The leaf area index (LAI) is a crucial structural parameter of forest canopies. Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) provides an alternative to passive optical sensors in the estimation of LAI from remotely sensed data. However, LiDAR-based LAI estimation typically relies on empirical models, and such methods can only be applied when the field-based LAI data are available. Compared with an empirical model, a physically-based model—e.g., the Beer–Lambert law based light extinction model—is more attractive due to its independent dataset with training. However, two challenges are encountered when applying the physically-based model to estimate LAI from discrete LiDAR data: i.e., deriving the gap fraction and the extinction coefficient from the LiDAR data. We solved the first problem by integrating LiDAR and hyperspectral data to transfer the LiDAR penetration ratio to the forest gap fraction. For the second problem, the extinction coefficient was estimated from tiled (1 km × 1 km) LiDAR data by nonlinearly optimizing the cost function of the angular LiDAR gap fraction and simulated gap fraction from the Beer–Lambert law model. A validation against LAI-2000 measurements showed that the estimates were significantly correlated to the reference LAI with an R2 of 0.66, a root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.60 and a relative RMSE of 0.15. We conclude that forest LAI can be directly estimated by the nonlinear optimization method utilizing the Beer–Lambert model and a spectrally corrected LiDAR penetration ratio. The significance of the proposed method is that it can produce reliable remotely sensed forest LAI from discrete LiDAR and spectral data when field-measured LAI are unavailable.


Highly sensitive and fast responding humidity sensors were fabricated based on Sb-doped ZnSnO3 fine nanoparticles, which were synthesized via a dual-hydrolysis-assisted liquid precipitation reaction and subsequent hydrothermal procedure. The nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and UV-visible spectrophotometry. The results demonstrated that ZnSnO3 nanocubes evolved into Sb-doped ZnSnO3 nanoparticles with doping by Sb. This evolution facilitated their application in humidity sensing. At room temperature, the resistance of the humidity sensors based on Sb-doped ZnSnO3 at 30% relative humidity (RH) was 130 times greater than that in air with 85% RH. The response and recovery times were 7.5 s and 33.6 s, respectively, when the sensors were switched between 30% and 85% RH. These results are much better than those reported so far. The present results may present new opportunities for the practical application of high-performance humidity sensors at room temperature.


Exploration in Pennsylvania during 1964 resulted in the discovery of 2 new gas fields, 1 new gas pool, and 3 deeper gas pools. There was 939 new wells drilled and 27 wells deepened during 1964. Of the 939 new wells, 910 were in proven fields, 1 was drilled for waste disposal, and 28 were exploratory tests (all deep wells). Exploratory tests totaled 28, drilling a total of 174,906 ft of hole. Of the 28 exploratory tests, 6 were successful, and 22 were dry, giving a success ratio of 1 in 4.7. Proved oil reserves as of December 31, 1964, were estimated at 86,720,000 bbl. Gas reserves were estimated at 1,243,575,000 Mcf at the end of the year.


A cost-effectiveness integrated methodology applied in a water resources management and sanitation project in Minho and Lima's region (Portugal) is presented. First, environmental objectives and programmes of measures (PM) are established and priorities are identified using a cause-effect assessment matrix and a global effectiveness index. Aiming to achieve more demanding goals, some complementary actions are considered, including "decentralized low-energy wastewater treatment plants construction". A geographic information system was used to select potential implementation sites, and suitable treatment processes for each location are identified. The centralized and decentralized wastewater treatment plants combination is promising, achieving a cost-effectiveness attendance of €1510/equivalent-inhabitant in Minho-Lima river basins.


During a regular inspection of a multi‐span highway bridge, an unusual deformations of external post‐tensioned tendons were observed. These deformations were not noticed or recorded during the previous main inspections. A detailed visual inspection of the condition of external tendons was performed on all bridges with external tendons by mapping the location and extent of unusual deformation. Based on this, several non‐destructive tests were performed, where deformations were first noticed, from magnetic‐flux leakage to radiographic screening. Some local destructive investigations were subsequently carried out at several locations in two bridges, i.e. opening the tendons. The result of the tendons opening showed the presence of foreign objects and non‐tensioned strands, the latter being a possible cause for the deformations of that tendon. In both locations, the injection mass was compact with only hairy transverse cracks, both on the undeformed part as well as on the moderately deformed part of the tendon. In this paper, the latest results from this study are presented in detail.


