Spherical harmonic analysis coefficients of the external and internal parts of the quiet-day geomagnetic field variations (Sq) separated for the seven continental regions of the observatories have been used to determine conductivity profiles to depths of about 600km by the Schmucker equivalent substitute conductor method. The profiles give evidence of increases in conductivity between about 150 and 350km depth, then a general increase in conductivity thereafter. For South America we found a high conductivity at shallow depths. The European profile showed a highly conducting layer near 125km. At the greater depths, Europe, Australia and South America had the lowest values of conductivity. North America and east Asia had intermediate values whereas the African and central Asian profiles both showed the conductivities rising rapidly beyond 450km depth. The regional differences indicate that there may be considerable lateral heterogeneity of electrical conductivity in the Earth's upper mantle.


A porous waste glass (RWPG = recycled waste porous glass) was used in wastewater treatments for the removal of lead ions from single, binary, and ternary metal solutions (with cadmium and nickel ions). Experiments were performed in columns (30 cm3, 10 g) filled with 0.5–1 mm beads till complete glass exhaustion (breakthrough). In the case of single and binary solutions, the columns were percolated at 0.2 Lh−1 (2 mg Me+2 L−1); in the case of ternary solutions, the columns were percolated at 0.15–0.4 Lh−1 (2 mg Me2+ L−1) and with 2–5 mg Me2+ L−1 influent concentration (0.2 Lh−1). Lead ions were removed mainly by ion exchange and also by adsorption. From a kinetic point of view, the rate controlling step of the process was the interdiffusion of the lead ions in the Nernst stationary liquid film around the sorbent. The uptake of the metals and the glass selectivity were confirmed by Energy Dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) analysis. After lead retention process, glass beads were reused as lightweight aggregates for thermal insulating and environmental safe mortars.


The paper presents a new STATCOM system based on
H-bridge inverter. It can be used in mine power network. It has been commonly
verified for the positive effects of SVG on the reactive power compensation and
voltage fluctuation suppression. This paper focuses on a generalized structure
of multilevel power converter where individual voltage sources are not
necessarily the same. The cascade H-bridge consists of two cells, high-voltage
cell and low-voltage cell. The high-voltage cell is responsible for voltage
lifting, while the low-voltage cell is responsible for PWM modulation. If two
cells are cascaded with DC voltages in a ratio of 2:1, the single-phase output
voltage can reach 7 levels. Increasing voltage levels of output waveform can
bring up AC current quality, optimize harmonic spectrum and enhance converter
efficiency. The hybrid multilevel is characterized by per-phase series
connection of a high-voltage H-bridge converter and a low-voltage H-bridge
converter. Due to the different capacitor voltage, it is a key problem as to
how to maintain the capacitor's voltage at a reference level. Independent DC
source can effectively ensure the DC voltage. Through the reactive power
compensation technology, the three-phase voltage and current can remain at the
same phase.


In the centre of the debate regarding the values and importance of decolonisation, development thought, and the post-colonial statebuilding in Africa, the question of the national project is central. In theory, a national project, as either an imaginary concept of the political elite, a tool of political domination, or a real complex embodiment of the mobilisation of ideas and thoughts; it is about governance. It implies the existence of some dimensions of political, economic and cultural nationalism both in its policy framework and political basis. At the time of political independence, most of the African political regimes, regardless of the nature of their ideologies, history of their state formations, and how they gained political independence, adopted and/ or created some forms of national projects as the foundation of their social and economic platforms. However, it is generally known that African states have produced a relatively weak, fragmented, individualised and personalised public administration based on ambiguous and confused national projects. In Africa, even the reactionary regimes have claimed to be nationalistic. Why has this consistently been the case? There are various interpretations of African national projects, which became the policy blueprints, through which the African political elites and the people were, in principle, supposed to be connected with one another in exploring new developmental models. Although many studies have been conducted on some aspects of the role of national projects and public administrations in projecting social progress in Africa, so far there have not been enough studies that historically examine the notion of national projects and their relationship with public administration. I intend to critically examine the historicity of the concept of national 3Kasongo.pmd 19/10/2011, 14:44 63 64 Africa Development, Vol. XXXVI, No. 2, 2011 project as defined and projected through various selected types of African political regimes and social movements, identify their common similarities, if any, and compare their ultimate political ends. Secondly, using historical structural and comparative perspectives, I analyse how the notion of public administration was built in, and developed within, the national project. It is argued that no contemporary state is able to effectively render services that, in the long run, can be translated into solid infrastructures without building a public administration that is relevant and appropriate as part of the state's national project. Public administration should be an apparatus of the public space in which integrative ideas, public management, societal values, and collective citizenry are articulated. I am also interested in understanding the nature of the relationship between the national project as an ideology of the state and the public administration as the functional foundation of the state in Africa and see how this relationship can foster the thoughts about the notion of public agenda or the public space. Behind this analytical reflection, the broader issue is the idea that the concept of the 'political public' defined through the relationship between national projects, public administrations, and the civil societies should be viewed as the cement for the collective political culture. Résumé Au centre du débat autour des valeurs et de l'importance de la décolonisation, de la pensée développementale et de l'édification de la nation postcoloniale en Afrique se trouve la question du projet national. En théorie, un projet national est un concept imaginaire de l'élite politique, un outil de domination politique ou l'expression réelle complexe de la mobilisation d'idées et de réflexions ; il concerne la gouvernance. Il implique l'existence de certaines dimensions de nationalisme politique, économique et culturel, tant dans son cadre stratégique que dans son assise politique. Au moment de l'indépendance politique, la plupart des régimes politiques africains, indépendamment de la nature de leurs idéologies, de l'histoire de la formation de leurs États et de la façon dont ils ont obtenu l'indépendance politique, ont adopté et/ou créé certaines formes de projets nationaux en tant que fondements de leurs platesformes sociales et économiques. Cependant, tout le monde sait que les États africains ont produit une administration publique relativement faible, morcelée, individualisée et personnalisée, basée sur des projets nationaux ambigus et confus. En Afrique, même les régimes réactionnaires se sont prétendus nationalistes. Pourquoi cela a-t-il été systématiquement le cas ? Il y a diverses interprétations des projets nationaux africains, qui sont devenus les projets de politique en principe supposés lier les élites politiques et les peuples africains les uns aux autres dans l'exploration de nouveaux modèles de développement. Bien que de nombreuses études 3Kasongo.pmd 19/10/2011, 14:44 64 65 Lumumba-Kasongo: The National Project as a Public Administration Concept aient été réalisées sur certains aspects du rôle des projets nationaux et des administrations publiques dans la projection du progrès social en Afrique, il n'y a pas eu à ce jour suffisamment d'études qui examinent d'un point de vue historique la notion de projets nationaux et leur relation avec l'administration publique. Ainsi, dans cet article, je me propose en premier lieu d'examiner de façon critique l'historicité du concept de projet national tel que défini et projeté à travers divers types de régimes politiques et de mouvements sociaux africains choisis ; d'identifier leurs similitudes s'il y en a et de comparer leurs finalités politiques. En second lieu, utilisant des perspectives historiques structurelles et comparatives, j'analyse comment la notion d'administration publique a été incorporée et développée à l'intérieur du projet national. Il a été soutenu qu'aucun État contemporain n'est capable de rendre effectivement des services qui, à la longue, peuvent être traduits en infrastructures solides, sans développer une administration publique qui soit pertinente et appropriée dans le cadre du projet national de l'État. L'administration publique doit être un appareil de l'espace public dans lequel sont articulées les idées intégratives, la gestion publique, les valeurs sociétales et la citoyenneté collective. Je cherche aussi à comprendre la nature de la relation entre le projet national en tant qu'idéologie de l'État et l'administration publique en tant que fondement fonctionnel de l'État en Afrique et à voir comment cette relation peut favoriser la réflexion sur la notion d'agenda public ou l'espace public. Derrière cette réflexion analytique, la question plus large est l'idée que le concept de « public politique » défini à travers la relation entre les projets nationaux, les administrations publiques et les sociétés civiles devrait être considéré comme le ciment de la culture politique collective. Introduction: Issues and Objectives No contemporary nation-state has historically been able to progress significantly without constructing an ideological blue-print, a political framework, or a guideline called a national project. The national project is not an abstract notion from the ideology of the African state formation or nation-state building, its mechanisms of self-preservation, and its public administration. The societal and political values expressed and situated within any public administration are located in the sphere of a national project. It is here that the political philosophy of what a given nation-state is or ought to be is enunciated. It is in, and/or through, the public administration that this philosophy is pragmatically actualised. Thus, the national project should be a reflection par excellence of the values and the functioning of what is going on in the public space called public administration. 3Kasongo.pmd 19/10/2011, 14:44 65 66 Africa Development, Vol. XXXVI, No. 2, 2011 The intellectual debates on this institutional space in the West have been dominated by the classical Weberian scholarship, which looks at the public administration as a formal, ideologically neutral and rational organisation called bureaucracy. This is conceptualised to function with efficiency toward the ultimate objective of increasing productivity based on technical knowledge and the rules it offers for the benefits of a greater number of people (Weber 1978). This perspective is challenged in the light of the complexity of the forces and factors that have shaped the state formation in Africa. This article is not making any systematic classification2 of the national project according to each political regime in Africa. The effort here is to understand the meaning of this concept in identifying how it has been defined within the selected major political ideologies in Africa. This is basically the work of reflection with a combination of a synthesised historical structural analysis with a theoretical constructivism,3 which projects Africa not as a passive and unimaginative social and political entity, but rather as a dynamic complex actor that has to synthesise its experiences in order to produce its various dimensions of the national project. Although some illustrations are discussed about specific national projects and forms of public administration, this particular work is mainly theoretical. It is conceived as a theoretical foundation for recommending policy and political shifts. My main objectives in this work are: • To revisit the notion of national project that was relatively popular in the 1960s but disappeared in the 1970s and 1980s; • To re-examine and compare selected major ideologies that have been debated in Africa over the years upon which national projects were built. Some of these ideologies include: African socialism and humanism, nationalism, Marxism, and capitalism; to analyze broadly and comparatively the content of various types of the national project; and to iden


This paper introduces the connotations of the reading-guidance in public library, expounds the construction of resources platform for reading-guidance and the establishment of effective operating mechanism, and puts forward some problems needing attention in developing the reading-guidance.


