In recent years, for the aim to improve the spectrum efficiency many proposals are putted forward such as multiple inputs and multiple outputs system. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing system and high-order QAM modulation system. These systems must involve large multi-user and multi- carrier signal detection problems, and for the future wireless communication systems, this is a very important issue. This paper introduces a new, overlapped time-frequency division multiplex system. In this new system, the elimination mechanism for inter-symbol interference is unnecessary and only need to detect the symbol sequence code to distinguish the different original signal. Based on a gabor transform method, a rapid detection algorithm and decoding program is presented.


This study aims to investigate the influence of behavioral biases on investors' investment decisions and explore the moderating role of financial literacy in this relationship. Research adopts quantitative approach, utilizing a survey questionnaire distributed among a sample of individual investors actively trading in Pakistan stock exchange. Survey assesses prominent behavioral biases like overconfidence, disposition effect, risk-aversion bias, and herding behavior, while measuring participants' level of financial literacy. Findings of study proves significant impact of behavioral biases on investors' decisions. Respondents validate prevalence of shared biases, including overconfidence, disposition effect, risk-aversion bias, and herding behavior. These biases tend to influence the decision-making process of investors, leading to suboptimal investment choices. Results suggest that financial literacy plays moderating role in linking behavioral biases and investment decisions. The implications of findings suggest importance of promoting financial literacy amid investors over guidance and support of financial professionals, ultimately improving quality of investment decision-making.


Most deep diving toothed whales rarely come into contact with humans due to their preference for deep offshore waters. In recent years many studies have connected underwater acoustic disturbances with unusual stranding events of deep diving species. Strandings can provide a valuable opportunity to learn about the ecology of stranded specimens and investigate the cause of mortality. The study determines how environmental and anthropogenic variables such as sea surface temperature, wave height, wave period, wind direction and seismic surveying can influence strandings events of deep diving odontocetes. The results of these analyses suggest that the occurrence of offshore seismic surveying operations increase the number of strandings of long-finned pilot whales, which are probably the most abundant deep diving species in the north Atlantic. The study also demonstrates the value of cetacean stranding schemes and how they can be utilised to establish the natural and anthropogenic processes that contribute to s...


We study the effect of stock price informativeness (SPI) on executive compensation complexity. Using textual analysis of SEC proxy statements to construct compensation complexity measures for US public firms, we find strong evidence that higher SPI reduces pay complexity. We then use mutual fund redemption as an exogenous decrease in SPI to address endogeneity concerns. When fund flow pressure is high, pay includes more performance metrics, a greater number of vesting periods, and options with longer vesting periods. When stock prices convey information more effectively, executive pay is simpler.


Background: Cyclic vomiting syndrome is a unique pediatric disorder associated with characteristic episodes of recurrent explosive bouts of vomiting, alternating with periods of normal health. A Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) textbook description of nausea and vomiting in cyclic vomiting syndrome was lacking. Objective: To evaluate the TCM pattern presentation of children with cyclic vomiting syndrome. Design, Setting, and Patients: Prospective pilot observational study of 24 pediatric patients with cyclic vomiting syndrome evaluated at a university-affiliated, tertiary care pediatric teaching hospital in Chicago. Main Outcome Measures: TCM texts in the English language were evaluated to determine the likely patterns for nausea and vomiting. The symptoms associated with cyclic vomiting syndrome in these patients could not be explained using the TCM patterns described by standard textbooks. Further literature review was undertaken to establish 2 main patterns that explain the severity of cyclic vomitin...


The determination of column deflections and column buckling loads has been considered for many years. The available theories, however, do not provide for materials which creep with time under constant loads. For the design of structural members made of these materials, a consideration of creep may be of practical importance. Plastics, concrete, and some metals creep at normal temperatures while other metals creep only at high temperatures and at stress values beyond the yield point. A consideration of creep in the design of some structures appears appropriate in view of the modern developments in plastics and the presence of high stress values which are sometimes beyond the yield stress. This paper gives a rational theory for predicting creep deflections in columns. A special case using this theory is applied to the interpretation of some preliminary tests of an aluminum alloy.


Before trace amounts of organic constituents that are in aqueous solutions as complex mixtures can be analyzed, the solutions must be concentrated. This is necessary so that a sufficient mass of organics can be obtained for separation and subsequent identitisation. An analogous situation exists for determining the biological activity of such unknown or mostly unknown trace organic constituents in waters of environmental or public health concern. This is especially true for biological testing of long duration or testing that requires many large test species. For instance, a long-term feeding study of mice could require organic material from many thousands of liters of water. Procedures which combine several techniques have been developed to achieve the highest possible recovery of organics. Nevertheless, there are still critical areas, including changes in organic residues that can occur between preparation of the concentrates and biological testing or chemical analysis. The choice of method or combination of methods for concentration is dependent on such factors as the volatility of the organic constituent to be tested, the degree of concentration required, and the biological test system to be used. Kopfler (l980a) divides concentration methods into two basic categories: I . concentration-those processes in which water is removed and the dissolved substances are left behind. Examples are freeze concentration, lyophilization (freeze drying), vacuum distillation, and membrane processes such as reverse osmosis and ultrafiltration. A common disadvantage to


In order to study the effect of different N fertilization levels and to determine the optimum N level and plant population of onion in autumn cultivation, a split-plot experiment on the basis of a Randomized Complete Block Design with three replications was conducted in Shahdad Region of Kerman, Iran in 2009-2010. Nitrogen fertilization was carried out at four levels of 0, 90, 180 and 270 kg ha -1 and the population was at four levels of 450 000, 550 000, 650 000 and 750 000 plants ha -1 . The planting was in the form of transplanting and the studied cultivar of onion was Primavera. It was found that N level significantly affected yield, bolting percent, ring diameter, plant height and corm weight at 1% probability level and population impacted yield, bolting percent, ring diameter and corm weight at 1% level and plant height at 5% level. In addition, the interaction between these two factors was significant for corm weight at 1% level and for ring diameter at 5% level, but it was not significant for the other studied traits. It could be concluded that the application of 180 kg N ha -1 and the population of 550 000-650 000 plants ha -1 in autumn planting of onion in Shahdad Region would result in the best yield with lower bolting percent.


1Part of Master's Dissertation of the first author. 2PhD student, no PPG-Management and Conservation of Soil and Water (MACSA), Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Pelotas RS, FAPEG Scholar. Email: firstname.lastname@example.com 3Researcher at EMBRAPA Clima Temperado, Pelotas RS. Email: firstname.lastname@example.com 4PhD student at PPG-Management and Conservation of Soil and Water (MACSA), Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Pelotas RS. Email: luciano.romano@cas. ifmt.edu.br 5Associate Professor III, Departamento de Engenharia Rural, Universidade Federal de Pelotas, Pelotas RS. Email: email@example.com 6Professor, Universidade Federal do Pampa, Campus Itaqui RS. Email: email@example.com Abstract-The use of water potential indicators in the plant has been adopted in irrigation management, in recent years, since it is accepted that the plant is the best indicator of its own water status. The objective of this study was to verify the relationship between water potential in peach tree branches and the evaporative demand of the atmosphere and the water availability in two textural classes of an Aquertic Hapludalf soil, aiming to adopt irrigation management strategies based on the water potential in the plant. Research was carried out in a commercial peach orchard, cv. Esmeralda, in the municipality of Morro Redondo-Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil. Four peach tree rows were evaluated, being two irrigated and two non irrigated. The irrigation management was based on the replacement of the potential crop evapotranspiration. It was concluded that the water potential in the peach tree branch is positively related with the evaporative demand of the atmosphere and negatively related with soil water storage. Future studies should adopt irrigation management strategies for peach trees based on the water potential mainly for the irrigation management of post-harvest peach trees.


We propose for Project-X a high-resolution neutrino experiment within a dipole magnetic field, HiResMν. This experiment will run along with long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments (LBLν) such as NOνA, or DUSEL, or a Liquid-Argon detector in the MediumEnergy (ME) configuration of the NuMI-beam. The 4× 4× 7 m3 detector, inside a dipole magnetic field of B ≈ 0.4 T, will have the density of liquid hydrogen, ρ ≈ 0.1 gm/cm3, with a nominal fiducial mass of 7.4 tons. Assuming the 120 GeV Main Injector proton intenstiy of 1×1018 protons/hr for Project-X, for a 3-year neutrino-run (365/π days/year) we anticipate 140 million νμ Charged-Current (CC) events in the fiducial volume. For an additional 4-year anti-neutrino run, we anticipate 50 million νμ-CC events. The goals of the proposed experiment are: •[1]: Determination of the relative abundance and the energy spectrum of the four species of neutrinos in NuMI: νμ, νμ, νe and νe CC-interactions. This is directly relevant to LBLν. •[2]: An 'Event-Generator' measurement for the LBLν including the complete hadronic multiplicity (π±, K±, π0 & p) comprising all topologies of CC and Neutral-Current (NC) events. •[3]: A quantitative determination of the energy-scale of neutrino CC interactions, a serious error in the ∆m2 measurement. •[4]: Measurement of the weak-mixing angle, sinθw with a cumulative precision approaching 0.2% using two independent channels: ν(ν)-q (DIS), ν(ν)-e−, and Coherentπ0 -vs-π+/π− interactions. •[5]: Precise determination of (semi)exclusive processes such as quasi-elastic, resonance, π0/K0 S/Λ/charm-hadron production; and precision measurement of the nucleon structure functions and nuclear effects. •[6]: Search for new physics with unprecedented sensitivity. The proposed experiment, with an approximate cost of $15M, is very rich in physics, and will provide powerful constraints on the systematics associated with the discovery of the neutrino mass matrix elements by the LBLν.