The theoretical possibility of correcting the amplitude-phase distortions of Laguerre-Gaussian beams on atmospheric paths is studied by computer simulation. A dynamic adaptive correction scheme is used based on the principle of phase conjugation of the reference wave from an auxiliary coherent source. By numerically solving the inhomogeneous parabolic wave equation, the split-step method simulates the propagation of beams in a randomly inhomogeneous medium with a power-law spatial spectrum characteristic of atmospheric turbulence. The wave equation is solved using parallel architecture algorithms based on the functions of the Intel MKL and IPP libraries. The influence of atmospheric turbulence on fluctuations of the orbital angular momentum of Laguerre-Gaussian beams is considered, and the efficiency of their suppression in a closed loop of an adaptive optical system is theoretically demonstrated.


Objective:To explore the cause of drug-induced hematuria. Methods:To analyse for clinical information of 52 cases of drug-induced hematuria in the data and reason. Results:The drugs causing hematuria were sulfa drugs,diclofenac,indocin,centamycin,cefradine,cefletin,ciprofloxacin,oflxacin and amethopterin.These patients had historical to use related drugs. Clinical maniteslations:hematuria,cryslats by microscopic examination of uria,skin rash in a small mumber of patients. Old people were more(51.92%) in these patients. All patients were fully recovered by stoping drugs and symptomatic treatment. All patients recovered not recured by following and visiting them at six months. Conclusion:In order to avoid occurrence of the disease,clinical doctors should master strictly medication indications and prevent to abuse drugs and try to use fewer or no drugs of nephrotoxicity particularly in elderly patients and educate patients to use drugs under the guidance of doctor as much as possible and no blind.


Shared human-robot workspaces and physical interaction between humans and robots are promising possibilities in order to build flexible production processes. But not only in production, also in other areas of daily living there is an increasing interest in physically collaborating robots, for example as assistant robots at home or in care for the elderly and disabled. The main prerequisite for such collaborating robots is to guarantee human safety in the robot's environment. But for the acceptance of physical human-robot interaction it is equally important that humans feel comfortable while working close to the robot. Therefore, the robot has to be able to perceive its complex dynamic environment and to detect obstacles (e.g., humans, other robots, other objects). The robot motion has to be controlled considering the detected obstacles and the desired or undesired contacts of the robot with its environment so that the robot is able to avoid undesired collisions and react adequately to contacts. This thesis deals with these tasks regarding their application to human-robot interaction of mobile manipulators in an industrial environment. A Cartesian model predictive control approach is developed for motion control of stationary or mobile manipulators. The robot's end-effector pose consisting of 3D position and orientation is controlled in order to follow a time-dependent reference trajectory or a geometric reference path. In each control step of the model predictive controller, an optimization problem is solved which evaluates the predicted robot behavior within a given time


The 3,600-MW West County Energy Center, with two recently commissioned power blocks and a third just entering start-up, is the first "greenfield" combined-cycle plant constructed by FPL since the 1970s. Thanks to FPL's long history with repowering projects, the project team commissioned Unit 2 seven months early, , with no operator errors during start-up. At just over $600/kW, the cost of the plant was a bargain.


The present invention relates to a permeable to moisture semi-permeable barrier layer which is impermeable to oxygen; compound comprising scaffold fiber layer formed by electrospinning of fibers to one side of and barrier layer on.


This invention relates to materials, methods and related applications multimerization MEDIATOR PROTEIN BY BIOLOGICAL AGENTS OCCURRENCE OF SYNTHETIC dimerization, PREFERABLY non-peptidic, O CIDS.


Tourist satisfaction has a significant impact on the survival and competitiveness of tourism businesses. However, issues affecting tourists' satisfaction in relation to the developmental aspects of a destination remain largely ignored in major tourism destinations in Bangladesh. Accordingly, this study explores major issues affecting tourist satisfaction in an emerging travel destination of Bangladesh. Within a case study research design, this study collects data from Saint Martin Island, the only coral island in Bangladesh. Primary data have been collected via 25 semi-structured interviews while a variety of publications and unpublished materials in reference to the research objective shave been reviewed as part of the secondary data source. The collected data were analyzed by employing thematic analysis and content analysis techniques. The findings reveal that during their stay at Saint Martin Island, tourists' satisfaction is mostly affected by several issues including available attractions, accommodation facilities, touristic facilities, transportation, restaurant, and service quality. The identified issues must be considered before developing a tourist-friendly environment by catering to tourists' expected quality for products and services. On this note, this paper lays down some policy implications that could be helpful for tourism policymakers, government tourism officials, local tourism bodies, and hospitality service providers.