The need of involvement of the rural Roma community within Local Action Groups' (LAG) initiatives represents one of the most important measures that the Romanian state has committed to implement based on the European Union Council Recommendation on effective Roma integration measures in the member states (2013). The Local Action Groups are functioning under the National Program for Rural Development and they should include active measures for Roma social inclusion in the local strategies of development. The present research aims to analyze Roma NGO's/ community involvement in the Local Groups' activity of the rural area in the Western region of Romania based on their relation with the public authorities and the LAG's management teams. In this context, we aim to identify possible active measures for Roma NGO's in order to strengthen the Roma involvement within the LAG's and to analyze possible main obstacles based on actors' perception and experience.


The quadratic system in space with a first integral of quadratic cylinder is discussed. It is proved the existence of local limit cycle when there exists critical points in every invariant cylinder. Some sufficient condition to guarantee the existence of global invariant manifolds consisting zero homotopic closed orbits is gived.


ABSTRACT This paper investigates the use of FeFETs in a common analog circuit, the differential amplifier. The two input Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS) transistors in a general MOS differential amplifier circuit are replaced with FeFETs. Resistors are used in place of the other three MOS transistors. Because of the FeFET hysteresis, the FeFET differential amplifier has several different operating modes depending on the FeFETs' prepolarization. Experimental results of the FeFET differential amplifier operation were obtained. Comparisons were made between the FeFET differential amplifier and the standard MOS differential amplifier. The experimental results are discussed.


According to the need for groundwater health evaluation and its non-linear computation difficulty, on the basis of the problem effectively solved by Intelligent algorithm, this paper focused on analyzing calculation principle and characteristics about the BP neural network and support vector machine algorithm in groundwater health prediction model, designed the calculation model of support vector machine based on multi-level classifier, rough set theory was introduced to support vector machine calculation process optimization. It solved complex non-linear relationship between the small sample and groundwater health degreed, and speeded up the convergence speed, effectively improved the prediction accuracy and stability.


A new crystalline uranium (IV) sulfate has been prepared. Its magnetic susceptibility was measured from room temperature to 1.8 K and revealed broad maximum at 21.5 K. This anomaly was attempted to analyze by one-dimensional magnetic chain model with isotropic exchange interaction.


In the present study, we describe the easy isolation of C-reactive protein (CRP) from human serum using phosphocholine-modified magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs). A phosphocholine-based monomer, 3-(4)-vinylbenzyl-12-phosphorylcholine dodecanoate (VPC), was polymerized on methacrylate-coated MNPs and the resulting MNPs (VPC-MNPs) were assessed for their ability to isolate CRP from a human serum sample. CRP could be isolated from human serum with one adsorption step to VPC-MNPs within 1 h. The high purity of the isolated CRP fraction determined by SDS-PAGE indicates a good selectivity of VPC-MNPs for CRP binding. These results demonstrate the feasibility of using ligand-functionalized MNPs for rapid, easy, and efficient protein isolation.


In the theory of real-valued functions there are many important theorems that involve differential inequalities (i.e. inequalities containing the function and its derivatives), and the field of differential inequalities is a development of the last sixty years. For those which are interested in learning about differential inequalities, the recent texts by Lakshmikantham and Leela1, Protter and Weinberger2, and Walter3, are highly recommended. In the theory of complex-valued functions there are many differential implications in which the characterization of an analytic function is determined from a differential inequality. In this sense I mention only the well-known result of Noshiro4-Warschawski5-Wolff6: if f is analytic in the unit disk U, then Ref ′(z) > 0, z ∈ U⇒ f is univalent in U. After this result involving first-order differential implications, these topics appeared only in two papers, that are in 1935 by G. Goluzin7 and in 1947 by R. Robinson8. In the Geometric Function Theory (GFT) almost all of the geometric properties are described by differential inequalities, that are inequalities connecting the given analytic function and its derivatives. The complex differential inequalities deal with real-valued inequalities that involve the real or the imaginary part, or the module of a complex function and its derivatives (especially those of first and second order). The first article that deal with the admissible functions method appeared in the late of 1970's, and discuss about the second order inequalities in the complex plane (see9), while the second one appeared in 1981 (see10). Many applications and the extensions of the theory of differential subordinations have been developed in the last period in different fields, like differential equations, partial differential equations, meromorphic functions theory, harmonic functions theory, integral operators theory, functions of several complex variables. As remarkably monographs in differential subordinations V. Lakshmikantham, S. Leela, Differential and Integral Inequalities, Academic Press, New York, 1969 M. H. Protter, H. F. Weinberger, Maximum Principles in Differential Equations, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1967 W. Walter, Differential and Integral Inequalities, Springer, New York, 1970 K. Noshiro, On the theory of schlicht functions, J. Fac. Sci., Hokkaido Imp. Univ. Jap. (1), 2(1934-1935), 129-155 S. E. Warschawski, On the higher derivatives at the boundary in conformal mapping, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc., 38(1935), 310-340 J. Wolff, L ́intégrale d ́une fonction holomorphe et à partie réelle positive dans un demi plan est univalente, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, 198, 13(1934), 1209-1210 G. M. Goluzin, On the majorization principle in function theory, Dokl. Akad. Nauk. SSSR, 42(1935), 647-650 (in Russian) R. M. Robinson, Univalent majorants, Trans. Amer. Math. Soc., 61(1947), 1-35 S. S. Miller, P. T. Mocanu, Second order differential inequalities in the complex plane, J. Math. Anal. Appl., 65(1978), 298-305 S. S. Miller, P. T. Mocanu, Differential subordinations and univalent functions, Michig. Math. J., 28(1981), 157-171 ii


William Shakespeare, as a writer and actor, has recently become a popular fictional character in different forms of entertainment. Conscious fictions of Shakespeare in popular culture have proliferated since the rise of participatory media. Shakespeare on Twitter (@Shakespeare) has more than 40,000 followers, while William Shakespeare (@WilliamShakespeareAuthor) on Facebook has over 16 million "likes". In this, we can see a postmodern need to reshape Shakespeare in our own image, while simultaneously drawing on his cultural capital to either promote or challenge his work as "high" art. There have also been recent popular culture representations of Shakespeare's actors. These representations operate as fictionalised accounts of the acting profession in Elizabethan/Jacobean England, drawing on our modern expectations and attitudes to appeal to contemporary audiences. This essay will examine modern representations of Shakespearean actors from the past twenty-five years, including the film Shakespeare in Love, musical Something Rotten and television series Upstart Crow. It will explore the existing frameworks and theoretical approaches used when discussing popular culture Shakespeare. This essay will also consider the fictionalised accounts of the acting companies as depicted in the texts. In doing so, it will examine the authenticity of these portrayals against what is known of actors and the acting profession in the Shakespearean era and address the desires represented by these depictions today. The essay will explore three common tropes evident in popular culture representations of Shakespeare's actors. First, Shakespeare was a bad actor. Second, acting was a profession that others aspired to; this includes amateurs wanting to be professional and women wanting to perform. Third, males playing female characters was funny; the representations of theatrical transvestism in these popular culture texts are typically played for comedy today. Overall, this essay examines how Shakespeare's actors have been represented online, on screens and in theatres in the age of participatory media.


Second Language Research has provided a considerable nunmber of interpretations for the errors in language learning. Among these theories, Negative Transfer; Interlanguage Theory; Input and Output Hypothesis; Information Processing Theory and Chinese-English Cognitive and Cultural Differences Theory explain the causes for errors from different perspectives.


The high-resolution eigenstructure-based DOA estimation methods,have an excellent performance in ideal cases,and can exactly estimate the signal's DOA.But their performance is susceptible to noise perturbation and array error and degrade significantly when array is with error.A blind calibration method is proposed in this paper.It can exactly estimate channel error without knowledge of signal's DOA.The computer simulation illustrates that this method is effective.


Pointcut descriptors (PCDs) are an important part of aspect orientation, they describe where a certain behavior will be woven into, it's correct accuracy is an important issue to be addressed by tests. Previous works on the subject lack on providing a way to independently verify PCDs accuracy, making the test cases less maintainable and more dependent on base code. This paper introduces the JQuati tool, which allows the elimination of the base class dependency, simulating execution contexts and offering a metadatabased syntax which provides a human readable test code for more maintainability and evolutive test development. KeywordsAspect Orientation; AOP; Testing; Verification; Validation; Quality; Pointcut Descriptors;


Abstract Magnetic resonance imaging is a new imaging technology based on the hydrogen's magnetic resonance feature. Gradient module should have high calculation speed and accuracy to complete massive computation work including rotation transform, eddy compensation and shimming in a very short time. We make a deep exploration into the gradient module from its function, real-time and accuracy requirements. Then, we propose and realize a novel gradient module based on high performance DSP. Experiments indicate that the gradient module we designed satisfies the function, real-time and accuracy requirements. It provides a practical gradient module solution for the development of digital Spectrometer.


1. Fibrinous loose bodies are due to some disease condition of the joint, and do not cause mechanical derangements.

2. Organized connective tissue loose bodies produce mechanical derangements.

3. Loose bodies may have as their primary cause some condition, such as osteoarthritis or Charcot's disease, but the secondary cause is direct or indirect trauma.