The article highlights the importance of land relations, which are enshrined in Article 14 of the Constitution of Ukraine. That iswhy effective, transparent, holistic public administration of land relations is very important for Ukrainian society.The article presents the problems faced by the Ukrainian authorities. The main one is the inability to complete land reform formore than 29 years. In addition, the need to introduce artificial intelligence systems in the public sector and public management of landrelations in particular is emphasized.They will facilitate the work of officials in the land registration, filling the State Land Cadastre with comprehensive and reliableinformation about the land plots, conducting electronic auctions, land inventory and more.The article highlights examples of the use of artificial intelligence in the public administration of France, Germany and GreatBritain. We stressed what vector of development Ukraine needs to take. The paper focuses on gaps in Ukrainian legislation and proposesits own model of state regulation of this issue.Yes, we consider to supplement the content of the Civil Code, to adopt laws and regulations that would regulate this issue, tocreate socially authorized executive bodies, the scope of which will be aimed at the development of neural technologies in Ukraine andregulation of public administration in land relations. In addition, we highlighted the need for international cooperation.Thus, the 21st century is a time of globalization and renewal. In order to effectively and transparently administer land relations,as well as to position Ukraine in the international arena as an economically powerful state, it is necessary to introduce artificial intelligencein this area.


Liquid fithium was observed to enhance fatigue crack propagation in 304L stainless steel at 973 K. The enhanced crack growth rates are shown to be associated with preferential grain boundary penetration in the vicinity of the tip of a propagating fatigue crack exposed to liquid lithium. The enhanced crack growth rates are correlated with the predictions of a model based on the summation of grain boundary penetration by liquid lithium and the growth rates in an argon environment.


The invention relates to a portable detector for sulfur dioxide content in exhaust gas discharged from a ship chimney. The portable detector comprises an ultraviolet light source, a light transmission optical fiber, an openable gas sensing head, an ultraviolet spectrograph, an embedded computer, a power source and a mainframe box. The ultraviolet light source, the ultraviolet spectrograph, the embedded computer and the power source are placed in the mainframe box. The openable gas sensing head and the mainframe box are connected only through the light transmission optical fiber for light transmission. The power source supplies power to the ultraviolet light source, the ultraviolet spectrograph and the embedded computer. According to the portable detector, a differential optical absorption spectroscopy and an ultraviolet continuous spectrum analyzing method are used for detection, and without influences of moisture and particles and other gases in the ship exhaust gas, a measuring result is more stable.


In the last few years, many attempts have been carried out for the research of specific biological biomarkers in fibromyalgia (FM) since, so far, no laboratory tests have been appropriately validated for the diagnosis and the prognostic stratification of the disease. In our study for the first time, we carried out a proteomic analysis of the whole saliva of FM patients in order to evaluate salivary biomarkers. Twenty‐two FM patients with all fulfilling the American College of Rheumathology diagnostic criteria for FM and 26 sex‐and age‐matched healthy subjects were enrolled in the study. Proteomic analysis was performed by combining 2‐DE and MALDI‐TOF‐MS. The most relevant observation which emerged from the data analysis was the exclusive and significant over‐expression of transaldolase and phosphoglycerate mutase I. These findings were validated by Western blot analysis and the total optical density confirmed the significant up‐regulation of transaldolase and phosphoglycerate mutase I in FM samples with respect to healthy subjects. It was noteworthy that seven further salivary proteins resulted differentially expressed, namely: calgranulin A, calgranulin C, cyclophilin A, profilin 1, Rho GDP‐dissociation inhibitor 2, proteasome subunit‐α‐type‐2 and haptoglobin‐related protein precursor. These preliminary results demonstrated the utility of salivary proteomic analysis in the identification of salivary biomarkers in FM patients and in clarifying some of the pathogenetic aspects of the disease.


Tourist enterprise supply chain was constructed to production,consumption,social and environmental system as the main tourism enterprises of green supply chain model,which includes tourism products green design,green procurement,green production,green marketing and consumption and tourist waste disposal,stress the importance of knowledge flow and information flow and social ethics and regulations of the tourism are a constraint to enterprises and tourists.


The Gamow-Teller (GT) matrix element contributing to tritium $\beta$ decay is calculated with trinucleon wave functions obtained from hyperspherical-harmonics solutions of the Schr\"odinger equation with the chiral two- and three-nucleon interactions including $\Delta$ intermediate states that have recently been constructed in configuration space. Predictions up to N3LO in the chiral expansion of the axial current (with $\Delta$'s) overestimate the empirical value by 1--4 \%. By exploiting the relation between the low-energy constant (LEC) in the contact three-nucleon interaction and two-body axial current, we provide new determinations of the LECs $c_D$ and $c_E$ that characterize this interaction by fitting the trinucleon binding energy and tritium GT matrix element. Some of the implications that the resulting models of three-nucleon interactions have on the spectra of light nuclei and the equation of state of neutron matter are briefly discussed. We also provide a partial analysis, which ignores $\Delta$'s, of the contributions due to loop corrections in the axial current at N4LO. Finally, explicit expressions for the axial current up to N4LO have been derived in configuration space, which other researchers in the field may find useful.


was Syntax for hybrid programming. As it turned out, the subject of the paper was more like &dquo;Why Hybrid?&dquo; Max dealt with the justification for hybrid systems in terms of: a) Increased throughput b) Lower cost per solution c) Broader application The major drawback to the successful use of a hybrid system was described as being software weakness. An outline of a unified hybrid language was presented which would include:


Objective To evaluate the clinical value of noninvasive ventilation in COPD respiratory failure patients with hypercapnia.Methods 64 patients with COPD were randomly divided into control and trial groups,which received,respectively,conventional medial therapy and conventional medical therapy plus noninvasive ventilation respectively.The blood gas analysis index,heart rate,breath rate were compared between the two groups at 1 h,24 h,and 7 days after treatment.Results The blood gas analysis index,heart rate,breath rate improved more significantly in the trial group than in the controls(P0.01).Conclusion The symptoms and arterial blood gases index were improved by noninvasive ventilation.


According to about twenty examples of paleoclimatic analysis the Quaternary climate fluctuation with scales of 10ka,1ka and 100a in tropical China is discussed. As compared with global change, two types of mechanism of climatic fluctuation, which are the orbital drive and non-orbital drive can be deduced. In the period between Pliocene and Pleistocene the climate was transformed from slight change to obvious variation because the Tibetan Plateau uplifted to 1 000m at least at the beginning of Pleistocene resulting in the appearance of monsoon circulation. The δ~(18)O curve of marine oxygen isotope of DSDP607 and that of ODP1143 in the South China Sea are similar to each other showing that the climatic fluctuation was controlled mainly by orbital drive during Early Pleistocene. This was because the Tibetan Plateau uplifted to (2 000)m by 1.1 MaBP but the uplift rate was quite small which was not enough to form strong monsoon circulation at that time. The response of tropical China to the Middle Pleistocene Revolution (MPR) remarked by suddenly cooling can be found also. After the MPR the climatic change during Middle Pleistocene was drived mainly by non-orbital factors because the Tibetan Plateau uplifted rapidly during the period from the end of Early Pleistocene to Middle Pleistocene and strengthened the monsoon circulation. Since Late Pleistocene the climatic variation with scale of 10ka has been controlled by orbital drive because the elevation of Tibetan Plateau and the monsoon circulation have been similar to those at present. Like the global change the climatic change during Late Pleistocene can be divided into four stages in tropical China. In tropical China not only the climate change with scale of 10ka but also that with scale of ka and 100a can be recognized such as the suddenly warming events of Dansgarrd/Oeschger and cooling events of Heinrich in Late Pleistocene as well as the five cooling stages including the Little Ice Age in the historical period since 1kaBC.The mechanism of climate variation with 1ka or 100a scale was probably related to the change of solar constant itself.


In this article, we give the convergence and consistency of the MSD-CG method [Gu, T.-X., Liu, X.-P., Mo, Z.-Y. and Chi, X.-B. (in press). Multiple search direction conjugate gradient method I: Methods and their propositions. Int. J. Comput. Math.] and estimate the convergence rate of this method. Numerical experiments on two distributed parallel computers, Dawning 3000 and P-II Cluster, show the efficiency of our method and show that it compares favorably with some domain decomposition methods.


Gudeg is the most famous traditional food in Yogyakarta, Indonesia whose raw materials are jackfruit. It produces the jackfruit peel waste that causing the problems in increasing waste generation in landfills. This study aims to examine the potential of jackfruit skin waste to become waste-to-energy in the form of charcoal briquettes through pyrolysis process. The method used is through the determination of waste generation data and fuel requirements for serving food in this traditional food central area. The researchers then conducted a proximate test on jackfruit peel waste (raw material) and jackfruit charcoal briquette products with sizes 40, 60, 80 mesh, and conducted thermal efficiency tests of micro gasification furnaces fuelled by briquette products and compared them to commonly used fuels.  The results show that from the gudeg food centre area in Yogyakarta, produce an average of 66.27 kg/day of jackfruit peel waste and that waste has the potential to be charcoal briquettes as much as 17.11 kg. Meanwhile, briquettes product using 80 mesh of jackfruit peel charcoal have the HHV of 5404 kcal/kg and have fulfilled the briquette heating value based on the Indonesian national standard No 1/6235/2000. The results of the thermal efficiency of the micro gasification stove show that the performance of this 80 mesh charcoal briquette is almost same as regular charcoal and firewood (dry based) so that the briquette has the potential as an implementation of the development of waste to energy for its own energy consumption in the traditional food centre.


This paper analyze the principle of the soil pressure caused by the sustaining structures. The author divides the soil pressure into two parts: first part is generated by digging and unloading and the value is close to the static value; another part is generated by resisting soil force related to the displacement of the structure and the value is proportional to the displacement, and applied the horizontal bedding coefficient of the sectioned stable value. And based on the elastic mechanical theory, the author established the flexing formula of these structures and answered it. And at last, this paper proved the practicality of this solution by a certain foundation test.