Trichoderma reesei Rut C-30 produced high levels of -glucosidase, endo--glucosidase, endo--1,4-glucanase, and exo--1,4-glucanase. In pilot-scale production (50-1 fermentor), productivity and yield of CMCase (carborymethyl cellulose) and FPase (filter paper activity) were 273 U/ml and 35 U/ml, and 162 FPU/l.h and 437 FPU/g, respectively. The fed-batch techniques were used to improve enzyme activities with constant cell concentration. The acidity was an important parameter and controlled at pH 3.9 and 5.0 by automatic addition of ammonium hydroxide. Cellulase powder was prepared by ammonium sulfate precipitation and its CMCase and FPase activities were 3,631 U/g and 407 U/g, respectively.


Summary form only given. We demonstrate repetition-rate quadrupling of a 4.2-ps pulse train to 80 GHz. Adiabatic Raman compression in the same fiber yielded 2.0-ps solitons with improved modulation depth.


The study objective was to determine if the use of a checklist that screened for unmet services needs could increase the number of services per visit provided to clients using rural Bolivian health facilities. The study included 3448 clients visiting six service delivery points during the eighteen-week study period. Measurement included changes in services per visit before and after the introduction of the intervention and a comparison of services received at screened and nonscreened visits. In the nine weeks following the introduction of the intervention nine percent more services per client visit were provided than in the nine-week period preceding the intervention (p<.001). Provider compliance was an important constraint. Less than half of visits were screened but screened visits resulted in twenty-five percent more services per visit than non-screened visits (p < .001). To the degree that provider compliance can be secured systematic screening of clients appears to be an effective method for reducing unmet health service needs. The findings of this study replicate those of other studies conducted in Africa Asia and Latin America. The Bolivia Ministry of Health plans to scale-up the intervention. (authors)


The purpose of this document is to describe the standard electronic format for data files that will be sent for entry into the Tank Characterization Database (TCD). There are 2 different file types needed for each data load: Analytical Results; and Sample Descriptions. The first record of each file must be a header record. The content of the first 5 fields is ignored. They were used previously to satisfy historic requirements that are no longer applicable. The sixth field of the header record must contain the Standard Electronic Format (SEF) version ID (SEF3.0). The remaining records will be formatted as specified below. Fields within a record will be separated using the ''|'' symbol. The ''|''symbol must not appear anywhere in the file except when used as a delimiter.


This paper points out the existing problems and the main reasons of the thermal conductivity instrument type TD-TC-II according to the experimental principles and methods of measuring the thermal conductivity.Then,it puts forward the detailed solutions to these problems.The experimental comparison before and after the improvement indicates that the improved instrument can increase the experimental efficiency and lessen errors.


Objectives: The Hospital is a setting where a large number of drugs are administered to patients and the costs of hospitalization and drug treatment are high. Information on drug utilization in Hospitals and non-teaching hospitals are lacking in Ujjain. The present study was carried out to obtain information on the, drug utilization during the study period in 100 bed -days. Methods: This cross-sectional study about antibacterial drugs was carried out in two hospitals (teaching and nonteaching) for duration of six months. Prescription case records of 710 in-patients were included in this study and were subjected to analysis according to WHO indicators. Result: In 80.8 % of patients antibiotics were used which indicates that gross over use of drugs. The average number of antibiotic prescription was 1.99.Polypharmacy in 81.08% patients was reported. Brand name prescribing (80.03%) is far ahead than generic prescribing. Parentral route (57.4%) of administration is preferred over oral route .The most frequently prescribed antibiotics were Amikacin, Ceftriaxone. *Corresponding author: Sandeep Singh Bhadoriya, Vikrant Institute of Pharmacy, Indore, India, E-mail: email@example.com Received April 10, 2013; Accepted June 12, 2013; Published June 15, 2013 Citation: Bhadoriya SS, Sharma R, Madoriya N (2013) Drug Utilization Profile of Antibacterial Drugs for the Treatment of Hospitalized Patients in a Teaching and a Non-Teaching Hospital of Ujjain District. Clin Exp Pharmacol S4: 007. doi:10.4172/2161-1459.S4-007 Copyright: © 2013 Bhadoriya SS, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.