4. Osteochondritis dissecans is a group standing more or less distinctly out from the rest. The bodies seem to be produced by very slight indirect trauma. It is, however, difficult to estimate the degree of indirect trauma, and for that reason they had better be considered as due to trauma rather than to an actual disease.

5. Trauma, direct or indirect, is essential to the production of a loose body.

6. Surgery offers the only permanent relief, and the general condition of the patient being satisfactory, the bodies should be removed.


Hybrid system is a dynamic system that bas discrete state transfer and continuous state variation. Recently, popular hybrid system model includes threshold-event-driven hybrid systems (TEDHS) and polyhedral invariant hybrid automaton (PIHA). Finite state machine is used to describe the discrete feature of hybrid system and reachable set of stream pipe is used to describe its continuity approximately. These methods of system modeling are given in this paper. Furthermore, a verification tool called CheckMate based on MATLAB is used to realize the modeling, simulation and verification of hybrid system.


This study aims to investigate the research trends of Korean language listening education by topic and to propose future studies for the development of research on Korean listening education. For this purpose, this study classified 6 doctoral theses and 66 research papers related to Korean listening education by their topics and analyzed the research trends. For analysis, the criteria of the research topics were general, content, teaching method, educational materials, assessment, and curriculum; accordingly, research on educational materials had the highest percentage, followed by teaching method and general research. This study found that research on content, assessment, and curriculum had a lower percentage compared with other research topics. Based on the results, this study forms the following propositions. First, proficiency requires assessment and research on curriculum by area. Second, the research scope should be expanded to other research areas, such as teaching strategy, learners with various goals, research on other functions besides speaking, and application plans using educational materials.


This paper describes an L 1 regularized variational framework for de- veloping a spatially localized basis, compressed plane waves (CPWs), that spans the eigenspace of a differential operator, for instance, the Laplace operator. Our approach generalizes the concept of plane waves to an orthogonal real-space basis with multi-resolution capa- bilities. the non-convex optimization problem for constructing BCPWs, and a fast CPW transform and fast inverse CPW transform are developed for transforming between frequency space and real space. Numerical experiments demonstrate that CPWs can efficiently represent spatially localized functions, suggest- ing advantages over canonical basis of extended functions such as plane waves.


The essential oil yield and chemical composition of Salvia officinalis L. (Dalmatica origin) have been analyzed. Leaf samples for essential oil analysis were harvested at different developmental stages after treatment with foliar fertilizer Agroleaf® and foliar fertilizer + thidiazuron. In total, 10 constituents were identified and quantified. The main compounds in the essential oil that increased during the vegetative to the fruiting‐set stage are α‐thujon and camphor, whereas borneol, viridoflorol, and manool decreased. The effect of thidiazuron applied together with foliar fertilizer was established mainly at the flowering stage, increased essential oil yield by 16% over the control, and positively affected the percentage of β‐caryiophylene, α‐humulene, viridoflorol, and manool. Application of foliar fertilizer resulted in a greater increase of essential oil yield at the flowering stage in the combined foliar and thidiazuron application over the control. Both treatments decreased camphor at flowering and fruiting stages.


The invention relates to a process for catalyst-free selective growth on a semiconductor structure. According to the process, which is especially applicable to the field of electronics, a semiconductor structure (12) is formed using first gaseous or molecular streams. At the same time, or later on, at least one second gaseous or molecular stream is added to the first streams so as to make a dielectric layer (14) grow selectively and in situ on the structure. Next, another semiconductor structure (16) is made to grow on the first structure using third gaseous or molecular streams.


Changes in total calcium (Ca) and ionized calcium (Ca++), P, Mg, parathyroid hormone (PTH), albumin, hematocrit (Hct) and tubular reabsorption of phosphorus were studied in 12 patients during coronary bypass surgery. Blood was obtained before surgery, at cannulation, during cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB), 1 hour on CPB, off CPB and on postoperative days 1 and 5. The degree of hemodilution during CPB was assessed by Hct and albumin levels. No patient was treated with calcium. No citrated blood was added to the pump prime. Except for Mg (which remained normal), all values decreased at the time of cannulation and reached their lowest point at the onset of CPB (p < 0.05). The Ca and Ca+ + decreased from control levels of 8.8 ± 0.2 and 4.4 ± 0.1 mg/dl, respectively, to 6.2 ± 0.5 and 3.4 ± 0.3 mg/dl, respectively, at the time of CPB. During this same time period, Hct (an index of volume expansion) declined from 41 ± 3 to 24 ± 4 vol% (42 ± 6%), indicating the degree of volume expansion was as great or greater than the proportional decrease in either Ca (29 + 6%) or Ca++ (23 ± 6%) levels (mean ± SD). Albumin declined from 4.3 ± 0.4 to 2.6 + 0.5 g/dl (40 ± 11%) at the time of initiation of CPB and was associated with a marked increase in percent Ca++. This was associated with a decrease in PTH levels (80 ± 16 to 56 ± 18 g1Eq/ml); however, a rapid return to control value occurred before termination of CPB.We conclude that hemodilution is the major cause of hypocalcemia and that homeostasis of Ca++ is due to an increase in the percentage of Ca++ during CPB (51 ± I to 54 + 3%) resulting from a decrease in albumin and stimulation of PTH secretion, indicated by an increased PTH concentration and diminished tubular reabsorption of phosphorus despite continued hemodilution.


Self-reinforced Polymerized HDPE monofilament were prepared by die drawing process. According to Cox model for fiber composite and Gibson Ward crystalline bridges′ model, the reinforced mechanism was discussed to reveal that the mechanical improvement of monofilament was due to the growth of needlelike crystal with larger aspect ratio or the increase of volume fraction of the crystalline bridge. Based on the experimental results obtained by DMA, DSC and SEM, the theoretical prediction was also analyzed and discussed, and found the theoretical values could wellexplain the monofilament behavior.


Cool tools are seductive. When we think about software productivity, tools naturally come to mind. When we see pretty new tools, we tend to believe that their amazing features will help us get our work done much faster. Because every software engineer uses software productivity tools daily, and all team managers have to decide which tools their members will use, the latest and greatest look appealing.


CONTEXT
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has sponsored men's swimming and diving since 1937.

BACKGROUND
Routine examinations of men's swimming and diving injuries are important for identifying emerging injury-related patterns.

METHODS
Exposure and injury data collected in the NCAA Injury Surveillance Program during the 2014-2015 through 2018-2019 academic years were analyzed. Injury counts, rates, and proportions were used to describe injury characteristics, and injury rate ratios were used to examine differences in injury rates.

RESULTS
The overall injury rate was 1.56 per 1000 athlete-exposures (AEs) for swimmers and 1.52 per 1000 AEs for divers. Shoulder (27.0%) injuries accounted for the largest proportion of all swimming injuries, and most injuries were attributed to overuse mechanisms (42.6%). Shoulder (23.3%) and trunk (23.3%) injuries accounted for the largest proportion of all diving injuries, and most injuries resulted from surface contact (32.6%).

CONCLUSIONS
Findings were consistent with existing literature on swimming and diving. The need for continued surveillance, coupled with more robust participation by swimming and diving programs was also highlighted.


Diversity of sounding signal waveforms for polarimetric FM-CW radar is studied. Each signal represents a pair of mutually orthogonal wavelets which can be transmitted via two orthogonal polarizations. The signals compose a waveform library which has been implemented in the operational polarimetric software-defined radar PARSAX. This paper presents a sounding signals' library for polarimetric FM-CW radar. All the considered in this paper waveforms have been implemented in the operating polarimetric radar (in its FM-CW mode), namely in the PARSAX radar system developed in Delft, The Netherlands.


In different articles it is shown that multi-agent synchronization can be faster under certain undirected network topologies. In this paper, we present an algorithm which generates strongly connected directed small-world networks. The main goal is a further enhancement of convergence speed. The generated graphs solve the consensus problem significantly faster than regular networks with the same number of links. However, the produced structures are generally not balanced, i.e. the out-degree remains constant, while the in-degree can vary. In this case an averaging consensus will not be reached. To solve this inconvenience, we propose a heuristic sorting algorithm to balance the generated directed small-world networks. In addition, balancing has yet another positive influence on the convergence speed. The result is a balanced, directed small-world network which solves the consensus problem faster than undirected small-world networks.


significant role in inter-generational change. The pre-war generation seemed to regard tradition as something to be handed on intact, with associated practices unchanged. This caused the next generation to seek a reasoned faith in which personal integrity and conscience played a leading role. This in turn made this generation less confident about using practices such as church-going as transmitters of tradition, leaving the 1960s generation to walk away or innovate. The nature of normativity and the practices that transmit it are central concerns in contemporary practical theology and Jones's book argues persuasively for an historical perspective. I am sure that scholars of religion coming from other disciplines will find as much here to stimulate their own thinking as I have done.


In this paper, a design method is proposed and aided to assist warehouse designers to form a RFID set up and configurations in a cost effective way. The proposed method incorporates the methodology of RFID experiment and mathematical model for the cost and benefit analysis of RFID set up. The proposed model is used to investigate the contribution of the RFID system under different parameters including reliability of the RFID system, tagging strategy, risk of inventory lost and value of tagged objects. With the help of the proposed method, the result can be served as indication for RFID setup in a warehouse.


Video Instance Segmentation (VIS) is the task of localizing all objects in a video, segmenting them, tracking them throughout the video and classifying them into a set of predefined classes. In this work, divide VIS into these four parts: detection, segmentation, tracking and classification. We then develop algorithms for performing each of these four sub tasks individually, and combine these into a complete solution for VIS. Our solution is an adaptation of UnOVOST, the current best performing algorithm for Unsupervised Video Object Segmentation, to this VIS task. We benchmark our algorithm on the 2019 YouTube-VIS Challenge, where we obtain first place with an mAP score of 46.7%.


