a wide variety of electoral contexts. Second, we find that punishments or rewards for congressional performance are not distributed equally across all members, or even across members of a particular party. Instead, we find that the degree to which citizens hold a senator accountable for congressional performance is significantly influenced by that senator's actual level of support for the majority party in Congress, as demonstrated on party votes.


Chloroamidinium salts and α-amino alcohols derived from commercially available tetraalkyl ureas and α-amino acids, respectively, can be used for the syntheses of optically active 2-(N,N-dialkylamino)oxazolines in moderate to excellent yields without any catalyst. It is a simple and mild method for the syntheses of optically active oxazolines


We present new truly multidimensional schemes of higher order within the framework of finite volume evolution Galerkin (FVEG) methods for systems of nonlinear hyperbolic conservation laws. These methods couple a finite volume formulation with approximate evolution operators. The latter are constructed using the bicharacteristics of the multidimensional hyperbolic system, such that all of the infinitely many directions of wave propagation are taken into account. Following our previous results for the wave equation system, we derive approximate evolution operators for the linearized Euler equations. The integrals along the Mach cone and along the cell interfaces are evaluated exactly, as well as by means of numerical quadratures. The influence of these numerical quadratures will be discussed. Second-order resolution is obtained using a conservative piecewise bilinear recovery and the midpoint rule approximation for time integration. We prove error estimates for the finite volume evolution Galerkin scheme for linear systems with constant coefficients. Several numerical experiments for the nonlinear. Euler equations, which confirm the accuracy and good multidimensional behavior of the FVEG schemes, are presented as well.


Abstract The Complexity Index method is an approach developed to help manufacturing companies quantify complexity in production. This paper sheds light on the connection between complexity and manufacturing problems and how the Complexity Index method was used to capture the areas in a production line with high levels of complexity to determine the sources of manufacturing problems related to labour time, surplus production, and manufacturing error. The main areas perceived as complex were due to Work Instructions, Work Content, and Product Variants. The perceived complexities were assessed for proper actions to be taken to decrease their level of complexity. The correlations between complexity and manufacturing problems were used for tracking related issues and ways for improvement. This study presents data on the use of workers' perception to uncover the areas of complexity, which could be used by the management team to pragmatically capture difficulties and issues related to manufacturing problems to improve the production system.


This study tested the impact of Function Focused Care for Assisted Living Using the Evidence Integration Triangle (FFC‐AL‐EIT) on: (1) care interactions between residents and direct care staff; and (2) behavior and psychological symptoms associated with dementia among residents.


Load Balancing means to distribute the load among the processors to improve the performance of a parallel and distributed system. This project presents a new fuzzy algorithm for dynamic load balancing in distributed environment. This approach characterizes the uncertainty in a distributed system by using the fuzzy set theory , fuzzy control methods and presents a fuzzy based distributed load balancing algorithm that explicitly reflects the effect of uncertainty in the decision making process. The notion of the linguistic variables is used to model the sender and receiver node. In this we have taken the two input variables, 'load' and 'number of heavy load nodes' and one output variable 'status of load balance node'. On the basis of decision rules we have concluded the status of load balance node i.e. whether the node is receiver or sender. The decision rules have implemented on the MATLAB. Then the system model is created on network simulation software. Simulation results show the response time.


Manual service disconnect device battery system (106) includes a receptacle (128) disconnect header having a housing (122) defining the (110), a high-current terminal connector in the receptacle (130), high in the receptacle a voltage interlock (HVIL) connector (132) includes a control device terminal connector in the receptacle (134). Disconnect the plug (112) is removably coupled to the disconnect header. Disconnect the plug has a HVIL shunt terminal electrically connected to the high current fuse and HVIL connector electrically connected to the high-current terminal connector (138). Current power control device (136) is received within the receptacle, it is electrically connected to the control device terminal connector. Current power control device is exposed to service the disconnect plug is removed from the disconnect header, the current power control device becomes inaccessible when disconnect the plug is coupled to the disconnect header.


To record the correction data for canceling the offset of the tip to the tip holder 10 as a two-dimensional code. The chips stocker 31 in addition to the multi-head mounted scribing device, code reader 32, provided the robot 33. If required chip exchange, locate the desired chip from the code reader 32, it is attached to the scribe head by the robot 33 is corrected by entering the offset data. In this way the multi-head mounted scribing device in which a plurality mounted scribing head comprises a tip holder, the tip replacement and management can be easily performed. Also it is possible to automatically replace the tip holder, it is possible to automate the complicated adjustment work involving the replacement.