The Armistice Agreement signed in September 1944 did not entail any serious changes in the political structure of Finland. However, the access of the banned Communist Party to public life in the country and the liquidation of a number of structures and organizations created the preconditions to develop the internal political situation in the country in a direction favorable to the Soviet Union. This was the reason for the fairly quiet attitude of the Soviet delegation to the Allied Control Commission in 1944—1945 towards the activities of the Social Democratic Party. This attitude was maintained in spite of the fact that this party was seen as the main political enemy, creating a split in the labour movement and preventing the strengthening of the positions of the Communists and the Democratic Union of the People of Finland. The retention of the dominant positions in the SDP leadership by V. Tanner's supporters and nominees (U. Varjonen, V. Leskinen and others) came as a surprise to the Soviet side. All the more unexpected was the well-organized struggle of the new Party leadership against the Communists. The success accompanying this anti-communist campaign was largely due to the attitude of President J. K. Paasikivi. The formation of a Social-Democratic government, headed by K. -A. Fagerholm, must indirectly have been an indication that the dangerous years had passed, as far as Finland's political elite was concerned. Paasikivi and the Fagerholm government made it clear that in relations with the Soviet Union the Communists as intermediaries were an unnecessary link. For the Soviets, the Social Democratic Party was a key ideological opponent, and its participation in the Government was to be prevented or at least minimized. This task was not possible.


Results of dielectric studies of smectogenic members of the nCB (4'-alkyl-4-cyanobiphenyl, n = 9÷12) homologous series are presented. The dielectric relaxation measurements were performed in the isotropic (Is) and smectic A (SA) phases. The relaxation times characterizing the molecular rotations around the short axes (the low frequency, l. f., process) were established for both phases. In the Is phase the high frequency process connected with the molecular rotations around the long axes was also determined. The l. f. relaxation times were analysed using the Arrhenius and Bauer activation equations, which yielded the activation enthalpy ΔH and activation entropy ΔS. All results were analysed together with the literature data on the shorter members of the homologous series as well as on 14CB recently published. The ΔH and ΔS values show typical odd-even alternation that is especially well seen for the shorter members. In the Is phase the l. f. relaxation times are related to the viscosity data measured recently by Jadzyn et al.


The hazards posed by both accelerating rates of sea level rise and intensifying coastal storms have fostered a call for increased resiliency of coastal human communities and natural ecosystems. While sea level rise is a world-wide phenomenon, mitigating its impacts is a local decision-making challenge that requires site-specific remedies. To inform coastal communities in the state of New Jersey, USA of the risks posed by coastal flooding and to aid in adaptation planning, we undertook a series of integrated assessments to map and characterize various aspects of exposure and vulnerability. The resulting assessments have been incorporated into a suite of online decision-support tools as an outreach mechanism to aid coastal decision-makers. The tools have been incorporated under one umbrella, www.NJAdapt.org, allowing users to visualize flood hazards and sea level rise (NJ FloodMapper), to create maps (Coastal Hazard Profiler), to assess communities' vulnerabilities, and to increase preparedness (Getting to Resilience). However well intentioned, for these online tools to be truly effective, they must be integrated into a broader decision-support system that includes substantive professional outreach and person-to-person interaction.


This study deals with the The Effect of Using Problem Based Learning Model on Students' Comprehension in Reading Narrative Text. The objective of this study was to find out if there was a significant effect of Problem Based Learning Model on Students' Comprehension in Reading Narrative Text. It was conducted by using experimental research. The population of this study was eight grade of SMP Masehi Berastagi, which is consisted of 8 parrarel classes. Two classes were taken as the sample of the research. The class 8-1 was a experimental group and class 8-4 was a control group. The experimental group was taught by using Problem Based Learning Model, and control group was taught by using conventional method. The instrument for collecting the data was reading test. The data was analyzed by using t-test formula. The result shows that the value of t-observed is higher than the value of t-table 6.51> 1.994 (p= 0.05,)with the degree of freedom (df) = 78. Based on data analysis of the study, the result indicates that the alternative hypothesis (Ha) was accepted. It means that Problem Based Learning Model significantly affects o students' narrative text.


One of the main objectives of the Welfare Quality® project was to develop a standardised system for assessing the welfare of animals kept on farms or at slaughter and thus accommodate the main drivers underlying the vision (see Chapter 4). More specifically the need for such an assessment system arose because animal welfare is an important and growing concern for European citizens and of increasing relevance to supply chains and markets as well as policy making and regulatory bodies. It also addresses the fact that European consumers do not feel sufficiently informed about the welfare of farm animals and thereby struggle to take this issue into account when purchasing food or other animal-based products (European Commission, 2007a,b).


To reduce the formation and peeling-off of oxide scales on high-temperature heating surface of boiler,and the sediment of oxide scales in pipeline and flow path of turbine,a study has been carried out on the oxidizing treatment of feedwater,oxidation control of heating surface,peeling-off prevention of oxide scales and control optimization of feedwater oxygenation,after which countermeasures and noteworthy items are put forward for control of the oxide scales in 1 036 MW units.Application results prove above measures to be effective in controlling the generation,peeling-off and sediment of oxide scales on heating surface of boiler,which would ensure safety and reliable running of the units.


Simple Summary Hip dysplasia is the most common non-traumatic disease and cause of lameness in dogs. Different screening programs which use radiographic evaluation of the extended ventrodorsal projection of the hip exist for breeding selection. The Federation Cynologique International assigned five different scoring grades from A to E, ranging from a normal hip to severe dysplasia, to provide certification of the status of the joint. Of the different methods used for assessment, the Brass method is the most descriptive since it considers each part of the hip joint individually. The aim of the present study was to improve knowledge regarding the morphological changes in the context of hip dysplasia progression, especially in grades A to C. Some alterations were even found in grade A. The laxity and incongruence of the joint lead to the modification of the shape of the head and femoral neck, although some changes may be present in the normal or near normal hip joint. Some of the present findings, which were in contrast to the literature, are very interesting and additional investigation is indicated. Abstract Hip dysplasia is a disabling orthopedic disease in dogs. The aim of this retrospective study was to evaluate the morphological aspects and radiographic changes in the development of hip dysplasia in adult dogs, and to describe the frequency of each radiographic parameter according to each Fédération Cynologique Internationale (FCI) grade. Brass descriptive forms for the evaluation of hip dysplasia were obtained from the archive of the Italian Fondazione Salute Animale, and the radiographic evaluation of 642 hips were processed. Sixteen radiographic criteria were assessed, divided into six main parameters: acetabulum, femoral head and its position in the acetabulum, femoral neck, joint space, and Norberg angle. The initial mild alterations were shown in the craniolateral acetabular rim (31.8%), slightly divergent in the joint space in 58.6% of FCI-A. The spherical shape of the femoral head was mildly small/flattened in 56.9% of FCI-B, in addition to a slightly cylindrical-shaped femoral neck (60.5%) and slightly lost contours (55.0%). Changes in acetabular depth (45.0%), and in the cranial acetabular margin (56.7%) were found in FCI-C. The center of the femoral head was lateral to the dorsal acetabular rim in 70.0% of FCI-B; the Norberg angle appeared normal in 70.6% of FCI-B. Elaboration of the radiographic criteria from the Brass descriptive forms allowed for the extrapolation of accurate knowledge regarding morphologic changes in the development of dysplasia by providing detailed information for each individual. In particular, the present survey showed that the morphological alterations of the acetabulum prevailed over those of the femoral head only at the beginning of the development of canine hip dysplasia, and then worsened after the changes occurred in the femoral head and neck.


Logistics company should analyze and respond to the financial risks.Because of being in the development stageand facing fierce market competition,it is extremely important to strengthen the management of the financial risk of the Chinese medium and minor logistics company.


Polythionates (SxO6 2 ) are important in redox transformations involving many sulfur compounds. Here we investigate the oxidation kinetics and mechanisms of trithionate and tetrathionate oxidation between pH 0.4 and pH 2 in the presence of Fe 3 and/or oxygen. In these solutions, Fe 3 plus oxygen oxidizes tetrathionate and trithionate at least an order of magnitude faster than oxygen alone. Kinetic measurements, coupled with density functional calculations, suggest that the rate-limiting step for tetrathionate oxidation involves Fe attachment, followed by electron density shifts that result in formation of a sulfite radical and S3O3 0 derivatives. The overall reaction orders for trithionate and tetrathionate are fractional due to rearrangement reactions and side reactions between reactants and intermediate products. The pseudo-first order rate coefficients for tetrathionate range from 10 11 s 1 at 25°C to 10 8 s 1 at 70°C, compared to 2 10 7 s 1 at 35 °C for trithionate. The apparent activation energy (E A) for tetrathionate oxidation at pH 1.5 is 104.5 4.13 kJ/mol. A rate law at pH 1.5 and 70°C between 0.5 and 5 millimolar [Fe 3 ] is of the form: r 10 6.61 [S4O6 2 ] [Fe ] 0.09 where rate, r, is in units of mol L 1 s . In pH 1 solutions where trithionate forms by rearrangement of tetrathionate, trithionate oxidation is the rapid pathway for conversion of tetrathionate to sulfate. The kinetics of both trithionate and tetrathionate oxidation are several orders of magnitude slower than the formation of polythionates from thiosulfate in acidic, Fe 3 -rich solutions. Copyright © 2003 Elsevier Ltd


This study provides a process‐based perspective on the amplification of forecast uncertainty and forecast errors in ensemble forecasts. A case from the North Atlantic Waveguide and Downstream Impact Experiment that exhibits large forecast uncertainty is analysed. Two aspects of the ensemble behaviour are considered: (a) the mean divergence of the ensemble members, indicating the general amplification of forecast uncertainty, and (b) the divergence of the best and worst members, indicating extremes in possible error‐growth scenarios. To analyse the amplification of forecast uncertainty, a tendency equation for the ensemble variance of potential vorticity (PV) is derived and partitioned into the contributions from individual processes. The amplification of PV variance is, on average for the midlatitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, dominated by near‐tropopause dynamics. Locally, however, other processes can dominate the variance amplification, for example, in the region where tropical storm Karl interacts with the Rossby‐wave pattern during extratropical transition. In this region, the variance amplification is dominated by upper‐tropospheric divergence and tropospheric–deep interaction and is thereby mostly related to (moist baroclinic) cyclone development. The differences between the error growth in the best and worst ensemble members can, to a large part, be attributed to differences in the representation of cut‐off evolution around 3 days, which subsequently amplifies substantially in the highly nonlinear region of the Rossby‐wave pattern until 5 days. In terms of the processes, the differences in error growth are dominated by differences in the error growth by near‐tropopause dynamics. The approach presented provides flow‐dependent insight into the dynamics of forecast uncertainty and forecast errors and helps to understand better the different contributions of specific weather systems to the medium‐range amplification of ensemble spread.