La Ceppede's Theoremes function as a literary text in which analysis takes place typologically through the rewriting of various sacred themes. Gospel narrative is presented in the sonnet cycles in such a way as to link events from pagan antiquity and the Old Testament with the Agony, the Crucifixion, and the Ascension (Chilton 1977: 115-130; Donaldson-Evans 1969: 111-123). In terms of exegetic commentary, the sonnet adheres to the Patristic and medieval tradition of figural interpretation that cites and re-sites the liturgy of the Catholic faith (Danielou 1950; Evans 1963: 280-281). Each poem reflects back upon itself; it is part of an intratextual matrix, a self-referential narrative that conveys the idea to which its 'theologie allegoricque' gives rise. The laceppedian text thus realizes the root meaning of its title theorem: to look at, to envisage, and consequently to revise the signification of sacred events through an exegetical script that retraces and reactivates the drama of sacred history:


With global drivers such as better energy consumption, energy efficiency and reduction of greenhouse gases, CO2 emission reduction has become key in every layer of the value chain. Power Electronics has definitely a role to play in these thrilling challenges. From converters down to compound semiconductors, innovation is leading to breakthrough technologies. Wide BandGap, Power Module Packaging, growth of Electric Vehicle market will game change the overall power electronic industry and supply chain. In this presentation we will review power electronics trends, from technologies to markets. INTRODUCTION The power electronics industry now deals with conversion and motion, and thus requires lighter/smaller, cheaper and more efficient systems. This evolution starts with improvements at the semiconductor level. There are four technologies which are best suited to handle new system requirements: silicon IGBT, Super Junction (SJ) MOSFETs, Gallium Nitride (GaN) and Silicon Carbide (SiC)-based devices. POWER ELECTRONIC INDUSTRY 1) Last year, 2014, was a year of recovery for the power electronics market. After two tough years without seeing any growth, in 2014 the market 's size increased by 8.4%, reaching $11.5B for power semiconductor devices. The outlook for the years ahead is also optimistic. Market growth will be driven by a significant increase in electric and hybrid vehicle (EV/HEV) sales, as well as the ramp-up of renewable energy and more smart-grid technology implementation. The market will surpass $17B by 2020, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.9% for the period 2014-2020 (Figure 1). Power modules, and more precisely IGBTs, will lead this growth. Modules are expected to reach a CAGR 2014-2020 of 10.3%, compared to 5.1% growth for discrete components. This growth in the demand of IGBT modules is due to their improved overall performance in terms of efficiency and thermal conductivity management. The new wide band gap device market will also drive growth, representing around 5% of the overall market by 2020, even though in terms of units their presence will still be limited. Figure 1: 2006 – 2020 power device market evolution 2) In this context the supply chain is evolving. The power electronics supply chain is very diverse and mostly application (and local market) dependent. European and American players will prioritize horizontal integration, keeping proven expertise in a specific level of the value chain. Therefore, partnerships and joint-ventures will be preferred. This paper will review the major mergers and acquisitions of 2014, for instance International Rectifier's acquisition by Infineon, in order to understand their context and purpose. Some system manufacturers, such as Tesla or BYD, have understood the importance of developing their own power electronics and energy management systems for traction, chargers and batteries in order to offer extended addedvalue. Asian companies will prefer to expand vertically in order to be fully integrated and optimize the costs. Japanese players are already vertically integrated and involved in multiple applications simultaneously to benefit from their technologies across different markets. Chinese players are developing this vertical integration in order to create major market leaders in each application segment such as SunGrow in PV, GoldWind in wind and BYD in EV/HEV. This report focusses especially on the details of the Chinese market, which is driven by Chinese Government policies. In this changing environment, western and Japanese players need to bring high added-value solutions to be able to 2 33 CS MANTECH Conference, May 18th 21st, 2015, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA compete with Chinese companies. The strategies of the main players will be presented. 3) The demand for compact products is increasing. Therefore, players are obliged to create partnerships between different industries in order to coordinate and use the synergies of integrated products to offer a smaller and higher-performance solution. Several partnerships are influenced by this trend. In this direction, the concept of the power stack has recently appeared and ever more companies will take part in their development. Technologically, MOSFETs and IGBTs are and will continue to be the devices in greatest demand, covering low and medium-high voltage applications respectively. New technologies have appeared in the last decade, such as Super Junction MOSFETs, which have brought the MOSFET family into higher voltage segments up to 900V, with better performance. In terms of power packaging, ongoing evolution is driven particularly by the EV/HEV industry. Figure 2: SiC and GaN device positioning among the traditional silicon-based devices The charge of new wide band gap (WBG) materials is also reshaping the power electronics industry. Silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN)-based devices are intended for high voltage especially SiC high frequency and high temperature applications thanks to their advanced performance compared to silicon devices (Figure 2). SiC technology is more mature than GaN, and so industry segments such as the rail traction and PV inverters have already launched their WBG device systems based on it. The introduction of SiC into other high voltage segments, such as wind and high-voltage direct current grids is also inevitable. But the big boost for these new markets should arrive with the implementation of SiC devices in electric cars' traction systems. GaN systems are still less present i n the market. Some consumer applications, such as laptop chargers, and just-announced PV inverters are going to be the first segments incorporating GaN. Several system manufacturers are also developing further SiC and/or GaN device-based prototypes and thus the next 5 years are going to be decisive for WBG devices' introduction into different markets. GAN IN POWER ELECTRONICS 1) Overall, 2020 exhibits a projected market size for devices of almost $600m, leading to approximately 580,000 x 6" wafers to be processed. Ramp-up will be quite impressive starting from 2016 with approximately 80% CAGR to 2020, based upon the scenario where EV/HEV starts adopting GaN in 20182019. From 2015, Power Supply / PFC segment will dominate the business until 2018 where it should represent 50% of the device sales. Automotive will then catch-up. In the UPS applications, medium power segment is probably much more in line with GaN value proposition as savings at system level is demonstrated. We think GaN technology could grab up to 15% of market shares in this field in 2020. Figure 3: Estimated accessible markets, growth rate, and time to market of main GaN applications Room for extra cost in motor drive applications is very unlikely. Therefore, the incentives to implement new technologies such as GaN have to be serious and strong. Considering the possible improvement on the conversion efficiency augmented by a predictable price parity with Si solution by 2018, we do expect GaN to start being implemented in motor control by 2015-2016, at quite a slow rate, and reach about $45m revenues by 2020 (Figure 3). PV inverters has already adopted SiC technology and products are now commercially available. GaN could possibly partially displace SiC, playing with a better price positioning. However now that SiC is in place, the qualification of GaN may be more challenging. 2) Recent announcements shows the GaN industry is shaping along mergers, acquisitions and license agreements. Latest Transphorm-Fujitsu agreement in addition to Furukawa IP portfolio exclusive licensing are very positive signs that GaN technology is spreading over all the value 34 CS MANTECH Conference, May 18th 21st, 2015, Scottsdale, Arizona, USA chain, reinforcing market position of leaders but also probably leaving weakest players by the wayside of the road. Reasonably speaking, we are forecasting 2014 will only generate $10m to $12m device sales. Such a moderate business will only let the strongest survive and will probably kill several early-birds who will see their cash-flow quickly melting. We think that real power GaN business will only decently start by 2016, exceeding the psychological threshold of $50m revenues. The key question is now: how to survive another 1.5 to 2 years? Far from being over ly-pessimistic, we are afraid some entities won't cross the chiasm and will be acquired or will go bankrupt. Today power GaN business is mainly centered on low voltage DC-DC converter (typically Pointof Loads POL) using available 200V-rated devices. However this business only generates a few million $ revenues. Thanks to 600V device introduction this year, GaN will certainly grow quite fast in power-supply and PFC applications where technical added-value and economics are obvious. We have simulated several case-studies and came to the conclusion that even though today market price for GaN devices exceeds Silicon ones, the improvement on efficiency and savings on the electricity bill can compensate this extra cost in less than 1 year for a 300W 24/7 operation power supply (data server type). Projected in 2018, the same power supply could even be cheaper than the silicon counterpart simply thanks to the reduction on passives (capacitor, self induction) cost, along with switching frequency increase. Therefore, we envision a preliminary take-off of the PFC segment by 2015 along with an 80% CAGR over 20162020. Other applications such as the PV inverter and, to a lesser extent, in motor control, we see GaN starting to capture market share by 20152016. The next big thing, will unquestionably be EV and HEV segments where GaN could definitely play a role in power systems such as low-voltage (14V -> 200-400V) DC-DC converters and later on for battery chargers (on-board 3.6 & 7.2 kW first then off-board 50kW+). However, we do not see any chance for GaN to enter in the power-train inverter (60kW+) before 2019-2020, due to the lack of current capabi


nsca's performance training journal • www.nsca-lift.org • volume 10 issue 5 20 Brad Schoenfeld is an internationally renowned fi tness expert and widely regarded as one of the leading authorities on body composition training (muscle development and fat loss). He is a lifetime drug-free bodybuilder, and has won numerous natural bodybuilding titles including the ANPPC Tri-State Naturals and USA Mixed Pairs crowns. He has been published in numerous magazines. He earned his Master's degree in Kinesiology/Exercise Science from the University of Texas. He was named the 2011 NSCA Personal Trainer of the Year.


This paper describes an omnidirectional vision system that uses a video camera, a conic shaped reflector, and a matching algorithm to compute the position and orientation of a mobile robot. The primary advantage to this system is that a panoramic view with good precision is produced.