Electron Cyclotron Resonance Ion Sources (ECRISs) are widely used for many practical purposes. We are aiming at synthesizing iron-endohedral fullerene by collision reaction in vapor phase on an ECRIS. We have already succeeded in producing multiply charged fullerene ions by using fullerene evaporator in the ECRIS. In the collision reaction method for fullerene ions and iron ions, other impurities ions must be reduced. In this paper we describe the experimental results that the impurities in ion beams were decreased by using the gettering effect of Ti evaporation. We also investigated the dependence of fullerene ion beam currents on He, Ar, and Xe gas pressures. We are planning to conduct experiments to synthesize iron-endohedral fullerene with these gasses using in the ECR plasma.


4-Chlorocinnoline 1-oxide (III), 4-chlorocinnoline 2-oxide (IV), 4-methoxycinnoline 1-oxide (IX), 4-methoxycinnoline 2-oxide (X), 4-ethoxycinnoline 2-oxide (VIII), 4-hydroxycinnoline 1-oxide (XI), and 4-hydroxycinnoline 2-oxide (XII) were synthesized. By treating with methyl iodide, 4-hydroxycinnoline 2-oxide gave X, while 4-hydroxycinnoline 1-oxide gave IX, and 1-methoxy-4 (1H)-cinnolinone. In the N-oxidation of 4-chlorocinnoline and 4-methoxycinnoline, the yields of 2-oxides were much more compared with those of 1-oxides.


Abstract This study aims to explain the role of the economic dimension of Iran's foreign policy toward Iraq between 2003 and 2020. The study shows that after the U.S. occupation of Iraq in 2003, there were fundamental shifts in the structure of Iraqi power and identity and a change in geopolitics in the Middle East. The structure of political actors in power has shifted from Arab Sunni-Shiite to Shiite-Kurdish, and this has led to the transformation of Iraqi identity from an Arab-Sunni political identity to Iranian Shiite identity, providing Iran with an opportunity for influence and strengthening its regional role in Iraq. The study has concluded that since 2003, Iran has been able to expand its dominance over the Iraqi regime and the country's economy through its firm policy in Iraq by signing agreements and contracts in various productive sectors that guarantee a considerable share of Iraq's sovereign wealth.


NSERC (I2I and Discovery Grants), OMAFRA (KTT Grant) and CDN (NSERC-CRD grant). Graduate training was supported by an Ontario Graduate Scholarship, an OVC Graduate Program Scholarship, an award from the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI), and stipends provided by Dr. B. Mallard.


Kemmerer provides a brief but thorough review of the semantic categories and distinctions that are found in a variety of classifier systems in the world's languages, and rightly argues that any hypotheses about the cognitive neuroscientific basis of human categorisation must be based on a truly species-wide understanding of human grammatical categorisation devices, that is, classifiers. Kemmerer shows that many patterns are universal, that is, recurrent across languages, while others are language specific. However, there are two other elements of the typology of classifiers that should be taken into consideration, although they have not been as much explored in typology. The first is that the universal, or cross-linguistically recurrent, semantic categories are specific to particular types of classifiers, or more properly classifier constructions (Croft, 1994). The second is that grammatical classifier constructions must be understood in their historical context: what their origins are, and how they spread into other grammatical constructions. This comment will briefly discuss these two elements and their potential significance for cognitive neuroscience. Kemmerer divides classifiers into several types, based largely on Aikhenvald's (2000) descriptive survey of classifier systems. I will start by focusing on three types: noun classes, numeral classifiers, and possessive classifiers; I describe the semantic categories found for each classifier across languages, and some of the historical processes that may obscure the semantic patterns. Noun classes are quite common cross-linguistically, and typically inflectional. The inflections occur on noun modifiers, particularly adjectives and demonstrative modifiers. The inflections often do not occur on nouns, although the nouns control the classification. Historically, they often arise from definite articles, which in turn derive from demonstratives; the articles or demonstratives themselves are differentiated by noun class. In other words, noun class markers are typically highly grammaticalised, even in their historical origin. More highly grammaticalised categories tend to converge on a small number of semantic distinctions. In the case of noun classes, they are typically distinctions of sex and animacy: male human, female human, and nonhuman, typically divided into animal and other, the latter sometimes also divided into plant and other natural categories such as body parts, artefacts, and liquids/substances. Systems without a sex distinction are much rarer than those with one (Kemmerer mentions one such system, the Dravidian system with "rational" [human] and "nonrational" [nonhuman] classes). Another characteristic of highly grammaticalised systems is that they are often semantically less transparent. For example, most noun class systems in Western European languages are semantically quite idiosyncratic for nonhuman referents. In most cases, the process by which the semantically coherent sex/animacy system has broken down is not transparent. However, in some languages, the semantic motivation for the change in classification is still transparent (see in particular Dixon, 1968). We assume that the nonrecoverable motivations for semantic change are of the same type as the recoverable motivations. The semantic motivations follow certain principles. First, at least the highest animacy entities are assigned semantically to the grammatical class or gender. With few exceptions, male humans are masculine, female humans are feminine, and in systems without a sex distinction, humans are in the human class. One common exception is that sexually immature humans (infants and children) are often placed in a nonhuman grammatical class. Second, the higher animacy grammatical classes are extended to lower animacy (nonhuman or inanimate) referents. This is why masculine and feminine genders are found with inanimate referents. Where recoverable, the semantic shifts are familiar ones from other types