Topiramate is a drug used in the treatment of epilepsy, migraine, bulimia and other pathologies. We report a case of a 40-years-old woman, presented to the emergency department of ophthalmology with blurred vision in both eyes and bilateral acute angle closure. Her medications included topiramate started 6 days before Secondary angle closure glaucoma due to topiramate was diagnosed. The medication was discontinued and she was treated with topical antiglaucoma medications, intravenous mannitol and cyclopegics. At the 5-days follow-up visit, vision, intraocular pressure, and angle anatomy had returned to normal. The acute angle-closure glaucoma occurs due to edema of the ciliary body and uveal effusion that produces an anterior motion of the iris-lens diaphragm , with ocular hypertension and acute myopia .


Preventive detention refers to the incarceration of an individual who has not yet been convicted, to prevent him from causing harm or endangering the community in some unspecified way. It can be seen as the deprivation of an individual's liberty based on the belief that he may be a danger to others. The issue of preventive detention of children is very controversial and has attracted debate among various legal scholars. In Malaysia, provisions contained in specific statutes that aim to prevent terrorism or threats to national security have been invoked to justify the preventive detention of children. The practice and application of these statutory provisions on children have been subjected to various criticism. This paper aims to analyze current Malaysian laws pertaining to the preventive detention of children. It encompasses qualitative research of doctrinal and comparative nature. It will critically analyze legal issues in this area with reference to international standards and practices of other legal systems. The study concludes that the legal reform of the current Malaysian legal framework on this aspect is urgently needed to protect the rights and interests of children during the juvenile justice processes. Therefore, the study provides recommendations towards the improvement of the existing laws and policies on the preventive detention of children.


A real-world animal biometric system which detects and describes animal life in image and video is an emerging subject in machine vision. These systems provide computer vision approaches for the classification of animals. A novel method for animal face classification based on one of the popular convolutional neural network (CNN) features. We are using CNN in this project which can automatically extract features, learn and classify them. The proposed method can also be used in other areas of image classification and object recognition. The experimental results show that automatic feature extraction in CNN is better compared to other simple feature extraction techniques (both localand appearancebased features. It shows that the proposed technique have a positive effect on classification accuracy.


In order to study the third generation mobile communication systems, it is very necessary to use W-CDMA wireless multimedia communication techniques. The channel design method is proposed and the demodulation performance is analyzed for a W-CDMA wireless multimedia communication system. This paper also discuss the power control method. Finally a W-CDMA wireless multimedia experiment system is presented, it is support by High Technology R&D Programme of China.


The actinomycete strain Streptomyces coelicolor LY001 was purified from the sponge Callyspongia siphonella. Fractionation of the antimicrobial extract of the culture of the actinomycete afforded three new natural chlorinated derivatives of 3-phenylpropanoic acid, 3-(3,5-dichloro-4-hydroxyphenyl)propanoic acid (1), 3-(3,5-dichloro-4-hydroxyphenyl)propanoic acid methyl ester (2), and 3-(3-chloro-4-hydroxyphenyl)propanoic acid (3), together with 3-phenylpropanoic acid (4), E-cinnamic acid (5), and the diketopiperazine alkaloids cyclo(l-Phe-trans-4-OH-l-Pro) (6) and cyclo(l-Phe-cis-4-OH-d-Pro) (7) were isolated. Interpretation of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and high-resolution electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HRESIMS) data of 1–7 supported their assignments. Compounds 1–3 are first candidates of the natural chlorinated phenylpropanoic acid derivatives. The production of the chlorinated derivatives of 3-phenylpropionic acid (1–3) by S. coelicolor provides insight into the biosynthetic capabilities of the marine-derived actinomycetes. Compounds 1–3 demonstrated significant and selective activities towards Escherichia. coli and Staphylococcus aureus, while Candida albicans displayed more sensitivity towards compounds 6 and 7, suggesting a selectivity effect of these compounds against C. albicans.