Nanomaterials have played a significant role in effectively combating the global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic that began in December 2019 through the development of vaccines as well as antiviral therapies. These versatile, tunable materials can interact and deliver a broad range of biologically relevant molecules for preventing COVID-19 infection, generating immunity against COVID-19, and treating infected patients. Application of these nanomaterials and nanotechnologies can further be investigated in conjunction with disease models of COVID-19 and this holds immense potential for accelerating vaccine or therapeutic process development further encouraging the elimination of animal model use during preclinical stages. This review examines the existing literature on COVID-19 related nanomaterial applications, including perspective on nanotechnology-based vaccines and therapeutics, and discusses how these tools can be adapted to address new SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern. We also analyze the limitations of current nanomaterial approaches to managing COVID-19 and its variants alongside the challenges posed when implementing this technology. We end by providing avenues for future developments specific to disease modelling in this ever-evolving field.


Research objectives: (1) to partially analyze the effect of good corporate governance and capital structure on profitability. (2) to partially analyze the effect of good corporate governance and capital structure on earnings management. (3) to analyze the effect of profitability on earnings management. (4) To partially analyze the effect of good corporate governance and capital structure on earnings management through profitability.Quantitative research approach. Research locations on the Indonesia Stock Exchange by accessing data through the Indonesia Capital Market Directory via the IDX website. The object of research in manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange in the period 2015 -2019. The population is 142 companies and the sample is 42 (210 sample units). The technique of sample collection is by purposive sampling. The analytical method uses the Structural Equauation Model (SEM) and SPSS-23.The results of the study: (1) good corporate governance and capital structure partially have positive and significant effect on profitability, (2) good corporate governance has a positive and significant effect on earnings management, (3) capital structure has a positive and not significant effect on earnings management, ( 4) profitability has a positive and significant effect on earnings management. (5) good corporate governance and capital structure partially have a positive and significant effect on earnings management through profitability.


Introduction: Biomedical waste also known as infectious waste or medical waste, is defined as any waste which is generated during the diagnosis, treatment or immunization of human beings or animals or in research activities pertaining there to or in the production or testing of biological and including categories mentioned in schedule I.

 Aim: To assess the knowledge regarding biomedical waste.

 Methodology: This study is conducted at INSCOL Healthcare Limited Sector 34 A Chandigarh. A cross sectional survey research design was adopted by using questionnaire as research tool in the study. Questions related to demographic variables including age, gender, designation, working in medical profession since, department/unit, source of information regarding biomedical waste management.

 Result: Knowledge according to age in our study, is statistically significant ( χ 2 (4,0.05) = 71.605, 0.000). The gender wise knowledge of respondents shows that males significantly surpass the fairer gender with ( χ 2 (2,0.05) = 9.873, 0.007) in our study. Out of 40 males 22 had excellent knowledge but among 30 female only 6 showed excellent knowledge score.

 Conclusion: It can be concluded that age, experience and department had significant effect on the knowledge regarding bio-medical waste management among the healthcare personnel. Department provide them practical exposure thus help in improving the knowledge of the respondents. Age was emerged as an influencing factor even in the multivariate regression analysis.


60 patients were administered Exlunton (containing .5 mg of lynestrenol) daily. After 2 months the rhythm of estrus remained unbroken in 71.5% of the cycles. 19.5% of the cycles were longer than 2 days 9% were shorter than 2 days. Intermenstrual bleeding was noted in 13% of the patients and 2 had to stop treatment. Weight of the patients flucuated plus or minus in 28.5%. The majority of patients used the pre paration with no difficulties.


The use of intensive wetland cultivation techniques such regardless of spacing, irrigation, seedlings, and the application of organic materials that lead to increased productivity is not required with the application of technology appropriate crop management capacity of farmers. A study on the application form and the use of hay cropping system is best applied in the village of Paya Bili Sa District Birem Bayeun East Aceh District, Aceh. The design used was a plot design with three replications Separated, main plots were planting treatment system consists of three treatments, namely Integrated Crop Management (ICM/PTT) modification of the local culture (P1), PTT (P2), and Local Culture (P3), the subplot straw form consists of 3 treatments: straw ash (O1), fresh straw (O2), and Bokasi straw (O3). The results showed that the application of organic C bokasi straw organic C was higher than that applied to fresh hay and straw ash. There were no differences in the chemical properties (pH, soil CEC) biochemistry (population, selulotik microbial enzymes) and plant nitrogen uptake due to the use of hay cropping systems and applications. Productive tillers and grain yield due to crop bokasi straw application on cropping systems PTT higher than bokasi straw application on cropping systems cultivation PTT modifications of the local culture and local culture. Bokasi straw application on cropping systems PTT increase grain milled high of 8.7 tons per hectare.


This paper presents a Multi-Level File Security in Cloud that incorporates a privilege-based access structure into an attribute-based encryption mechanism for managing and sharing big data sets. In our project we provide 3 levels of security for the files in the cloud. At the normal level, the data is simply encrypted and stored in the cloud. On a medium level, the data is encrypted and the data is split into eight parts and all the files are stored in a single cloud. In high-level security encrypts the data and splits the data into eight parts and stores four parts each in two different clouds.


Teaching syllabus is the leading document for the education of professionals,which reflects required of knowledge and skills.This thesis studies the making and implementation of the course system and the goal of training and model of educating talents from among students majoring in Civil Engineering of SYUT.


The supervision policy of project construction has been applied for a decade,but people's ideas on this issueare not accurate.there are still some misconcepts,which may give rise to inadequate understanding,concern and sup-port of consumers,even arise intervention and obstacles.In order to obtain sufficient support from the constructioncompany and a good result,the supervision should be correctly understand and known,then the construction goal canbe realized.


any algorithms have been proposed in recent years for source localization in near field. Some are based on subspace methods and some use evolutionary computing techniques. This article presents the performance of Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm for range and DOA estimation of near field narrow band sources, impinging on a uniform linear array (ULA) of passive sensors. Mean square error (MSE) is used as a fitness function because it requires only a single snapshot to converge and perform better even in negative SNR. The main contribution of this work is to explore the effectiveness of DE without hybridization for uniform linear arrays. The results of DE are compared with the results of Genetic Algorithm (GA). The effectiveness of both the algorithms is tested on the basis of a large number of Monte-Carlo simulations and their statistical analysis. KeywordsEvolution, Direction of Arrival, Evolutionary Computing, Near field, Source Localization.


This chapter argues that in terms of its religious outlook the sect behind the sectarian scrolls found in the eleven caves at and near Qumran was oriented towards Jerusalem more than towards Sinai, towards Mount Zion more than towards Mount Horeb. This perspective can be compared creatively with the outlook of Philo or with the tendenz of later rabbinic compilations in which the locus of revelation is clearly less significant than either what was revealed there or the one to whom the revelation was given. What the Qumran movement seems to share with both Philo and the rabbinic tradition is a concern to pay attention to Moses, and what is mediated through him, moving the focus of attention away from the locus of revelation itself. The chapter describes and analyses some of the reasons why Mount Sinai is left behind in the movement towards Jerusalem. Keywords: Jerusalem; Moses; Philo; Qumran; rabbinic compilations; rabbinic tradition; revelation; sectarian scrolls; Sinai


Fields with recoverable reserves of about five million barrels of oil are considered in Egypt as marginal fields. Economics of Egyptian marginal oil fields depend on non-traditional approaches followed in developing and operating such fields. The actual exploration, development and operating expenses and state fiscal terms were used to evaluate the sensitivity of the economic parameters of such marginal fields. The operator net present value (NPV) and internal rate of return (IRR) beside the government take are presented for different parameters used. The purpose is to make acceptable profits out of the marginal oil fields, for the mutual benefits of both the country and the investors.


For the purpose of improving the ease and reliability of catheter insertion into the cystic duct and gallbladder, we developed a new combination method utilizing an ultrathin fiberscope (miniscope, 0.8 mm), a guidewire (0.25 inches) and a shape memory alloy, bendable, catheter (SMA catheter, 2.6 mm). The main feature of the SMA catheter, which incorporates a micro‐actuator, is that its tip can be bent by remote control as desired. The SMA catheter could be inserted successfully into the cystic duct using a guide‐wire under direct miniscope vision in two patients with gallbladder lesions.