Black rubber adhesive sealing for long life protection of ARMACHEK D glued seams and joints 290ml cartridges Excellent UV and weather resistance


1. Juvenile spiny lobsters (Panulirus argus) could be trained in air in a two-choice discrimination box to use two stimulating lights which differed in intensity by a factor of 3-5 times in learning to reach an open exit hole leading to an aquarium containing sea water.2. Comparable training procedures yielded no better than chance selection of the two compartments (one with the open exit, the other with its exit blocked) when the conditioning lights were of equal intensity but were both linearly polarized, one horizontally, the other vertically. Demonstration that lobsters did not use polarization pattern in this spatial discrimination situation does not prove that the plane of polarization was not perceived by Panulirus.3. Learning was more rapid than it was to intensity differences when the animals were trained always to go to one side of the discrimination box to reach the open exit. For intensity discrimination initial high percentage errors were reduced to less than 20% only on the twentieth day aft...


To the Editor.— I read with interest the recent article regarding toxic effects from burning arsenic-treated (pressure-treated) wood. 1 I recently had a bulkhead installed using such wood. Discussion with the builders indicated that they suffered from rough and irritated hands and had irritation of other parts of their body that were routinely in contact with the wood during construction. They usually did not wear gloves. This is clearly an effect of the chemicals contained in the wood, most notably arsenic, and is not usually seen in carpenters not using arsenic-treated wood. The effects may be accentuated in marine construction use, with the recent introduction of 1.13-kg treated wood. This wood has ten times the amount of chemicals found in the usual 0.11-kg pressure-treated wood used in land construction, the type most likely burned by the family in the aforementioned article. I suggest that appropriate warnings be distributed to lumber


Introduction Extensive bone loss and poor residual bone quality can make implant fixation difficult to achieve in revision of failed megaprostheses. While newer porous components are available to address various periarticular cavitary and segmental defects, diaphyseal fixation remains challenging without resorting to cemented techniques, or cementless fully-coated stems that achieve fixation over long segments of bone. In cases of previous infection, it may be advantageous to avoid the use of such devices as they can be difficult to remove and may result in even greater bone loss if the infection were to persist. Compressive osseointegration technology has been become a valuable device in the management of these challenging situations. Objectives We aimed to evaluate the short-term results of compressive osseointegration when used for reconstruction of massive diaphyseal and segmental bone defects. We believe that compressive osseointegration provides predictable, strong endoprosthesis fixation in the short-term and that osseointegration can be evaluated radiogrphically. Methods We retrospectively reviewed a total of 32 implants (spindles) in 28 patients with failed prior megaprosthetic reconstructions. Procedures were performed at two institutions by six surgeons. Data recorded included patient demographics, indication for surgery, diaphyseal segment and joint reconstructed, and any complications. Results Average patient age and body mass index at time of surgery were 48 years (range 14–68) and 28.1 m2 (range 17–58), respectively. Indications included aseptic loosening (18), loosening and infection (11), and allograft-prosthetic composite nonunion (3). The reconstructions consisted of distal femoral replacement (16), proximal femoral replacement (10), distal humeral replacement (4) and proximal ulnar replacement (2). There were five spindle failures in 4 patients. Three were converted to a Compress device, two were successful one converted to a cemented stem and another patient was also converted to a cemented stem. Other complications that required repeat surgery included hinge failure (2), arthrofibrosis (1), segment taper adapter fracture (2), persistent chronic deep wound infection (1)and superficial wound infection (1). Fixation at the bone-implant interface remained intact in each of these cases. There was 1 deep infection in this series in spite of a large number of index infected megaprostheses. Twenty-six of twenty-eight patients (92.8%) achieved stable osteointegration and we had an overall spindle osteointegration failure rate of 15.6% (5 of 32) at a mean follow-up length of 16.7 months (range 0.5–57.4). The cortex/spindle ratio of these increased from 0.33 (SD 0.9) immediately postoperatively to 0.53 (SD 0.15) at final follow-up (p Conclusion Use of compressive osseointegration for revision of failed massive segmental bone defects (See Fig 1 and 2) provides reliable short term fixation, and may prove to be bone conserving in cases that require future re-revision. The cortex/spindle ratio reliably increases over time as fixation is achieved. It has become our device of choice for failed limb salvage reconstructions.


Paraphrasing the German poet Bertolt Brecht's 1949 poem "Wahrnehmung", it can be said that for Latin American regionalism, the fatigue of the summits has been left behind; it must now cope with the labors of the plains. The days when Latin American presidents socialized frequently at summit meetings are long gone. In the golden age of summitry, between 2004 and 2012, four Summits of the Americas, six Latin American summits, 29 South American summits (including the Southern Common Market— Mercosur), nine Andean summits, 18 Caribbean summits, 52 Central American summits, 18 Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) summits, and eight IberoAmerican Summits were held, for a total of 144 summits in 9 years (Portales, 2014, p. 56). It was the time when Chilean President Sebastián Piñera (Cooperativa, 2011) complained ironically that Latin America had so many summits it looked like a mountain range. Christopher Sabatini (2012) argued in Foreign Policy that, "the Western Hemisphere has a strong claim to the title of summit capital of the world," adding that, "if the number of summits were a measure of the quality of diplomacy, Latin America would be a utopia of harmony, cooperation, and understanding." As the comments show, the proliferation of summits has often been ridiculed or problematized. The SecretaryGeneral of the IberoAmerican General Secretariat (SEGIB), Enrique V. Iglesias (2014, p. 7), referred to the "syndrome of cumbritis" and "summit fatigue." Latin American presidential summits were also a subject for academic debates on their merits and their dysfunctional aspects (Jarque et al., 2009; Mace et al., 2016; Ortiz, 2013). From a positive perspective, summit diplomacy created a climate of trust and facilitated political agreements, strengthened multilateralism and promoted regional integration projects (Rojas Aravena, 2009, p. 30), and was a mechanism of crisis management (Tussie, 2016). Summit diplomacy changed long before the restrictions of the Covid19 pandemic. Latin American presidents meet less often and in fewer forums, particularly those from South America. From 2010 to 2014, an average of 7.6 presidential summits per year were organized with the participation of South American presidents (without counting the IberoAmerican summits, the European Union– Community of Latin American and Caribbean States [CELAC] summits, and the Summits of the Americas), but the number fell to 4.6 in the second half of the decade (see Table 1). The fact that presidents meet less often, and even more, the lack of meetings, are indicators of the crisis of Latin American regionalism and of one of its basic components— regional organizations. A vivid example is the Union of South American Nations (Unasur), where the "golden age of UNASUR summitry might have been the 2008– 2010 period, when a string of crisis happened in rapid succession and there was enough consensus to induce leaders to take action" (Tussie, 2016, p. 83). Eleven of 18 Unasur summits between 2008 and 2014 were


The loss of resolution is one of the most important issues of autostereoscopic displays. In this paper, a method to realize an autostereoscopic LCD with full-resolution and reduced flicker using a multi-directional backlight unit is proposed.


Anterolateral thigh (ALT) free flap is one of the most popular options for surgeons when reconstructing head and neck defects. When the recipient vessels are located in a remote site, a flap with adequate pedicle length is essential. The conventional methods of either pedicle elongation or fabricating combined flap increase the total surgical time. We present the experience on the use of what in situ pedicle lengthening and perforator shifting technique to overcome these problems.


The main purpose of this study is to analyze and compare the nano-particle emission characteristics by 3-different fuel(Gasoline, LPG, Diesel) and 2-different driving mode(CVS-75, NEDC) in a 2.0L passenger vehicle. Nano-particle number density emitted by various operating conditions of combustion methods(SI, CI). Test vehicle"s particle emissions was investigated by using the GPMS(Golden Particle Measurement System). Under the driving mode(CVS-75, NEDC) of the 2.0L passenger vehicles with different fuel, the nano-particle number density was measured at the downstream position of DPF(diesel Vehicle), TWC(gasoline, LPG vehicle) system. As a result, this research indicates that all results are much lower than permissible emission regulation (6×10 11 #/km).


A review was carried out with the aim of providing the comprehensive and organized information on Gender based disparity in Poultry production day to day activities. Poultry production has an important economic, social and cultural role in rural areas of developing Countries like Ethiopia where women's involvement and contribution has not been much recognized even though they contribute a lot for agricultural sector. According to this review results, Village chicken production has a fundamental role in capital build up, poverty minimization, malnutrition and hunger reduction among the resource poor households in developing countries of the world because of their short generation intervals, low input requirements for production, good scavengers and adaptation to harsh production environments. This review results also indicated that women are generally less able than men to participate in economic opportunities because they face a work burden that men do not. In most societies, women are responsible for most of the household and child-rearing activities as well rearing of small livestock, although norms differ by culture and over time. The review went further to address and compile available findings concerning the challenges poultry farmers face and showed that the most serious constraints hindering poultry production was predator followed by flock mortality and prevalence of diseases, and low production.


In recent years social psychologists have displayed a growing interest in examining morality—what people consider right and wrong. The majority of work in this area has addressed this either in terms of individual-level processes (relating to moral decision making or interpersonal impression formation) or as a way to explain intergroup relations (perceived fairness of status differences, responses to group-level moral transgressions). We complement this work by examining how moral standards and moral judgements play a role in the regulation of individual behaviour within groups and social systems. In doing this we take into account processes of social identification and self-categorisation, as these help us to understand how adherence to moral standards may be functional as a way to improve group-level conceptions of self. We review a recent research programme in which we have investigated the importance of morality for group-based identities and intra-group behavioural regulation. This reveals convergent evidence of the centrality of moral judgements for people's conceptions of the groups they belong to, and demonstrates the importance of group-specific moral norms in identifying behaviours that contribute to their identity as group members.


Through consulting materials and field survey,the current situation of plant landscape of Tianxiang Park were understood,and combining the configuration of landscape plant and basic theory of plant landscaping,plant species selection,configuration forms of plant,plant space types,co-ordination with other garden elements were analyzed systematically,moreover,the characteristics of plant landscape of Tianxiang Park were summarized,problems in it were pointed out,and the corresponding suggestions were proposed,which provided references for urban landscape construction in Heze.