In the present study, two procedures of capacity-yield are applied to estimate the reliability of Dokan reservoir using data generation techniques. These procedures are the probability matrix (Gould) procedure, and the behavior analysis. Vulnerability, and resilience, are also calculated in the second procedure .The data is generated by using four approaches ,namely ,Thomas-Fiering model with log –transformation (TF-log), Two-Tier model (TTM), modified Two-Tier model (MTTM) and modified Fragment model (MFM).These models are tested and compared with the historical data. It is concluded that among these four procedures the Thomas-Fiering model with log –transformation is the most appropriate for representing the Dokan reservoir inflow .Three factors are examined to determine their influence on the minimum storage estimate .These are the length of stochastically generated sequence, the initial state of storage ,and the starting month. The results reported here show that sequences as long as 10,000 years or more may be needed to minimize the effects of these factors.


Abstract : Frequency-sweep vibration tests generally are conducted with a sweep rate that varies directly with the test frequency. The object is to pass through every resonance in the frequency range in such a manner that equal times are spent in each resonant bandwidth. The underlying assu ption is that the average Q (transmissibility) of the resonances may be considered the same through the entire frequency range of interest. It is argued that, in tests which employ a constant level of acceleration control, the average Q actually must increase with an increase in resonant frequency. Therefore, a suitable sweep rate must be one which changes with a fractional power of the test frequency, rather than with the first power. (Author)


Quyuan is a great poet in Chinese poetry history. His works presents his seeking for social justice and show his patriotic passion in inspiring feelings, exposes many social problems in his unique artistic style and his linguistic style. His works both shows his high personality charm and remains the valuable spiritual wealth for later genecations.


The larvae of the Korean bullhead, Pseudobagrus fulvidraco were satiated with the food uptake equivalent to 13 % of its body weight and required 2.5, 11 and 15 hrs to digest 50, 90 and 100% of the consumed food. The juveniles were satiated with food equivalent to 0.65% of its body weight and required 9 and 19 hrs to digest 50 and 90% of the consumer. Apparently, daily food intake perceptibly decrease with the larvae grew to juvenile stage. Both larvae (8.3-14.0 ㎜ TL) and juvenile (41.1-65.7 ㎜ TL) tend to feed frequently than to get satiated once a day and appeared to be nocturnal feeders.


The report to the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China marked ecological civilization as one of the five progresses of the overall approach of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and proposed all regions should pursue development in strict accordance with the functional zoning strategy. Based on the conception and characteristics, the signifi cance and management requirement of the red line were analyzed. Shenzhen city is cited to illustrate the institutional construction of ecological red line. Ecological red line is the strictest lifeline to protect the ecology. Drawing and implementing ecological red line is a key breach for ecological civilization construction. To implement ecological red line, the border line should be drawn based on scientifi c ecological function assessment. Besides, the management mechanism should be innovated, which includes the improvement of current legal system of ecological and environmental protection, enhancing related administration, and establishing a system for compensating for ecological damage.


The main aim of the bachelor work is to analyze the use of motivational measures and their influence on increasing labour efficiency in two branches of Tatra banka, a.s., in Bratislava and Kosice. The theoretical section is focused on describing the meaning of motivation, motivational theories and labour efficiency. The analytical section of the work is oriented toward monitoring motivational measures and their importance for increasing labour efficiency in the financial institution. The final section of the work includes suggestions for the use of motivational measures that can be used more effectively and can contribute to optimizing the motivation of employees, resulting in high labour efficiency and better economic results in selected branches of this financial institution.