This paper examines the incentives faced by different groups of participants in the financial market to take opposing positions on various issues relating to accounting disclosure and measurement. The larger purpose of this undertaking is to begin the process of building a model that helps to explain (1) what many view as dismal progress, in relation to the resources expended, in our ability to reach "agreement" on a set of accounting principles and disclosure procedures, and (2) the increasing involvement of Congress and the SEC in the rule-making process. There is no pretense that a satisfactory result will be reached in one iteration. But as the Chinese proverb reminds us, every journey, no matter how long, has a first step. The notion that self-interest often causes different parties to take different positions on a given accounting proposal, and to back that selfinterest via political action, is of course not new. Instances of this type have been documented by a number of authors, including Zeff [1972], Gerboth [1973], Horngren [1973; 1977], Moonitz [1974], and Armstrong


Objective: to create a new promising design of a universal calibration machine for vegetables and fruits, suitable for use in food processing and canning industries. Research methods: scientific analytical techniques with theoretical and computational methods of designing machines and apparatuses of food production are used. Results: as a result of the research work, a project for a new design of a universal calibration vibrating machine of continuous operation for vegetables and fruits was created. The structure has a working body, which is a flat sieve created from fan-shaped steel bars, an additional working body performs reciprocating motion within the main Oran, which makes it impossible to jam The transported material in the sieve, equations were obtained for calculating the length of the sieve and sections for fractional separation of elements of the transported material. Scientific novelty: for the first time, the design of a calibration vibrating machine is proposed, where an additional working body has its own drive. Practical significance: the design of the machine given in the article is universal, can be used in food processing and canning industries. Keywords: vibrating machine, calibration body, design, movement, division into fractions, sieve, food production.


This study deals with the use of high-order spectral/hp approximation functions in finite element models of various of nonlinear boundary-value and initial-value problems arising in the fields of structural mechanics and flows of viscous incompressible fluids. For many of these classes of problems, the high-order (typically, polynomial order 4  p


With an ever‐growing influence of social media in healthcare, concurrent with increased emphasis on patient autonomy and shared decision‐making, dermatologists treating hair loss need to be cognizant of online interest trends and the types of information disseminated across popular platforms.


The article attempts to investigate the historical circumstances of the founding and development of the legendary periodical of the Luhansk Locomotive Plant (1928–2017) – the newspaper "Zhovtnevyi hudok". It is proved that the magazine emerged as a relevant and necessary means of mass information, internal communication and political propaganda among the staff of the enterprise during its fundamental technological reconstruction in 1928 – 1933. The organizational measures of the newspapers "Zhovtnevyi hudok" and "Luhanska pravda" to increase efficiency work of the staff of the locomotive enterprise by carrying out joint raids on production and coverage of the progress of increasing the production capacity of the locomotive plant, the struggle for the implementation of planned indicators, the implementation of shock obligations, postwar reconstruction, etc. It was found out that the editorial board of the factory magazine, which became resource of professionals for regional journalism in Luhansk region, was awarded the Diploma of the Presidium of the Verkhovna Rada of the USSR, and the newspaper itself was repeatedly recognized as the best production publication in Ukraine and equated to the city district. Despite the fact that during the 1990s and 2000s the volume and circulation of the newspaper were significantly limited and the editorial staff was redundant, the newspaper "Zhovtnevyi hudok", having withstood numerous economic crises, continued to cover the production activities of the Luhansk diesel locomotive plant, remaining in high demand. layers of workers of the enterprise and professional specialists. Unfortunately, due to the infamous events and the related crisis of the legendary machine-building enterprise, in the 90th year of its existence, the newspaper "Zhovtnevyi hudok" was abolished in 2017.


SAR is internationally adopted to measure the radiation.The minimum SAR solution can be found by comparing and analyzing different cell phones,PCB designs,positions and antennas.The study provides more reliable design solutions for future cell phone designs.


Despite being raised in Western countries, experiencing Western culture and freedom, some Muslims radicalize and choose to join terrorist organizations. The question remains why some Western Muslims choose this path, and others do not. The current paper identifies four factors. Firstly, identity crisis is discussed; the focus lies on the struggle of a Western Muslim to maintain a balance between different cultural aspects of identity. Second, relative deprivation is discussed; it is emphasized that the national as well as international levels of deprivation experienced by Muslim populations play a major role in the creation of the narrative that the religion of Islam and the Muslim community are under attack. Third, the focus is shifted towards more individual factors; personal characteristics such as narcissistic and sensation-seeking traits possibly push some Western Muslims to resort to violence and terrorism. Fourth, empathy is discussed; while Western Muslims reverting to terror seem to strongly empathize with the Muslim population, which is considered to be their in-group, they simultaneously seem to display a complete lack of empathy towards the innocent civilians affected by terrorist attacks.


Properties of the radiation field due to iodine-131 distributed in the atmosphere and on the air-ground interface are evaluated by means of a one-dimensional Monte Carlo transport code for the propagation of gamma radiation in two medium geometry. The calculated data are presented on the height distribution and on the energy and angular distribution of flux density and exposure rate from the iodine-131 source.


. Sensitivity analysis is considered a fundamental tool in aerospace engineering, allow-ing to evaluate the impact of parameters variations, and optimize the aerodynamic and struc-tural design. There has been much effort in the development of both theoretical and numerical frameworks for sensitivity calculations through adjoint solutions. Regarding the implementation of these analyses into agile and versatile numerical tools, the use of scalable and transferable libraries has become of particular importance. In this work, FEniCS is used to calculate the sensitivity of aerodynamic observables in dif-ferent flow condition. A comparison with different theoretical and benchmark cases is used to validate the methodology before applying it to further and more complex configurations, expanding the scope of the analyses to unsteady flows.


The Archives of American Art has completed a three-year project, funded by the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The project focuses on collections documenting postmodern art movements that rely heavily on audiovisual documentation. The media-rich nature of these collections has allowed project staff to investigate ways to keep audiovisual media from being hidden within larger mixed-media collections in manuscript repositories. Through this project, the Archives has developed tools for processing mixed-media collections that integrate traditional archival processing procedures with best practices for archival audiovisual media. Our approach includes developing media-specific tools for surveying collections, defining levels of processing, collecting metrics to help in planning, and creating guidelines for arrangement strategies and for describing audiovisual media in EAD. This paper outlines some of the details of these tools and guidelines and how processing archivists can use them to ensure better physical and intellectual access to audiovisual materials.


Many transportation engineers struggle to obtain accurate, reliable data about existing transportation performance and patterns. The ITS traffic data currently being collected by many TMCS are needed for these critical applications: (1) congestion monitoring and management systems; (2) model validation and calibration (both planning and traffic simulation); (3) operational strategy planning; and (4) ITS evaluations and benefit assessments. An opportunity exists to utilize the data available through ITS for a wide variety of planning, design operation, and evaluation purposes. The problem lies in developing a framework for retaining, managing, sharing, and analyzing the data. This paper addresses one aspect of this framework: analyzing ITS traffic data. More specifically, the paper focuses on transforming microscopic, point-based data into corridor and system congestion measures that are more useful for short and long-range planning


This paper examines political philosopher David Lefkowitiz's (2007) framework of public disobedience and argues that the acts of civil disobedience employed in the nonviolent Moral Monday protests held at the State Legislative building in the city of Raleigh, North Carolina (United States) during the summer of 2013, are consistent with his account. By definition, public disobedience is a "suitably constrained form of civil disobedience," compatible with political authority, or a legitimate state's right to rule, because citizens are recognized as holding a moral right to engage in such acts. Specifically, I argue that North Carolina's Moral Mondays activism is a paradigmatic instance of civil, nonviolent resistance by demonstrating how the protests satisfy three necessary conditions of civil disobedience that are also present in Lefkowitz's framework. In my final analysis, I conclude that Moral Mondays are distinguishable from forthright, lawless acts of dissidence that undermine rather than safeguard political authority.


This paper presents the transient stability analysis of a pressurised water-type nuclear power plant following faults and disturbances affecting the electricity grid to which it is connected. The modelled nuclear plant consists of various integrated subsystems, such as core neutronics and thermal-hydraulics, piping and plenum, pressuriser, steam generator, turbine, governor, and dynamics shaft, in addition to the turbine-speed controller. The nonlinear nuclear power plant model is linearised at the operating point to acquire a linear model for controller design. The turbine-speed control loop effectively enacts a closed-loop implementation of the nuclear power plant connected to the electric grid. The various transient stability enhancement components such as the power system stabiliser, static var compensator, and static synchronous compensator are employed to test performance during severe contingencies. The interaction between the nuclear power plant, electric grid, and protection system is studied under various scenarios such as single-phase fault, three-phase fault, and permanent load loss. The performance of the nonlinear plant is further observed during load-following operation. The dynamic behaviour of the overall system is analysed using simulations in the MATLAB/Simulink/Simscape environment.


This study is aimed at presenting and describing the linguistic-discursive knowledge constructed in an experience of teachinglearning in Tandem practice via MSN Messenger, and the stories of construction of identity that emerged in this practice. The study was based in assumptions about teaching-learning languages in Tandem practice and in conceptions of language and identity. The analysis was developed from the composition of meanings, according to Ely, Vinz, Downing and Anzul (2001) and made it possible to establish a relation between the culture related to the studied language, the construction of linguistic-discursive knowledge and the reconstruction of personal identity.


In microbial forensics, researchers work to track down the source of a microbe, whether in a criminal investigation of bioterrorism attacks or a study of naturally occurring disease outbreak. It is interplay of classical microbiology, microbial genomics, phylogenetics and bioinformatics. Although microbes have been used as weapons for centuries, the anthrax letter attacks of 2001 generated great terror in the public and revealed the need to establish "attribution." The benefit is that it might deter at least some potential terrorists and also help in tracing natural outbreaks of disease. Microbial forensic data must hold up not only to the scrutiny of scientists in the health care community, but also to the scrutiny of judges and juries and national policy and decision makers. It poses a great challenge to develop newer techniques as the present techniques like gene sequencing, hybridization, microarray, spectrophotometry, PCR etc. are inadequate. A national microbial forensics plan needs to be developed.