Patients presenting in urinary retention secondary to prostatic obstruction are offered transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP) to free them from long‐term catheterization. Short‐term success is well understood, but there is scarce data about effect of age on outcome, quality of life and catheter‐free rates.


Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a progressive disease that is characterized by vascular remodeling and sustained vasoconstriction which consequently lead to high blood pressure in the pulmonary vasculature and right ventricle remodeling. Altered bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) signaling has been implicated in the pathogenesis of PAH as well as in pulmonary vascular maturation. The endogenous BMP antagonist follistatin‐like 1 (Fstl1) is highly expressed in pulmonary vascular endothelium of the developing lung in mice, suggesting a role in pulmonary vessel formation. In this study, the role of Fstl1 in the maturation of the pulmonary vasculature was investigated using Tie2‐cre mediated endothelial‐specific Fstl1 knockout mice. To this end, Fstl1fl/fl mice were bred with Fstl1WT/KO Tie2‐cre mice to generate Fstl1KO/fl Tie2‐cre mice and control littermates Fstl1WT/fl Tie2‐cre, Fstl1KO/fl, and Fstl1WT/fl. Heart and lung tissue was collected from pups at 1 and 3 weeks after birth. The percentage of actin‐positive small vessels per total number of vessels was determined. The expression level of Fstl1 and BMP/Smad‐regulated genes was determined in total RNA isolated from lungs using qPCR. Activation of BMP signaling was investigated using western blot. In wildtype mice, the mRNA expression of Fstl1 was higher in lung tissue at 1 week than 3 weeks (p<0.005). In line with the idea that Fstl1 is a BMP inhibitor, BMP signaling was more active at 3 weeks than 1 week, reflected by the higher level of pSmad1/5/8 at 3 weeks than 1 week. Moreover, the mRNA levels of the BMP/Smad‐regulated genes JAG1 (p<0.05) and endothelin‐1 (p<0.005) were increased at 3 weeks compared to 1 week after birth. Endothelial‐specific deletion of Fstl1 was postnatally lethal, approx. 70% of Fstl KO/fl Tie2‐cre mice died at 3 weeks after birth. Though most were found dead, some were found in respiratory distress prior to dying. In these mice, Fstl1 mRNA expression was reduced (p<0.01) compared to wildtype mice at 1 week. Endothelial deletion of Fstl1 resulted in activation of Smad1/5/8 signaling and increased BMP/Smad‐regulated gene expression of JAG1 (p<0.05), endoglin (p<0.05), and endothelin‐1 (p<0.05) at 1 week. At 3 weeks, JAG1 was reduced (p<0.01) whereas endoglin and endothelin‐1 were unchanged. Furthermore, the percentage of actin‐positive small pulmonary vessels was increased at 3 weeks old of Fstl1KO/fl Tie2‐cre mice compare to wildtype (p<0.005) whereas it was unaltered at 1 week. Loss of endothelial Fstl1 induces activation of BMP‐mediated gene expression and microvasculature remodeling, which presumably due to alteration in endothelin‐1 expression.


There has long been no clear position and stable operating profit model for trust.CBRC implemented "trust new deal" until 2007,trust principal industry began to slowly clear up.The paper reviewed the development process of trust.Based on lessons learned,it analyzed the living environment for the development of trust,and then located the trust business and forecasted its development trends.


Research purposes: The Structure performance of continuous beam and arch combined bridge of Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway was discussed.For the longest-span(90+180+90) m continuous beam and arch combined bridge of Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway,the space member system element finite model was established to detailedly calculate,analyze and research the internal force and creep deformation during bridging,live load effect,long-term creep deflection,load bearing capacity and dynamic characteristics for the purpose of knowing the load bearing characteristics of the combined structure by comparison with single continuous beam without considering the arch.Research conclusions:The continuous beam and arch combined structure of constructing the beam first and then constructing the arch had the features that the structure could bear load integrally,and the arch could passively bear beam's self weight,improve the live load effect,creep effect and the ultimate bearing capacity and enhance the safety degree and long-term operation performance of the structure.The thrust on the arch springing could increase the axial force and deformation.Meanwhile,the out-plane vibration of the arch occurred many times in the first several vibration due to its weak out-plane stiffness.


The second number of 2010 provides insights into language learning across the all levels of education levels: from primary to tertiary education, from developing literacy in a home language to learning a foreign language. This collection of articles all focus on the promotion of language comprehension , either in terms of reading or listening comprehension.


Organic matter burried in sediments contains a multitude of palaeoceanographic and palaeoclimatic signals. With the major developments in instrumental analytical chemistry in the last 20 years, the decoding of these signals has become possible and molecular fossils have become an important tool in the assessment of palaeoenvironments. For instance, the determination of the number of double bonds in sedimentary long-chain ketones derived from coccolithophorid algae is now a widely applied technique in palaeoceanography to determine past sea-surface temperatures (Brassell, 1993). In this paper we will demonstrate the use of molecular fossils derived from the carotenoid isorenieratene to assess photic zone euxinia in ancient depositional environments. As an example the redox state of the North Atlantic Ocean during the Cenomanian/Turonian (C/T) anoxic event will be evaluated.


In the given work use of relative frequency of change of a complex estimation at change of value of criterion is offered.


Abstract In the first volume of Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory, Gries (2005. Null-hypothesis significance testing of word frequencies: A follow-up on Kilgarriff. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory 1(2). doi:10.1515/cllt.2005.1.2.277. http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/cllt.2005.1.issue-2/cllt.2005.1.2.277/cllt.2005.1.2.277.xml: 285) asked whether corpus linguists should abandon null-hypothesis significance testing. In this paper, I want to revive this discussion by defending the argument that the assumptions that allow inferences about a given population – in this case about the studied languages – based on results observed in a sample – in this case a collection of naturally occurring language data – are not fulfilled. As a consequence, corpus linguists should indeed abandon null-hypothesis significance testing.


The radiation-resistance properties of copper-contaminated n/p type cells are observed only when the copper concentration is larger than the boron density in the bulk region of the cells. The values of Δ(1/L2) on n/p type cells are not always proportional to the boron density in the bulk region.


Hydrocarbon degradation can occur with diverse varieties of microbes in nature. Different chemical compounds have shown their susceptibility to the microbial degradation. . Fungal species generally forms carcinogenic trans – diols while bacterial species generally forms cis – diols. Contaminated soil contained significantly higher amount (50 – 75 %) of gram negative bacteria having genotypes enclosing genes compared to pristine soil (0 – 12.5 %). Application of bioinformatics tools like BLAST has identified microorganism asBacillus cereus, microorganism2 as Pseudoxanthomonasmexicana, microorganism3 as Halomonasdaqingensis and microorganism4 as Parapusillimonasgranuli. These microbes were given names accordingly from PS11 to PS14 respectively. They were assigned unique identification numbers starting from KM192258 to KM192261


Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is the leading cause of death in young adults in the Western world. Membrane/lipid rafts (MLR) are plasmalemmal microdomains enriched in sphingolipids, cholesterol, and the protein caveolin (Cav). We have previously shown that primary neurons in vitro transfected with neuron‐targeted Cav‐1 (SynCav1) significantly enhanced expression of pro‐survival and pro‐growth signaling components and increased dendritic growth and arborization. We therefore extended our studies to an in vivo mouse traumatic brain injury (TBI) model utilizing a controlled cortical impact (CCI; 5 m/sec; +1.5 to ‐2.5 bregma, right hemisphere). CCI was performed on a transgenic mouse that overexpresses Cav‐1 only in neurons (SynCav1TG). We performed motor and cognitive tests on sham (craniotomy only) and CCI TG positive (TGpos) and negatives (TGneg). Motor tests were performed on a weekly basis post CCI. Fear conditioning was performed 35 days post CCI. Preliminary data shows a deficit in the inverted wire grid and hippocampal dependent fear conditioning in CCI TGneg mice. We are currently testing the TGpos mice in our CCI model as well as AAV‐SynCav1 intravenous injections in WT mice 24 hr post CCI. Such data could indicate that neuron‐targeted Cav‐1 may be a novel therapy to limit brain injury after TBI and may be an effective therapeutic intervention for other neurodegenerative diseases.


A study using 75 "lost" letters was designed to test the hypothesis that the rates of return would not vary with the addressees' affiliation, while the level of response would. 30 letters (40%) were returned in the mail to a Post Office Box in Pensacola, Florida. Returns to a Control addressee, Committee to Support the Impeachment of President Bill Clinton, and Committee Opposed to the Impeachment of President Bill Clinton affiliates were 56.0%, 20.0%, and 44.0%, respectively. Of 314 responses recorded for 30 returns, more passersby chose to "ignore" an apparently lost letter than passersby who "responded to an apparently lost letter but did not take it." Addressees' affiliations significantly were associated with both rates of return and levels of response, as measures of public response using the lost-letter technique.


Focal-plane imaging with microwave and millimeter wave has many potential applications. The bad resolution is a main shortcoming of this technique at present. In this paper, influence of frequency of electromagnetic wave on the refractive energy is analyzed. According to the refractive mechanism of electromagnetic induction, the principle for designing artificial materials with enough refractive ability is proposed. The material of artificial molecules is fabricated with cage-shaped granules of conductor (CGC). The refractive index of CGC material to microwave was measured by assembling CGC prism with PS (polystyrene) prism or SGC (solid granule of conductor) prism. The assemblies greatly eliminate displacement of the outgoing microwave caused by diffraction. This is a key point to achieve direct measurement of the refractive index under the microwave. CGC material shows a considerable refractive ability. SGC material and PS show little refractive ability. The results are useful in promoting image technique of microwave and millimeter-wave by improving the refractive ability and eliminating detriment of the diffraction on the lenses.