Miniaturized transducers are fabricated from commercially available four-arm semiconductor gages; transducers are connected as bridge circuit and mounted on internal face of small diaphragm. Jacket made of conductive plastic may be needed to avoid buildup or static charges.


A method for smooth handover(off) in synchronization CDMA, MS searching, polling measuring the strength and the relative time offset of the pulse of downlink synchronization signal from multiple cells simultaneously; when it occurs that the strength of downlink synchronization pulse signal is rising above the threshold of the original cell, MS sends uplink synchronization pulse to the target cell by idle access channel; the corresponding BS obtains the information of distance of Ms from the above mentioned uplink synchronization pulse, adjudicates on handover (off) and selects the target cell, matching to the report of measurement of the strength of signal; when MS receives the command of handover(off), interrupting the uplink and the downlink traffic communications with the original cell, based upon the time offset received by downlink synchronizatino and traffic communication slots assigned to MS by a the system, it directly commences communicating with a new cell.


This paper highlights the comparative analysis of carrier wave based modulation techniques on a single phase extendable reduced switch topology. The topology is implemented using level shift PWM (pulse width modulation) and a detailed analysis of voltage and current total harmonic distortion (THD) for each pulse width modulation (PWM) control strategy is carried out. The extendable topology uses 4 dc sources and 10 switching devices which helps to minimize the complexity of the circuit and overall cost. The performance of the switching strategies for 31-level is carried out in Matlab/Simulink.


This paper mainly introduced the creating of MFC dialog project based on Visual C + + programming software and Windows API(Application Programming interface) function provided by the system.This system was used to solve the fin hobs parameter calculation problem of parametric design.Newton-Raphson algorithm and Matlab mixed programming was adopted to get the value of fin hobs parameters such as module,pressure angle,addendum arc and dedendum arc.Finally a fin hobs parameters calculating system was established.This system would help the engineer to calculate the necessary parameters of the fin hobs design rapidly and accurately.


Increasing of tritium concentration in the primary coolant of the research and test reactors during operationhad been reported. To check the source for tritium release into the primary coolant during operation of theJMTR and the JRR-3M, the tritium release from the driver fuels was calculated by MCNP6 and PHITS. Itis clear that the calculated values of tritium release from fuels are as about 107 and 106 Bq for the JMTR andJRR-3M, respectively, and that calculated values are about 4 order of magnitude smaller than that of themeasured values. The JMTR is a tank type, and the JRR-3M is a pool type research reactor. The primarycoolants are light water, in which the coolant temperature is lower than 50oC. These results show that thetritium release from fuels is negligible for both the reactors. In the calculations of tritium release rates intothe water by PHITS, a gaussian triton energy by ternary fissions of 235U.


Voltage sag and short interruption lead to the tripping of sensitive equipment and cause the economic loss of the industry users. A programmable logic controller (PLC) is essential equipment used in the industrial process. However, there is no detailed understanding of the sensitivity of PLC under voltage sag and short interruption. The response characteristic of PLC under voltage sag is studied. This study proposes a new testing method, called the dichotomy test method (DTM) to do the test. This study builds the testing platform and tests the sensitivity of six PLCs from five famous PLC manufacturers. The testing considers the characteristics of voltage sag, including magnitude, duration, point-on-wave, phase-angle-jump, different supply voltage, slow recovery voltage sag, multiple voltage sags and so on. The tests prove that DTM has the advantage of accuracy, robustness and workload, compared with the traditional test method. The quantitative and qualitative response characteristics of PLC under voltage sag are obtained.


The invention establishes a good technology using a novel tourmaline material to adsorb cadmium ions in an acid solution so as to solve the problems in a heavy metal pollution treatment technology, particularly the problem of low adsorption quantity when an adsorbent is used for treating heavy metals in an acid water body. The adsorption of tourmaline on Cd is affected by adsorption time, temperature and initial concentration. The adsorption of the tourmaline on Cd ions is divided into a rapid adsorption stage and a slow adsorption stage; the adsorption of the tourmaline on the Cd ions is rapid before 6h and is substantially balanced after 24h, and the removal rate of the Cd ions removed by the tourmaline can reach 59.10% after 48h; the tourmaline has a good removal effect on the Cd under acidic, neutral and alkali conditions, and the saturated adsorption quantities of the Cd ions adsorbed by the tourmaline are respectively 31.77 mg/g, 33.11 mg/g and 40.16 mg/g when the pH value of the solution is 4.0 and the temperatures are 15 DEG C, 25 DEG C and 35 DEG C. Under the same temperature condition, when the pH value of the solution is 4.0, the higher the initial concentration of the solution is, the larger the adsorption quantity of the Cd adsorbed by the tourmaline is; with the rise of the temperature, the adsorption quantity of the Cd adsorbed by the tourmaline rises. The tourmaline can be used for adsorbing the heavy metals in the acid solution, and the invention provides a new material and a new theoretical basis for wastewater treatment, and particularly the treatment on heavy metal pollution in acid wastewater.