The SF‐36 is widely used to evaluate the health‐related quality of life (HRQoL) of patients with musculoskeletal tumors. Instead of typical methods, calculating the SF‐36 Global Score has recently become an increasingly common reporting approach. However, numerical changes lack clear clinical relevance. The minimal clinically important difference (MCID) is useful for interpreting changes in functional scores by defining the smallest change patients may perceive as clinically meaningful. The aim of this study is to determine the MCID of the SF‐36 Global Score in orthopedic oncology patients, which has not been reported to date. Three‐hundred ten patients who underwent surgery and completed two surveys during postoperative follow‐up were reviewed. The two most common methods for calculating the SF‐36 Global Score were used: (1) anchor‐based methods and receiver operating characteristic analysis based on one‐half of the SD of change score and standard error of measurement at baseline and; (2) distribution‐based methods. Using anchor‐based methods, the MCIDs of SF‐36 Global Scores #1 and #2 were 2.7 (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.85) and 2.5 (AUC = 0.79) for improvement, and −1.5 (AUC = 0.81) and −0.6 (AUC = 0.83) for deterioration, respectively. Using distribution‐based methods, the MCIDs of SF‐36 Global Scores #1 and #2 were 4.1 and 4.4 by half SD, and 4.1 and 4.5 by standard error of measurement, respectively. Our findings provide benchmark values, which can serve as a reference for future studies in musculoskeletal tumor patients using the SF‐36 Global Score as a single measure for HRQoL.


It is aimed to evaluate for Şanlıurfa isot pepper that is a traditional product in terms of market or marketing which is more important at sector, in GAP Region of Turkey by this research. The data come from three groups which are the producers, the sellers and the consumers by simple random sampling methods and interviewed by face to face with a given questionnaire and 2,070 surveys were conducted.Likert attitudes scales and SPSS were used for the analyses together with classification tree model, Levene and T-tests. The result indicate that existing of marketing problem, rather than market by 79.1%. The price is important by 77.5% and followed by the production place and food safety certificate for consumption among the groups. The taste is the most important effecting factors for buying of isot pepper by 88.9% and followed by the hygiene conditions. The most significant factors are promotion and branding for marketing. This study is the one of first of its type for Şanlıurfa isot pepper in this regard and the results are helpful for the decision and policy makers of the sector.


Abstract: The diagnosis of the conchostracan genus Tenuestheria from the Lanxi Formation in Jinhua, Zhejiang Province in Southeast China is revised following an examination of the type species under a scanning electron microscope, which revealed some morphological features on the carapace that had not been recognized previously. The importance of the Tenuestheria Fauna is considered in the context of correlation of six Turonian‐Santonian formations in this region of China. The value of the Cenomanian Nemestheria and Turonian Linhaiella faunas in correlating the underlying early Late Cretaceous formations is also noted.


BACKGROUND: Pittsburgh's Centralized Transfusion Service (CTS) provides transfusion support to 16 hospitals and features an electronic database that contains patient transfusion and serologic histories. This database can be accessed from any hospital in the system. A major cause of ABO‐incompatible transfusions is the "wrong blood in tube" (WBIT) phenomenon, that is, the sample is not from the recipient identified on the label. We hypothesized that having access to patient historical ABO types from anywhere in the CTS system can identify WBIT errors and prevent mistransfusions.


RESUMO: The plantations of Pinus taeda L. in southern Brazil are installed on different soil taxonomy with different soil quality and production capacities. The soil quality can be evaluated by the means of different attributes which can additionally be related to the site productivity. In this study, we evaluate some soil physical, chemical, and microbiological attributes under Pinus taeda plantations aiming to identify the influence of soil taxonomy and silvicultural management on the quality of the soil. The soil was collected at 18 months, on Oxisols, Ultisols, and Inceptisols. Soil microbial biomass was performed by irradiation in a microwave and determined in a Vario TOC Cube, Elementar, Germany. Sites 3, 4, and 5 showed higher average values of soil microbial biomass, compared to sites 1 and 2, a fact possibly related to edaphic soil attributes and the previous management with minimal tillage in some sites. These results suggest that soil pedogenesis in combination with silvicultural management are determinant factors of the soil quality which is expressed by the physical, chemical, and microbiological attributes of the soil.


An information storage medium having recorded thereon text subtitle data that is rendered to be output in synchronization with reproduction of audio/video (AV) data, and a method and apparatus for reproducing the text subtitle data and AV data. The information storage medium includes subtitle data that is output in synchronization with AV data and output time information indicating an output beginning time and/or an output ending time of the subtitle data.


The work done consists of three parts: optimizing the disk-and-washer (DAW) structure at ..beta.. = 0.5662 corresponding to E = 200 MeV; comparing the DAW structure with the side-coupled (SCS) structure at various values of beta, ranging from ..beta.. = 0.4569 and E = 116 MeV to ..beta.. = 0.7131 and E = 400 MeV; and re-optimizing the DAW structure at ..beta.. = 0.7131. 4 refs., 51 figs., 41 tabs.


Non‐alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are closely associated, and liver fibrosis has been related to macrovascular complications. We examined whether liver fibrosis, diagnosed by FibroScan®, correlates with chronic vascular complications in a cohort of T2DM.


This article presents a sketch of the prehistorical development of the Common Slavic preterital imperfect/aorist category. The methods of internal analysis and linguistic geography are applied to mostly well-established data in order to reconstruct major elements of this development, in particular the relative chronology of the main morphological changes, correlations with well-known Common Slavic phonological changes, as well as correlations of regional morphological differences with major phonological isoglosses. The results contribute to our understanding of the development of Common Slavic and its dialectal differentiation in the period of the "Slavic migrations".


Todd Bindig takes a provocative position in his essay "Confusion about Speciesism and Moral Status". He proposes that we, as Catholic believers, can find some common ground with the position taken by Peter Singer against "speciesism". Bindig offers some tweaking to the meaning of the term "species" to create grounds for agreement. He argues that Singer is correct; species is morally irrelevant if it is founded merely on one's reproductive community and historical origin. Bindig offers some very imaginative scenarios for recategorizing human beings in a plurality of species possibilities, i.e. the existence of another planet where beings exactly like human beings exist, but from diverse origins and within a separate reproductive community. Unfortunately, the supposed confusion over the acceptable definition of the term "species" is irrelevant to Singer's arguments. Singer is not confused about his understanding of speciesism. Speciesism is a "morally indefensible preference for members of our own species" (53), that is, human beings over non-human animals. He proposes that the moral status of "persons" cannot be limited to human beings alone, but must include non-human animals as well, if we are not to be accused of the sin of "speciesism". According to Singer, ethical decision making must be based on equal consideration of interests. These interests cannot be limited to such irrelevant criteria as intelligence or rationality, as these would be "as arbitrary as skin color". He maintains that, instead, we base ethical decisions on sentience, that is, a balance of pain vs. pleasure: classical utilitarianism, he claims. Hence, since pigs, horses, and chickens are as likely to experience pain as adult humans there can be no moral justification for not weighing their interests equally. Personhood achieves meaning based on a being's capacity to feel pain. Hence, according to Singer, most of us are regularly


The work is devoted to the study of the severity of pain in patients with the pathology of temporomandibular joint with the use of different methods of pain evaluation. Pain intensity was determined in 52 patients with instability of temporomandibular joint with the help of numerical rank scale, verbal rank scale, visual analogue scale and McGill Pain Questionnaire. These various techniques are broadly comparable and complement each other. The results of study using various techniques determined that all patients in the study group noted minimal reduction in pain intensity on the seventh day, moderate pain relief on the 14th day of treatment and complete pain absence on the 30th day after the beginning of treatment.


Studying Native American reservations, and their historical formation, I find that their forced integration of autonomous polities into a system of shared governance had large negative long‐run consequences, even though the affected people were ethnically and linguistically homogenous. Reservations that combined multiple sub‐tribal bands when they were formed are 30% poorer today, even when conditioning on pre‐reservation political traditions. The results hold with tribe fixed effects, identifying only off within‐tribe variation across reservations. I also provide estimates from an instrumental variable strategy based on historical mining rushes that led to exogenously more centralized reservations. Data on the timing of economic divergence and on contemporary political conflict suggest that the primary mechanism runs from persistent social divisions through the quality of local governance to the local economic environment.


A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor chip and a first material, which includes molecules that are configured so that thermal energy is absorbed by the spatial molecular structure of the molecules is changed in a reversible manner.


OBJECTIVETo study the early protective effects and its mechanism of emodin on lung injury in SAP model of rats.METHODSSD rats were randomly divided into sham operation group,SAP group and emodin group,and each group was further divided into postoperative 4h,8hand 12hsubgroups,and the plasma amylase and phospholipase A2(PLA2),IL-1β,IL-6 content of bronchoalveolar lavage fluid(BALF)were measured and pathological score of lungs was graded.The expression of surfactant protein A(SP-A)of the lungs was detected by RT-PCR,and the correlation analysis was performed with cytokine levels.RESULTS The plasma amylase,PLA2of BALF and lung pathology score at the same point in time decreased obviously in emodin group than in group SAP(P0.05),and IL-1βand IL-6 of BALF at 4 h decreased significantly in emodin group than in group SAP(P0.05).The expression of SP-A mRNA of the lungs increased significantly in emodin group than in group SAP,and the expression between SP-A mRNA and IL-1β,IL-6in the lungs were negatively correlated(r=-0.587,P0.05).CONCLUSIONEmodin can alleviate early inflammation of lungs in SAP model of rats by inhibiting the activity of PLA2and reducing the inflammatory factors,and it is suggested that emodin has good protective effect to lung,and improve early lung injury induced by SAP.