Objective:To discuss 1 example food poisoning caused by the ingestion of soybean paste and detect type A botulinum toxin.Methods:Used botulinum toxin type A rapid detection kit(immunogold method) for screening,and then confirmd by GB/T4789.12-2003 in accordance with national standard methods,using mice injected test methods.Results:After screening and confirmatory tests,detectd type A botulinum toxin in soybean paste.Conclusion:Immunogold method and national standard method confirmed the existence of botulinum toxin type A and indicated that ingestion of contaminated by clostridium botulinum and other unclean food is still the main cause of food poisoning reasons.


Monitoring players during match play has become a fundamental approach to gain understanding on soccer demands. Considering there has been growing interest in performances of young players, it is important to understand on young players training requirement. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine the relationship between match running performance and physical capacities in U15 young soccer players. Twenty outfield players from sports school and academy (n=20, 1.63±0.8 m, and 56.1±9.5 kg) volunteered to participate in the study. Match running performance was analysed during two matches for each player using 5 Hz global positioning system. The participants performed the Yo-Yo Intermittent Recovery Level 1 (YYIR1), Countermovement Jump (CMJ) and 20 m Sprint to determine the physical capacities. The results showed there were no significant relationship between; total distance covered and YY1R1, sprint distance and leg power, maximum sprint speed during matches (km.h-1) with 20 m sprint (P>0.05). These results suggest that physical capacity test should not be used as a single factor in recognizing a young player's potential to excel and to predict soccer performance. Young players may not need extraordinary capacity; however, they must possess a reasonably high level within all areas to be a good player.


A carbon nanofiber (CNF) covered alumina composite of tri-lobular shape was synthesized by catalytic chemical vapor deposition using Ni as catalyst and ethylene as carbon source. Its morphology and microstructure, textural and mechanical properties, and crystallinity were investigated using N2 physisorption, scanning electron microscopy, particle crushing strength measurement and X-ray diffraction. It was shown that the CNFs grown on the surface of the tri-lobular granule alumina had a high degree of graphitization, and the alumina substrate and the CNF layer were combined into a composite, which had a mesoporous structure and a surface area larger than 187 m2·g-1. The pore volume of the composite was larger than 0.24 cm3·g-1 and more than 85% of the pore volume corresponded to a pore size range between 3 and 10 nm. The side crushing strength of the composite satisfied the requirements for industrial catalyst supports. Therefore, the composite is very promising for industrial application.


1. The present work has had for subject a morphological study of the following specimens of Gallinaceae: common fowl (Gallus domesticus), Caucasian pheasant (Phasianus colchicus), silver peasant (Nycthemerus argentatus), peacock (Pavo cristatus), guineafowl (Numidae meleagris), turkey (Melagris gallopavo), woodcock (Tetrao tetrix).The individuality of the largest elements of chromosome complements has been established for all these specimens; the corresponding caryograms are given in Figs. 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14. The general aspect of the chromosome complement in each specimen can be respectively seen in Figs. 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19. Determination of the chromosome numbers has not been aimed at in the present research.2. The comparison of the individual chromosomes studied between themselves has revealed a similarity of a number of chromosomes. On the strength of morphological data and the length of chromosomes, a table has been drawn (Fig. 15). As a result, fourteen chromosome types have been ascertained in Gallinaceae (Fig. 16).3. The material obtained enables us to distinguish two groups of caryotypes; the first group, embracing common fowl, peacock guinea-fowl, is characterized by the presence of numerous chromosomes with two arms; the second group containing Caucasian pheasant, silver pheasant, turkey, stone partridge (according to data obtained by Peshkovskaia) is characterized by the prevalence of rod-shaped chromosomes with a terminal spindle fiber attachment.4. The strong similarity between the caryotypes of a number of large individual chromosomes of the specimens studied leads the authors to the conclusion that in the evolution of Gallinaceae the divergence of separate forms was in the main not followed by any morphological changes in chromosomes, being apparently due to mutations of genes.


Titanium and its alloys have been used in biomedical applications due to their excellent properties such as high corrosion resistance, biocompatibility and mechanical properties. In orthodontics, initially, it was common to use nickel-titanium alloys, however due to allergic reactions of patients, new titanium alloys containing elements such as niobium and tantalum are being studied. The Ti-25Ta-25Nb alloy is a β-titanium alloy and it has a low elastic modulus. In the present work, the ternary alloy was evaluated after cold work by swaging followed by solubilization treatment. Microstructure and mechanical properties were evaluated after each step of the process. Results were similar to find in the literature for this alloy obtained by other processing rote.


Students' motivation in teaching exerts a significant effect on their learning performance and the development of quality and is a focus researched by educational psychology. It is generally held in a recent study that the learning motivation towards the effect of students' studies and behaviors must be realized by means of the construction of social cognition as a medium. There are many researches about the motivation of social-cognition construction which mainly include such five respects as self-effect sense, return control belief, interest potential motivation, task-value belief and personal purpose. Based on such researches, educators have raised and practiced a series of teaching-design principles to stimulate and maintain the students' motivation.


The paper presents methods of mathematical modelling of buried multilayer oil pipelines laid in areas of Western Siberia and the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. Modelling was carried out on the basis of data from several sections of oil pipelines under various burying conditions. In the work, we also used a wide range of different software programs for modelling in order to identify a software product suitable for the goals and objectives of this work.


To the Editor: A 35-year-old man was apparently well 10 years ago, when he had a roadside fall, while riding on a bicycle, resulting in an abrasion, close to tbe left elbow to which he paid scant attention. Five months later he had erythematous eruptions at the site of the trauma that ultimately evolved into a horseshoeshaped lesion. Its progress was insidious and steady. The patient vividly remembered that the eruption progressed towards the wrist joint, leaving behind the sequelae of the original lesion in the form of a tissue-paper scar. The lesion is still very active and shows a mucopurulent discharge. It has extended also to involve the antecubital fossa resulting in a hypertrophic scar (Fig. 1). There was no history of evening rise of temperature, cough, or expectoration. Blood examination revealed a total leukocyte count of 6,100/mm\ neutrophils 67%, lymphocytes 30%, eosinophils 0.3%, and an ESR of 20 mm in 1 hour. A radiograph of the chest was normal. Mantoux test was more than 10 mm. A Ziehl-Neelsen's stained smear from the lesion was negative, as was also the culture on LowensteinJensens' culture media after 6 weeks of inoculation.


We report a case of inflammatory myofibroblastic tumor of the bladder (IMTB) that arises from left posterior bladder wall. The IMTB usually demonstrates slight hypointensity on T1WI, heterogeneous bright hyperintensity on T2WI, hyperintensity on DWI, and no restricted diffusion on ADC map. IMTB exhibits irregular ring enhancement and scatters stripe-like enhancement in central area with progressive and persistent enhancement pattern on CE-MRI. High-contrast multisequence MRI may be a potential technique to distinguish IMTB from other bladder tumors.


In the absorption of 4 mc/sec sound in liquids the complete conversion of sound energy into thermal energy is substantiated.


Analysis only in filter transfer function of Volterra systems is sufficient but maybe not faultless. For this paper the identification procedures of subharmonic oscillations of ultrasound contrast agent (UCA) is described and considered impulse response functions (IRFs). The method for system identification is based on multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) Volterra series representation. In this work identification of the MIMO method is the theme and analysis of impulse response is considered as the target on filtering subharmonic frequency for ultrasound imaging.


Support Vector Machines (SVM) is a statistical classification approach which has been successfully applied to various types of problems. However, it has remained largely unexplored for Arabic recognition. SVMs are originally designed for binary classification problems. For multi-class problems, several methods used a combination of binary SVMs while some others solved the problem in one step. This paper introduces an evaluation of five SVM methods for the Arabic characters recognition problem; three are based on binary classifiers, and two considers all classes at once. The selected algorithms are compared in terms of training time, testing time and accuracy. Experiments conducted using the Arabic Printed Text Image Database-Multi-Font(APTID/MF ) showed that the "one-against-one method" is the robust, fast and produces a very good score rate at a reasonable time.


Toxic pollutants and harmful flue gases resulting from combustion of fossil fuels in several industries are adversely effecting human and his environment. Packed towers, especially with wire mesh type mist eliminator pads are widely used to entrap these flue gas emissions before they enter into the atmosphere. But clogging of pads during the operation became a big problem which needs replacement with new one every time. The present work motivation is to develop and test, a exhaust fume-wet scrubber with new (PVC) balls-mesh replacing traditional packing material in which the spherical surfaces are going to make only point contact between them. Water (PH Value = 8.7) and lime water (PH Value = 12.3) sprinkled finely in modified air cooler body with 72 nozzles of 1mm in diameter and re-circulated for 100 minutes to purify stationary four stroke diesel engine exhaust. The diameter of the balls used, are varied such as 10cm, 5cm and 2.5cms and drain water samples, for every 20 minutes are collected to check PH values.


The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA) established new reimbursement systems in the Medicare home health fee-for-service benefit. Reimbursements were reduced to 1993 levels and per-beneficiary capitated limits were introduced for the first time. This article analyzes the impact of these changes on chronically ill older adults and their families. The study combined a secondary analysis of the Provider of Service file (1996, 1999, 2002, and the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (1996, 1998) with qualitative interviews of home health agency directors. The greatest decreases in staff and visits were for medical social work and home health aide services. Patients with caregivers saw greater decreases in visits and reimbursements for all visits, skilled nursing, medical social work, and home health aide visits. Agency directors reported that they increased caregiver education, training, and involvement in care in order to discharge patients sooner. Additional research is needed to understand the long-term, adverse impact of these policy changes on chronically ill patients and their families.