A Balancing Domain Decomposition by Constraints (BDDC) preconditioner for Isogeometric Analysis of scalar elliptic problems is constructed and analyzed by introducing appropriate discrete norms. A main result of this work is the proof that the proposed isogeometric BDDC preconditioner is scalable in the number of subdomains and quasi-optimal in the ratio of subdomain and element sizes. Another main result is the numerical validation of the theoretical convergence rate estimates by carrying out several two- and three-dimensional tests on serial and parallel computers. These numerical experiments also illustrate the preconditioner performance with respect to the polynomial degree and the regularity of the NURBS basis functions, as well as its robustness with respect to discontinuities of the coefficient of the elliptic problem across subdomain boundaries.


Mid–heavy nuclei with A ∼ 140 − 180 offer unique opportunities to study the collective and single–particle aspects of nuclear structure. This mass regime is a dynamic area where protons and neutrons generally occupy different orbitals, giving rise to complex structures with a wide variety of shapes, shape evolution and shape coexistence. To that end, measurements of nuclear lifetimes and transition matrix elements can be invaluable. Recent experimental activities of the NuSTRAP group in Athens have focused on γ–spectroscopy studies employing the ROSPHERE array in Magurele, Romania. A brief overview is reported.


The fluid inclusion of reservoir is one of important means to reveal the time of oil and natural gas charging.In present study the time of oil and natural gas charging in Yacheng and Lingshui Formation in Yacheng area of the Qiongdongnan Basin,southern China have been investigated by the analysis of type,distribution,fluorescence and homogenization temperature of fluid inclusions in samples of 5 Wells.The results indicated that the oil and natural gas bearing hydrothermal fluids have been charged twice into the sandstone reservoirs in the Paleogene reservoir.The first charge stage was characterized by condensate-gas with buff-yellow fluorescent light,its hydrocarbon fluid inclusions are dominated by liquid hydrocarbon inclusions and gas-liquid hydrocarbon inclusions,and the homogenization temperature(Th) of coeval aqueous inclusions ranges from 130℃ to 160℃.The time of first condensate-gas charging had been estimated at late Miocene to early Pliocene based on the regional burial thermal evolution history.The second charged stage was characterized by oil and natural gas with light blue fluorescence.Their hydrocarbon fluid inclusions were dominanted by gas hydrocarbon inclusions,gas-liquid hydrocarbon inclusions and three-phase hydrocarbon inclusions,the Th of coeval aqueous inclusions showed higher range from 160℃ to 190℃ than the 1st charged stage,and the charging time was estimated as Quaternary.


We report a case of congenital and familial antithrombin III deficiency developing massive pulmonary thromboembolism. A 44-year-old man was admitted to our hospital because of sudden chest pain and severe dyspnea. Five years ago, he was operated due to a mesenteric vein thrombosis of unknown cause. On admission, radioisotopic venogram showed deep vein thrombosis and lung scintigram showed multiple segmental perfusion defects. His plasma antithrombin III level was 10.5 mg/dL which was less than 50% of normal and those of a son and two daughters were also decreased. After treatment with tissue plasminogen activator, heparin and coumadin, his symptom and lung scintigram were significantly improved. As far as we reviewed, there were very rare reports with congenital antithrombin III deficiency presenting as pulmonary thromboembolism in Korea.


Steroid hydroxylase activities were characterized in Daphnia magna and evaluated for potential use as biomarkers of xenobiotic exposure. Microsomes prepared from Daphma magna generated a single NADPH-dependent metabolite of [14C]testosterone. However, intact daphnids excreted at least 10 polar metabolites of [l4C]testosterone into the test medium. Six of these metabolites were identified as 2α-, 16β-, 6β-, 6α-, 7α-, and 15α-[14C]hydroxytestosterone. The unidentified metabolites are also presumed to be hydroxylated products of testosterone, based on their relative migrations during TLC. The inefficient metabolism of [14C]testosterone during the in vitro microsomal incubations may have been due to the release of P450 inhibitors during microsome preparation. Exposure of daphnids to the P450 modulators phenobarbital, β-naphthoflavone, piperonyl butoxide, and malathion differentially inhibited the steroid hydroxylase activities. Results from this study indicate that Daphma magna expresses several P450 enzymes and that these enzymes are differentially modulated by xenobiotic exposure. Steroid hydroxylase activities may serve not only as a biomarker of toxicant exposure, but also as a predictor of toxicant effects involving perturbations of steroid hormone homeostasis.