From traders on the stock market to colonies of co-operating ants, "complex systems" are found everywhere in nature. Theorists who study such systems, which are usually composed of elementary units that interact only at a local level, have traditionally tried to explain why intriguing global properties or patterns emerge from them. Why, in other words, does the whole turn out to be much more than the sum of its parts? This approach has been hugely successful, with one of its most prominent accomplishments being the development in the 1970s of the theory of "critical phenomena".


Counting psyllid nymphs on pear spurs with the aid of a binocular microscope is a tedious and time-consuming method. It is also subject to considerable counting error. In an attempt to find a more rapid and uniform method, the Berlese-Tullgren funnel, as developed by Berlese (1904) and modified by Tullgren (1917), was evaluated.


August 21, 2013 Energy Efficiency Program Typology and Data Metrics: Enabling Multi-State Analyses Through the Use of Common Terminology Ian M. Hoffman, Megan A. Billingsley, Steven R. Schiller, Charles A. Goldman and Elizabeth Stuart Summary In order to compile and analyze information about energy efficiency programs across the country, it is necessary to have a common categorization of program types as well as definitions of the metrics that define program performance and characteristics. As part of an effort to analyze the cost per unit of savings for utility-customer funded, end-use energy efficiency programs, LBNL developed a program typology with standardized program categories, as well as metrics and associated definitions that describe program characteristics, costs and impacts. These definitions and naming conventions facilitate meta-analysis of program results and could simplify the analyses and use of such information by a wide range of entities engaged in reporting and assessing the impacts of energy efficiency. The program categories and definitions described in this policy brief are based primarily on LBNL's collection and review of several years of annual energy efficiency reports from 108 program administrators in 31 states for approximately 1,900 unique programs. The categories and definitions also were informed by a variety of sources including publications from the State and Local Energy Efficiency Action Network (SEE Action), the Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE), the Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships' EM&V Forum, and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE). Program categories are defined first by seven sectors (including one for demand response programs), then by simplified program categories (27 for efficiency programs) and then into more detailed categories (62 for efficiency). This relatively large number of categories is necessary to cover the range of program types that are prevalent regionally and throughout the country. Having detailed program categories also provides flexibility for grouping programs by a variety of common characteristics for comparison and analysis (e.g., organizing programs by technology versus sector). The detailed program categories and metric definitions have been adopted by LBNL for its research into the costs of saved energy and by the CEE for its annual industry report surveys. We have also shared this program typology with other researchers and are now publishing them via this policy brief in the hope that other entities may consider their adoption. Our plan is to gather feedback from stakeholders via an annual or biennial process to modify, add or subtract program categories as program offerings change or to address potentially needed clarifications in the definitions and categories. This document is a part of LBNL's Clean Energy Program Policy Brief series. These policy briefs highlight emerging program models, important issues that programs face, and how these issues are being addressed. The work described in this report was funded by the National Electricity Delivery Division of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability under Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.To join the email list to receive briefs and papers from this series, please click HERE. Please direct questions or comments to Ian Hoffman (email@example.com).


Local governments in the U.S. are struggling with financial shortfalls due to economic downturns, loss of federal assistance, and resistance to raising more revenue through property taxes. This has led to increased interest in provision of municipal services by private contractors and cooperative arrangements in an effort to increase efficiency. Using results from previous studies in Illinois and Wisconsin we attempt to model the municipal decision of how to provide residents town services. In order to test the applicability of past work to smaller towns we conducted a survey of the mostly rural state of New Hampshire in the summer of 2004. This paper will provide descriptive statistics of this New Hampshire survey and comparisons to the results of past work. We also construct decision-making models using logit, probit, and Poisson techniques which examine the influence of population, location and other exogenous factors on the decision to privatize.


One of the most important motives of philosophical activity is man's striving for deliverance from what S. Freud called "burden of reality" (druck der realitat), especially from need, suffering, guilt, & death. The idea arose that man can transfigure himself by means of magic, or later, of philosophical speculation into a divine "self" entirely different from & absolutely superior to empirical reality. But this kind of salvation does not change the misery of earthly human life. For that reason, the idea mentioned above, has been transformed into the doctrine that empirical man can be transfigured by means of revolution into a kind of semidivine, superhuman being, living in a "nonalienated" society. HA.


The harmonic restraint differential relay operates with a minimum delay of one cycle and moreover, nowadays in modern transformers, the level of the second harmonic component is reduced to a great extent. So, no longer harmonic restraint methods can be used to classify internal fault current from inrush current. Artificial neural networks have proved to be very efficient in the field of classification. The differential current obtained from the PSCAD/EMTDC simulation for various internal fault, inrush, external fault, normal and overexcitation operating conditions are fed to ANN and trained.


Heavyweight aggregate concrete (HWAC) is the most widely used material as radiation shielding for nuclear reactors. The density of HWAC is increased through the use of heavy natural aggregates such as barites, hematite and magnetite. This study determines the density of HWAC with hematite aggregate replacing granite at 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40% and 50%, its compressive strength and thermal neutron absorption of 1 MeV fast neutrons. The physical properties of hematite which include gradation, specific gravity, water absorption and loose unit weight are determined. The chemical composition of hematite is also determined using X-ray fluorescent (XRF) analysis. The slump, density, compressive strength and thermal neutron absorption of the heavyweight concrete containing different proportion of hematite as aggregate are also determined. Results show that the slumps of HWAC are between 77 mm – 84 mm, the density of HWAC increases between 0.3% - 1.18% by increasing the hematite content. HWAC with 10% hematite exhibits highest strength at 52.5 MPa and the highest thermal neutron absorption at 2085 count per second. The optimum amount of hematite to replace granite for best strength and neutron absorption is 10%.


Purpose
This study aims to investigate the feasibility of employing a multi-objectives integer-programming model for effective allocation of resources for cyberfraud mitigation. The formulated objectives are the minimisation of the total allocation cost of the anti-fraud capacities and the maximisation of the forensic accounting capacities in all cyberfraud incident prone spots.

Design/methodology/approach
From the literature survey conducted and primary qualitative data gathered from the 17 licenced banks in South Africa on fraud investigators, the suggested fraud investigators are the organisation's finance department, the internal audit committee, the external risk manager, accountants and forensic accountants. These five human resource capacities were considered for the formulation of the multi-objectives integer programming (MOIP) model. The MOIP model is employed for the optimisation of the employed capacities for cyberfraud mitigation to ensure the effective allocation and utilisation of human resources. Thus, the MOIP model is validated by a genetic algorithm (GA) solver to obtain the Pareto-optimum solution without the violation of the identified constraints.

Findings
The formulated objective functions are optimised simultaneously. The Pareto front for the two objectives of the MOIP model comprises the set of optimal solutions, which are not dominated by any other feasible solution. These are the feasible choices, which indicate the suitability of the MOIP to achieve the set objectives.

Practical implications
The results obtained indicate the feasibility of simultaneously achieving the minimisation of the total allocation cost of the anti-fraud capacities, or the maximisation of the forensic accounting capacities in all cyberfraud incident prone spots – or the trade-off between them, if they cannot be reached simultaneously. This study recommends the use of an iterative MOIP framework for decision-makers which may aid decision-making with respect to the allocation and utilisation of human resources.

Originality/value
The originality of this work lies in the development of multi-objectives integer-programming model for effective allocation of resources for cyberfraud mitigation.


This study was carried out to determine whether a short-term zinc supplementation could improve the zinc status without adverse changes in copper status among type 2 diabetic patients. Seventy-six diabetic subjects and 72 normal adults participated in this study. Subjects were randomly divided into supplemented and control groups. Forty-four diabetic patients and 34 normal subjects were supplemented with 50 mg zinc gluconate daily for 4 weeks. Dietary intakes of participants were measured for two non-consecutive days by 24-hour recall method. Nutritional status of zinc and copper were also evaluated by biochemical measurement of fasting plasma samples and spot urinary collection. At baseline, diabetic patients showed significantly lower levels of dietary zinc intake and higher urinary zinc excretion than the normal adult group (p<0.05, p<0.0001). Plasma level of zinc was not significantly different between diabetic and normal adults at baseline. However, plasma zinc level increased significantly in both diabetic patients and normal adults after zinc supplementation. The changes in plasma copper levels following zinc supplementation were not statistically significant in diabetic subjects as well as in normal adults. These results indicated that four weeks of zinc supplementation did not influence Cu status and that it may contribute to improving the zinc status. Therefore, we suggest that Zn supplementation for a short-term period may improve marginal zinc status of diabetic patients without interfering with their copper status (Korean J Community Nutrition 14(2):229~235, 2009)


In this work, an attempt is made to estimate time varying parameters in a linear stochastic differential equation. By defining $m_{k}$ as the local admissible sample/data observation size at time $t_{k}$, parameters and state at time $t_{k}$ are estimated using past data on interval $[t_{k-m_{k}+1}, t_{k}]$. We show that the parameter estimates at each time $t_{k}$ converge in probability to the true value of the parameters being estimated. A numerical simulation is presented by applying the local lagged adapted generalized method of moments (LLGMM) method to the stochastic differential models governing prices of energy commodities and stock price processes.


The invention relates to a bearing arrangement (1) one via a rotary joint (5) driven hub (2) of a motor vehicle, in which associated with a wheel flange (6) the wheel hub (2) and an outer joint body (7) connected to a drive shaft pivot (5) rotatably connected to each other, which hub has a radially inner lateral surface (18) which widens towards one to the joint (5), bell-shaped opening (19) encloses, in which the outer joint body (7) of the joint (5) is inserted at least a part of its axial length, the outer contour of the outer joint body (7) substantially corresponds to the inner contour of the wheel hub and the outer joint body (7) is arranged at least partially radially underneath the rolling bearing (9). To a releasable connection of the wheel hub to allow to pivot and to achieve a compact construction of the bearing assembly, it is provided that at least one end face of the wheel hub (2) a face toothing (3, 3 '), which with a corresponding spur gearing (4, 4 ') of the outer joint body (7) of the pivot joint (5) is rotatably connectable.