Aiming at the problem of power unbalance caused by insufficient combustion of crude oil or uneven operation of multiple cylinders in offshore platform generator sets, the power balance monitoring method and the strategy are studied with the integration of thermal parameters, instantaneous speed, torsional vibration and indicator diagram, the hardware design of sensor arrangement and monitoring scheme based on multiple generator sets are carried out, the online monitoring and alarm system software for the power balance of offshore platform generator sets is developed, the real-time monitoring function of the working status of each cylinder of offshore platform generator sets is conducted, the risk of the possibility of a series of failures caused by the power unbalance of the lame cylinder with the decline of the working performance is reduced. Simultaneously, it is a good technical means to make maintenance decisions according to the situation for the engine room manager.


In Fischer–Tropsch synthesis (FTS), cobalt carbide (Co2C) is not a catalytically active material, but rather an undesired cobalt phase associated with low catalytic performance. It is known that Co2C can be easily transformed back to metal cobalt in a H2 environment at 220 °C. The transformed metal cobalt (hcp phase) even shows higher catalytic activity in low-temperature FTS, compared with the reduced cobalt metal from the cobalt oxide species. In this study, to obtain Co2C with high catalytic activity in FTS, we determined the optimum conditions for effective metal cobalt carburization and Co2C hydrogenation by monitoring the phase transformation of cobalt using X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and temperature-programmed hydrogenation (TPH). We also verified that the transitions effectively occur under the same conditions as those for FTS (2.0 MPa, 220 °C). Based on the conditions determined for the transitions, the deactivated cobalt catalyst can be completely regenerated in the FT reactor by simply altering the injected gases from syngas to CO and then H2. Moreover, the regenerated catalyst shows enhanced catalytic performance compared with the fresh catalyst. The selective formation of hcp cobalt metal via carburization and hydrogenation of the spent catalyst was found to be the key for both the improved catalytic activity and the effective regeneration in situ. As a result, the formation of Co2C, which is mainly considered a nuisance, could provide valuable applications in investigations into catalyst activation and regeneration in FTS.


Multi-epoch observations with the Advanced Camera Survey and WFC3 on the Hubble Space Telescope provide a unique and comprehensive probe of stellar dynamics within 47 Tucanae. We confront analytic models of the globular cluster with the observed stellar proper motions that probe along the main sequence from just above 0.8–0.1M⊙ as well as white dwarfs younger than 1 Gyr. One field lies just beyond the half-light radius where dynamical models (e.g., lowered Maxwellian distributions) make robust predictions for the stellar proper motions. The observed proper motions in this outer field show evidence for anisotropy in the velocity distribution as well as skewness; the latter is evidence of rotation. The measured velocity dispersions and surface brightness distributions agree in detail with a rotating anisotropic model of the stellar distribution function with mild dependence of the proper-motion dispersion on mass. However, the best-fitting models underpredict the rotation and skewness of the stellar velocities. In the second field, centered on the core of the cluster, the mass segregation in proper motion is much stronger. Nevertheless the model developed in the outer field can be extended inward by taking this mass segregation into account in a heuristic fashion. The proper motions of the main-sequence stars yield a mass estimate of the cluster of at a distance of 4.7 kpc. By comparing the proper motions of a sample of giant and subgiant stars with the observed radial velocities we estimate the distance to the cluster kinematically to be 4.29 ± 0.47 kpc.


ITU-R TG8/1 cut off the submission of candidate radio transmission technologies (RTT) for the third generation mobile telecommunications system on June 1998. The Japanese standardization body ARIB (Association of Radio Industries and Businesses) has proposed wideband CDMA (W-CDMA) as an RTT to ITU-R. This paper describes the features and key technologies of W-CDMA. The laboratory test and some results are reported. Almost all major functions of the W-CDMA are confirmed in laboratory.


In this research main aimed of problem of the inadequate use of road features in traditional road extraction methods and satellite images become easily available, in this researcher for searching method for object detection and extraction from satellite images. Roads are most important curvilinear object and used for urban planning, emergency response, route planning, traffic management, road monitoring map updating etc. This paper is exploring by high resolution satellite images for detecting and extracting the road network in a strong model.


In the globalization vision, the modern distance education is becoming a rebirth force of the international cooperation of higher universities,which offers a strong demand space for the modern distance education. This intergration has developed so rapidly that scopes are internationalization,contents are diversification and means are modernization. It is necessary for us to integrate the ideas, resources,conditions of development of modern distance education and the international cooperation of high universities for pushing integration development in China.


In September 2015, more than 150 world leaders met at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit to adopt the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which included an ambitious set of goals improve encourage economic growth, improve social inclusion and advance environmental protection. Building on the successes of the original 8 Millennium Development Goals, the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) officially came into force on 1 January 2016. They include provisions on: poverty, hunger, health, gender equality, clean water and sanitation, energy, livelihood and economic growth, industry and infrastructure, inequality, cities and communities, responsible consumption and production, climate action, sustainable water resources, sustainable land resources, governance and justice, and global partnerships. Each goal has specific, integrated targets and indicators to ensure measurable, transparent progress by 2030. Though the SDGs are not legally binding, all countries agreed to build out national frameworks for achievement of the goals including monitoring progress. However, the goals are not meant to be achieved by state action alone and will require the commitment of many international actors working in a variety of innovative ways. Geospatial technologies (GIS, GPS, remote sensing) are a cost-effective way of collecting information about large, relatively unpopulated or difficult to access areas and have already been integrated successfully in many programs on agriculture, water, land use planning, disaster management, and climate change. This paper will explore how Earth observation technology can be used to address some of challenges faced in achieving the SDGs, with a particular focus on less-traditional areas such as poverty reduction, small-scale infrastructure, health, human rights, and governance. It will examine implemented and proposed case studies and analyze barriers to expanding the use of Earth observation data.


Background: Listeria monocytogenes causes bacteraemia in elderly and immunocompromised patients and
rarely also in immunocompetent patients. In sporadic setting it can be challenging to diagnose. We present
the first case of Listeria monocytogenes infection presenting as an acute infection of a prosthetic joint in
an immunocompetent patient.
Case summary: An immunocompetent patient presented with acute onset of right hip pain lasting for 3
days. The day before admission the patient had fever of 38.5°C and chills. The patient admitted having eaten
raw meat some days prior to onset of symptoms. He had a prosthetic right hip implanted due to secondary
arthritis 9 months prior to onset of hip symptoms. He was treated successfully with removal of mobile parts
and appropriate antibiotic treatment.
Conclusion: Sporadic focal infections with Listeria monocytogenes occur rarely and are often not
diagnosed until the arrival of final culture results. Dietary history is also important when clinical history of
patients is taken. Food consumption advice is important in immunocompromised, but also
immunocompetent patients can get infected when eating raw food. Accurate diagnosis for orthopaedic
samples is crucial. In order to successfully treat patients with a prosthetic joint infection, a tight collaboration
between several specialists is needed.


In this work we solve the Dynamic Vehicle Routing Problem (DVRP). DVRP is a modification of the Vehicle Routing Problem, in which the clients' requests (cities) number and location might not be known at the beginning of the working day Additionally, all requests must be served during one working day by a fleet of vehicles with limited capacity. In this work we propose a Monte Carlo method (MCTree), which directly approaches the dynamic nature of arriving requests in the DVRP. The method is also hybridized (MCTree+PSO) with our previous Two-Phase Multi-swarm Particle Swarm Optimization (2MPSO) algorithm.
Our method is based on two assumptions. First, that we know a bounding rectangle of the area in which the requests might appear. Second, that the initial requests' sizes and frequency of appearance are representative for the yet unknown clients' requests. In order to solve the DVRP we divide the working day into several time slices in which we solve a static problem. In our Monte Carlo approach we randomly generate the unknown clients' requests with uniform spatial distribution over the bounding rectangle and requests' sizes uniformly sampled from the already known requests' sizes. The solution proposal is constructed with the application of a clustering algorithm and a route construction algorithm.
The MCTree method is tested on a well established set of benchmarks proposed by Kilby et al. and is compared with the results achieved by applying our previous 2MPSO algorithm and other literature results. The proposed MCTree approach achieves a better time to quality trade-off then plain heuristic algorithms. Moreover, a hybrid MCTree+PSO approach achieves better time to quality trade-off then 2MPSO for small optimization time limits, making the hybrid a good candidate for handling real world scale goods delivery problems.


Dear Editor: We have used the ''leave-one-out cross-validation'' procedure to get a nearly unbiased estimate of the true error rate of the classification procedure. This crossvalidation was performed in the generation of each decision tree. A satisfactory sensitivity of 84% and specificity of 89% were achieved, indicating our classification procedure was accurate enough. One of the four ovarian cancer specific peaks with Mr 11537.7 d was in agreement with that of haptoglobin-a1 subunit identified previously. We agree that a different testing set, preferably in an independent cohort and a different surface-enhanced laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (SELDI-TOF-MS) setting will be the ideal way of validation of the data. Before this study setting is available, we believe the leave-one-out cross-validation method will be a practical choice. Identification of the candidate markers will not be an easy job. Although knowledge of the identity of a marker is not a prerequisite for clinical utility, in due course, information about the identity of a biomarker will increase confidence in the biological basis for a discriminative pattern. One way of the identification is based on the current knowledge of different proteins or fragments and to verify the peak by candidate approach. In this way, current molecular approaches such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay and immunohistochemistry may be applied, once the antibody is available. However, in most cases, low-mass resolution and thus high complexity of protein peaks make this task difficult if not impossible to achieve. On the other hand, the identification of these features/biomarkers is not absolutely necessary for their use as biomarkers and may not provide aid in developing this mass spectrum diagnostic platform. For the detection of disease, the disease-related pattern can be sufficient. The real problem of this system so far is its reproducibility. Currently limitations of the resolution and mass drift have prohibited data comparison, exchange, and verification between different laboratories. Therefore, the ProteinChip system is not at a stage where it is sufficiently robust to be introduced into a diagnostic setting. Further advancement in both the system setting and the clinical setting is awaited.