Microbiome research is currently gaining tremendous interest on the impact of diets and environment to influence life traits of several hosts. Full understanding of the insect ecology and characterization of gut microbial community including their natural enemies is vital for development of novel insect pest management strategies. This study examined the gut bacterial communities of Fall armyworm (FAW) Spodoptera frugiperda reared in the laboratory with three monocot plant diets (Sugarcane [M1], maize [M2] and onion [M3]) using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. The study revealed variations in the structure and community of the gut bacterial biota of FAW larvae reared with three monocot plants. Diet sources greatly altered the structure of the gut bacterial community. Three alpha diversity indices (observed species richness Chao1 and ACE) showed significant differences among the various diet groups. The principal component analysis revealed a moderate distinction in bacterial communities of the FAW larvae reared with the three monocot plants. Higher numbers of operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were observed in sugarcane diet (M1). The bacterial communities of all the larvae groups were dominated by phylum Firmicutes. A redundancy analysis (RDA) indicated that neutral detergent fibre (NDF) (p < 0.0005) was the most significant factors influencing the community distribution of gut bacteria of FAW larvae. Functional Annotation of Prokaryotic Taxa (FAPROTAX) analysis predicted that chemoheterotrophy, fermentation, aerobic chemoheterotrophy and aromatic compound degradation were the prominent putative functions of FAW larvae gut bacteria communities. Chemoheterotrophy was the most dominant putative functions predicted and was higher in sugarcane diet. Furthermore, the complexity of the network structure was higher in M1 while the modularity was higher in maize diet. The different monocot diets had a considerable impact on bacterial composition in the gut of Fall armyworm larvae and their ecological and functional relevance are discussed.


Weiss and Springer explain the many ways anthropologists determine biological relatedness; DNA, mitochondrial DNA, Y-chromosome DNA, metric and nonmetric cranial and dental traits are all types of data used to reconstruct who is related to whom. These methods have helped to answer how the Americas were peopled.


The author found 7 nests of the Pallid Harrier in Nizhniy Novgorod region in 2014–2016. Adult hunting individuals were seen on 4 territories, but the nests weren't discovered.


The invention discloses a semiconductor device and a fabrication process of the same. The semiconductor device comprises a grid and an epitaxial structure, wherein the grid is arranged on a substrate, the epitaxial structure is arranged in the substrate and is arranged between two grid structures, and a protruding part of the substrate extends into the epitaxial structure in a projection direction.


Background: The function of a reconstructed bladder depends on the contracting bladder wall. This can be obtained with sufficient angiogenesis. Polyglycolic acid (PGA) is used as a cell vehicle for bladder reconstruction. Chitosan supports adhesion and differentiation of endothelial cells. The aim of the study was to compare PGA with PGA/chitosan 'sandwich' grafts for bladder wall regeneration. Materials and Methods: 3T3 fibroblasts were seeded on 6 PGA and 3 chitosan scaffolds and incubated 3 days at 37ºC and 5% CO2 before implantation. Three rats underwent bladder reconstruction with PGA cell seeded grafts and 3 with PGA grafts covered with chitosan cell seeded grafts ('sandwich' graft). Three rats as controls were not operated on. After 6 months reconstructed tissue was stained with H&E. Vessels were identified by immunohistochemistry by CD31 and CD34 staining. A 4-level scale was used, (+++) referred to evident marker presence (high density of vessels) and (-) as lack of a marker (no vessels). Results: No complications during the 6- month period were noted. PGA/chitosan grafts were evaluated as (+) while PGA grafts were evaluated as (+) and (-) by the use of the CD31 antibody. The control group was evaluated as (+). PGA/chitosan grafts were evaluated as (++) and (+) while PGA grafts were evaluated as (++) and (-) by CD34 staining. The control group was evaluated as (+) and (-). Conclusion: Chitosan improved PGA abilities as a cell matrix and enhanced angiogenesis within the in vitro reconstructed graft.