The flow over cylinders of varying fineness ratio (length to diameter) aligned with the free stream was examined using a magnetic suspension and balance system in order to avoid model support interference. The drag coefficient variation of a right circular cylinder was obtained for a wide range of fineness ratios. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) was used to examine the flow field, particularly the behaviour of the leading-edge separation shear layer and its effect on the wake. Reynolds numbers based on the cylinder diameter ranged from 5×104 to 1.1×105, while the major portion of the experiment was conducted at ReD=1.0×105. For moderately large fineness ratio, the shear layer reattaches with subsequent growth of the boundary layer, whereas over shorter cylinders, the shear layer remains detached. Differences in the wake recirculation region and the immediate wake patterns are clarified in terms of both the mean velocity and turbulent flow fields, including longitudinal vortical structures in the cross-flow plane of the wake. The minimum drag corresponded to the fineness ratio for which the separated shear layer reattached at the trailing edge of the cylinder. The base pressure was obtained with a telemetry technique. Pressure fields and aerodynamic force fluctuations are also discussed.


Great were the rejoicings when Dr Biezanek at Liverpool Crown Court on 20 October 1993 was acquitted of the offence of possessing drugs and supplying cannabis to her sick daughter (The Times, 1993). It would be interesting to know why she was prosecuted in the first place. How many of us, when confronted by the suffering of a loved one and knowing that a drug was available to soothe, would not have looked for some means of obtaining and supplying the drug, even knowing that it was illegal?


The analysis of features of the functional state of the tare-placental system in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, stepping mice after ovulation with clomiphene citrate indutsktsii about anovulatory infertility in the vector-53 women (1 group) and with the help of IVF and embryo transfer at the failure of conservative treatment (2 group) in patient with polycystic ovary syndrome. The control group consisted of 30 pregnant women who do not suffer from infertility. Functional state of placental system was assessed using ultrasound device Prosound Ј 10 Aloka. CTG fetal unit carried Sonicaid Team Care Oxford. Compensated placental insufficiency was detected in 49,06 % of pregnant women and 32 % of the first to the second group. Pathological variability, changes in heart rate, late decelerations occurred only in the first and second groups, suggesting inappropriate reactivity of the cardiovascular system of the fetus and fetal hypoxia conditions. High frequency of placental insufficiency in women with PCOS syndrome leads to disruption of adaptive mechanisms development induced pregnancies, resulting in their morbidity and requires individual selection of maintenance dosage therapy.


Using double optical Raman rephasing, an inversion-free resonant Raman echo is studied in an inhomogeneously broadened spin ensemble of a solid medium, where the Raman optical field-excited spin coherence has a frozen propagation vector. Unlike photon echoes whose quantum memory application is strictly limited due to \pi rephasing pulse-induced population inversion causing quantum noises, the optical Raman field-excited spin echo is inherently silent owing to the frozen propagation vector. Thus, the doubly rephased Raman echo can be directly applied for quantum interface in a population inversion-free environment.


In transmultiplexing systems digital images are combined into one image in order to be sent through a single communication channel. At the receiver end the combined image is split to recover the transmitted images. Integer-to-integer filters ensure perfect reconstruction. A simple and effective filter designing method is presented in this paper.


Liquid sloshing in a 3D rectangular tank under multiple degrees of freedom (DOF) excitations is simulated by the in house solver MLParticle-SJTU based on Moving Particle Semi-Implicit (MPS) method. Firstly, liquid sloshing under horizontal and angular motion is carried out to validate the present particle solver MLParticle-SJTU respectively. The comparison between the numerical flow pattern and impact pressure and the corresponding experimental data shows that MLParticle-SJTU is reliable and efficient to solve 3D sloshing problem. In addition, the present model is extended to 3D liquid sloshing with multiple degrees of freedom motions. The evolution of sloshing waves and impact pressure are analyzed to investigate the coupling effect of different DOF excitations. Results show that surge motion and rolling motion have weak interaction with each other. Sloshing can be damped if the amplitude and phase difference between surge motion and pitch motion are appropriate.


In group sequential designs, adjusting for baseline variables and short-term outcomes can lead to increased power and reduced sample size. We derive formulas for the precision gain from such variable adjustment using semiparametric estimators for the average treatment effect, and give new results on what conditions lead to substantial power gains and sample size reductions. The formulas reveal how the impact of prognostic variables on the precision gain is modified by the number of pipeline participants, analysis timing, enrollment rate, and treatment effect heterogeneity, when the semiparametric estimator uses correctly specified models. Given set prognostic value of baseline variables and short-term outcomes within each arm, the precision gain is maximal when there is no treatment effect heterogeneity. In contrast, a purely predictive ∗Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA; e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com †Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA; e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com ‡Department of Biostatistics, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA; e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


$\newcommand{\MatA}{\mathcal{M}}$ $\newcommand{\eps}{\varepsilon}$ $\newcommand{\NSize}{\mathsf{N}{}}$ $\newcommand{\MatB}{\mathcal{B}}$ $\newcommand{\Fnorm}[1]{\left\| {#1} \right\|_F}$ $\newcommand{\PrcOpt}[2]{\mu_{\mathrm{opt}}\pth{#1, #2}}$ $\newcommand{\pth}[1]{\left(#1\right)}$
Given a matrix $\MatA$ with $n$ rows and $d$ columns, and fixed $k$ and $\eps$, we present an algorithm that in linear time (i.e., $O(\NSize )$) computes a $k$-rank matrix $\MatB$ with approximation error $\Fnorm{\MatA - \MatB}^2 \leq (1+\eps) \PrcOpt{\MatA}{k}$, where $\NSize = n d$ is the input size, and $\PrcOpt{\MatA}{k}$ is the minimum error of a $k$-rank approximation to $\MatA$.
This algorithm succeeds with constant probability, and to our knowledge it is the first linear-time algorithm to achieve multiplicative approximation.


Many parasites affect the development and survival of offspring. Because passerines exhibit determinate growth, parasites may have lasting effects on phenotypes. The life-history consequences of parasite-induced developmental modifications have rarely been analyzed, and require long-term experimental studies. Here we present the results of a four-year experimental study on the effects of a hematophagous ectoparasite, the hen flea (Ceratophyllus gallinae), on growth, survival, and lifetime reproductive success of nestlings of the Great Tit (Parus major).

In a design A, half of the nests were heat-treated several times per year to kill parasites, while in the other half, fleas were allowed to immigrate naturally over several years. To allow for the estimation and statistical control of effects due to potentially nonrandom phenotype distribution within this design, a second design, design B, was applied. In design B, all nests were heat treated to kill parasites after nest box occupation, and the subsequent infestation of half of the nests was then randomized in space and time.

In both designs, the fleas significantly reduced nestling body size but did not significantly affect the probability of nestling recruitment as local breeders. Parasitism reduced the clutch size of the nestlings' first recorded clutch, and of the subsequent clutches, and reduced the total number of recruits produced per nestling over the entire study period. Because body size of the recruited nestlings, both at the end of growth and as recruits, was not significantly different between treatments, the reduced fitness was not an indirect consequence of parasite-modified body size.

This study provides experimental evidence for parasite-induced effects during growth on survival and development of offspring and shows the consequences of this phenotypic modification on lifetime reproductive success. It shows that parasite-induced effects during growth are important for understanding optimal resource allocation and life-history evolution under parasitism.


El Nazar is one of the mediaeval rock-cut churches in the Goreme valley in Cappadocia. The church is carved into a freestanding rock which is suffering from damage caused by climatic and hydrogeological factors. The losses in the outer wall and floor of the church are signs of impeding danger of further losses. In 1987, the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism initiated a project to identify measures for the structural consolidation of the church. A report and a project was presented to the Ministry by the authors, covering the proposed interventions to structure and the surrounding area.


Background: Excessive scarring of filtering blebs is the main cause of surgical failure in glaucoma. Previous studies have highlighted the role of chloride channels (ClCs) in scar formation, whereas the role of ClCs in scarring of filtering blebs has not been studied. Objectives: The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of the chloride channel 2 (ClC-2) on scar formation of filtering blebs after glaucoma filtering surgery. Methods: ClC-2 siRNA-transfected human conjunctival fibroblasts (HConFs) were cultured in type 1 collagen gels in the presence of transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1. Collagen gel contraction was evaluated based on the gel area. 3D-cultured HConFs were treated with the ClC blocker NPPB in the presence of TGF-β1, and cell proliferation collagen synthesis and contractility were measured. The expression levels of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases (TIMPs) in HConFs were assessed by Western blotting and qPCR. Results: TGF-β1 induced cell proliferation, cell cycle progression, collagen synthesis, and collagen gel contraction in HConFs. TGF-β1 increased MMP-2 and MMP-9 levels but inhibited the expression of TIMPs. NPPB and ClC-2 siRNA transfection inhibited TGF-β2-induced cell proliferation, cell cycle progression, collagen synthesis, and collagen gel contraction, mediated by HConFs. TGF-β2-induced increases in MMP-2 and MMP-9 were also inhibited by NPPB and ClC-2 siRNA transfection, but TIMP expression was increased by NPPB and ClC-2 siRNA transfection. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate that ClC-2 ClCs modulate TGF-β1-induced cell proliferation, collagen synthesis, and collagen gel contraction of HConFs by attenuating MMP-2 and MMP-9 production and by stimulating TIMP1 production. NPPB may therefore prove to be of clinical value for the inhibition of scar formation of filtering blebs.