Regression tasks in computer vision, such as age estimation or counting, are often formulated into classification by quantizing the target space into classes. Yet real-world data is often imbalanced -- the majority of training samples lie in a head range of target values, while a minority of samples span a usually larger tail range. By selecting the class quantization, one can adjust imbalanced regression targets into balanced classification outputs, though there are trade-offs in balancing classification accuracy and quantization error. To improve regression performance over the entire range of data, we propose to construct hierarchical classifiers for solving imbalanced regression tasks. The fine-grained classifiers limit the quantization error while being modulated by the coarse predictions to ensure high accuracy. Standard hierarchical classification approaches, however, when applied to the regression problem, fail to ensure that predicted ranges remain consistent across the hierarchy. As such, we propose a range-preserving distillation process that can effectively learn a single classifier from the set of hierarchical classifiers. Our novel hierarchical classification adjustment (HCA) for imbalanced regression shows superior results on three diverse tasks: age estimation, crowd counting and depth estimation. We will release the source code upon acceptance.


Primary tracheal neoplasms are uncommon in dogs and cats. Affected animals are generally middle-aged or older, except those that develop osteochondromas. Clinical signs are consistent with upper airway obstruction, most often including cough, intolerance to exercise, breathing difficulty and cyanosis. Diagnosis is usually achieved with a simple radiographic evaluation, while the tracheoscopy allows direct visualization and sampling of the lesion. Neoplastic lesions should be differentiated from other structures such as foreign bodies and polyps. This article reports the case of a 15-year-old female German Shepherd that had a one-year history of progressive dyspnea and cough. Survey radiography helped disclose a mass, but the definite diagnosis was achieved by means of a tracheoscopy followed by biopsy and histopathological exam of the tumor.


The Transition metal doped (Zr) Bi site and Cu doped at Fe site in BiFeO3 has high magnetic and ferroelectric properties compared to undoped BiFeO3 nanoparticles. Hasanpour et al [106] reported that the dependence of the saturation magnetization on doping concentration for BiY2-xCaxZrxFe5-xO12 nanoparticles. According to Liu et al [107], BiFe0.97Zr0.03O3 (BFZO), Bi0.97Ce0.03Fe0.97Zr0.03O3 (BCFZO) thin films exhibit weak ferromagnetic behavior. Addressing the earlier reports, it was found that the substitution of Zr in Fe sites leads to the modification of the ferromagnetic behavior. The present work deals with undoped BiFeO3, doped with Zr instead of Bi site & Cu instead of Fe and to investigate the multiferroic behaviors of variable concentrations of dopant. In what follows, BZFCO1, BZFCO2, BZFCO3, BZFCO4 and BZFCO5 represents the Bi1-xZrxFe0.98Cu0.02O3 corresponding to the Zr concentrations x = 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, 5% of Zr where Cu is at 2%.


The frequency dependences of complex initial permeability for triplecomponent composite materials based on two difierent types of ferrite flller (MnZn and NiZn ferrite) and a nonmagnetic polymeric matrix (PVC) were studied in the frequency range of 10 kHz{1 GHz. The frequency dispersion of permeability is discussed by means of a dynamic model based on the superposition of the two types of magnetic resonance, the resonance of vibrating domain walls and the resonance of precessing magnetic moments in domains.


This study was made to examine the effect of internal control, individual morality, job satisfaction, and compensation suitability in an effort to reduce the tendency of accounting fraud in the Singapadu Village Cooperative. All employees of the Singapadu Village-wide Multipurpose Cooperative were used as the research population. The sample used amounted to 45 people which were further investigated by multiple linear regression analysis techniques. This study shows that the tendency of fraud will increase when the internal control in the organization is bad. Low individual morality causes the possibility of employees to commit fraud is higher. Low job satisfaction will encourage employees to commit fraud because they want to get satisfaction at work. The tendency of fraud will also be higher when the compensation provided by the company does not match the expectations and workload of the employees.


The dynamics of electric field induced particle alignment in nonpolar polymer matrix to build one-dimensional conductive materials was investigated. The influence of electric field on particle alignment was real-time traced by dynamic percolation measurement using carbon black (CB) filled polyethylene as a model system. The activation energy of the continuous CB path formation was calculated and found to be unchanged with CB alignment. The critical percolation concentration at thermodynamic equilibrium state φc* was deduced to characterize the anisotropism of network structure, by which the thermodynamic prerequisite electric field E* for the transition from three-dimensional isotropic network to one-dimensional chain could be easily found out.


Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the U.S.A. Although mortality from nonmelanoma skin cancer (NMSC) is low, there is significant morbidity and cost associated with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) and basal cell carcinoma (BCC), largely because of extremely high prevalence rates. In 2013, NMSC contributed $4 59 trillion in direct U.S. healthcare costs. Additionally, there is a significant emotional and social toll on patients with skin cancer, especially in high-risk groups. Through sun protection strategies individuals can minimize their exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light and mitigate NMSC morbidity. Environmental, behavioural and genetic risk factors all contribute to the development of skin cancer. Of which, the major determinant for skin cancer risk is excessive UV light exposure. Despite major public health efforts to educate the public on the dangers of excess UV light exposure, the incidence of NMSC continues to rise. That said, there is significant interest in the development of UV protective measures, such as chemopreventive agents. There are a variety of chemopreventive techniques reported in the literature including nicotinamide, retinoids, sirolimus, everolimus, photodynamic therapy, 5-fluorouracil, imiquimod, ingenol mebutate, difluoromethylornithine, statins, T4 endonuclease and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) (selective and nonselective) including aspirin. To date, there are several randomized control trials (RCTs), observational studies and systematic reviews that appraise the use of NSAIDs and aspirin as chemopreventive agents for NMSC. Already, the role of celecoxib as a chemopreventive agent has been established in two RCTs. However, there is controversy about the efficacy of NSAIDS and aspirin in NMSC, because of mixed results. While some studies failed to find a chemopreventive effect of NSAIDS and aspirin, in those studies that stratified their study populations into lowand high-risk skin cancer patients, more often a chemopreventive role for NSAIDS and aspirin was reported in high-risk populations. In this issue of BJD, Pandeya et al. conducted a large prospective cohort study that appraised the role of chemopreventive agents, NSAIDs including aspirin and their role in the development of SCC and BCC. Utilizing data from the QSkin Study with over 43 000 individuals, Pandeya et al. collected selfreported NSAID use and juxtaposed it to histopathologically confirmed BCCs and SCCs. The authors stratified their patient populations into low, medium (no excised skin cancers and ≤ 5 treated actinic lesions) and high risk (≥ 1 excised skin cancers or >5 treated actinic lesions) based on patient history. This study found weak, inverse associations between NSAIDS and NMSCs. The most significant finding of this study demonstrated moderate benefit in the prevention of BCC with frequent use [hazard ratio (HR) 0 84, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0 71– 0 99] of NSAIDs. NSAID use in the high-risk skin cancer population had no statistically significant effect on SCC. In addition, infrequent aspirin use in high-risk individuals decreased SCC prevalence (HR 0 77, 95% CI 0 64–0 93). Interestingly, frequent aspirin use demonstrated no benefit with respect to SCC development (HR 1 07, 95% CI 0 87–1 31). Cyclooxygenase-1 (COX-1) is constitutively produced; however, cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) expression is induced by UV light or other inflammatory stimuli. Previous studies have demonstrated an association between elevated COX-2 and prostaglandins and the development of epithelial cancers (e.g. oesophagus, stomach, breast, pancreas, colon, urinary bladder, prostate, lung and skin). COX-2 serves as a carcinogen through a variety of pathways including the induction of prostaglandin synthesis, alteration of cell adhesion, inhibition of apoptosis, altered response to growth regulatory signals, increased production of vascular-endothelial growth factor, and increased CD44 production, leading to breakdown of the collagen matrix of the basement membrane (Fig. 1). Furthermore, the literature demonstrates elevated COX-2 levels following UV exposure and in individuals with actinic keratoses (AKs), BCCs and SCCs. Lastly, COX-2 overexpression is more commonly found in SCCs and AKs than in BCCs. The authors' stratification of their study population into low-, mediumand high-risk populations, and subsequent categorization into frequent and infrequent users of NSAIDs/aspirin is unique and provides an example of how future studies could stratify study populations. However, given the observational nature of this study, the authors were unable to differentiate the type of NSAID being used. Pandeya et al. demonstrated weak and inconsistent patterns with NSAID and aspirin use in the prevention of NMSC. There may be a role for future RCTs that appraise specific NSAIDs and their respective dosage. Additional studies are likely necessary to determine the appropriate NSAID for future RCTs. However, mouse models shed light on potential NSAIDs where RCTs have not yet been undertaken. For example, oral sulindac (an NSAID thought to have both COX-1 and COX-2 inhibitory activity) has demonstrated superior antitumorigenic activity in mouse models when compared with naproxen, aspirin and their nitric oxide counterparts.