Genetic diversity was studied in six subpopulations (a total of 60 individuals) of wild barley, Hordeum spontaneum, the progenitor of cultivated barley, sampled from six stations located along a transect of 300 m across the two opposing slopes of 'Evolution Canyon', a Mediterranean microsite at Lower Nahal Oren, Mt Carmel. The two opposing slopes are separated by between 100 and 400 m and designated SFS (South‐Facing Slope) and NFS (North‐Facing Slope) with each having three equidistant test stations. The SFS, which receives up to 300% more solar radiation, is drier, ecologically more heterogeneous, fluctuating, and more stressful than the NFS. Analysis of 12 RAPD primers, representing a total of 51 putative loci, revealed a significant inter‐ and intraslope variation in RAPD band polymorphism. A significantly higher proportion of polymorphic RAPD loci was found amongst the subpopulations on the SFS (mean P= 0.909) than on the NFS (mean P= 0.682), on the basis of the presence and absence of 22 strong bands. Polymorphism generally increased upwards from the bottom to the top of the SFS (0.636, 0.773, 0.955) and NFS (0.409, 0.500, 0.545), respectively. Gametic phase disequilibria estimates, D, revealed SFS and NFS unique predominant combinations which sharply differentiated the two slopes and indicated that there is differential interslope selection favouring slope‐specific multilocus combinations of alleles, or blocks of genes over tens to hundreds of meters. This suggests that selection overrides migration. RAPD polymorphism appears to parallel allozyme diversity which is climatically adaptive and driven by natural selection in the same subpopulations at the microsite.


The incident process is intended to develop problem-solving skills through a procedure in which knowledge about the problem is revealed only by an active process of inquiry. Unlike typical case methodology, the student is not initially provided with nearly enough information to adequately address the problem. Often, the case will be initiated by a single question or statement. The case unfolds only as participants ask relevant questions. Though this method was developed by Paul Pigors in his teaching at M.I.T. during the 1950s, our review of the literature covering the past ten years found no references to Pigor's work on this or to the process itself.


The optimal number of cycles of induction chemotherapy (IC) in locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (LANPC) remains unresolved. This study aimed to quantitatively assess the changes in gross tumor volumes (GTVs) and to select the most optimal number of IC cycles.


This paper presents the results of a small-scale exploratory investigation of code-switching (CS) between English and Farsi by 4 Iranian English foreign language (EFL) teachers in elementary level EFL classrooms in a language school in Isfahan, Iran. Specifically, the present study aimed at exploring the syntactical identification of switches and the functions that the switches served. The data consist of field notes and scripts of audio-recordings of the teachers' talk collected during classroom observations. The findings suggest that CS is a frequently applied strategy and a valuable resource for bilingual teachers in foreign language classrooms, and its judicious and skillful use can boost the quality of teaching. Moreover, it was found that EFL teachers in this study tended to use the learners' L1 (i.e., Farsi) to serve a number of pedagogic and social functions, which contributed to better teacher-student classroom interaction. Implications may be drawn for language teacher education programs and for further research on systematic investigation into actual classroom practices.


The DC-DC converter converts an input voltage input from the input terminal to a predetermined voltage and outputs the converted voltage from an output terminal, the DC-DC converter, the output control transistor, and includes an operation control circuit having an error amplifier circuit and the error amplifier circuit, a source follower comprising a connection output transistor, and includes the output circuit, the phase compensation resistor and a phase compensation capacitor for being configured to output an error voltage, a control electrode and a ground voltage of said output circuit amplifier is a series circuit configured to be connected to the terminals, and is located in a farther side from the side that outputs the error voltage to the output circuit of said error amplifier circuit, configured to include a voltage generating device as a load of the error amplifier and a circuit.


Pansharpening aims at fusing a low-resolution multispectral (MS) image and a high-resolution (HR) panchromatic (PAN) image acquired by a satellite to generate an HR MS image. Many deep learning based methods have been developed in the past few years. However, since there are no intended HR MS images as references for learning, almost all of the existing methods downsample the MS and PAN images and regard the original MS images as targets to form a supervised setting for training. These methods may perform well on the down-scaled images; however, they generalize poorly to the full-resolution images. To conquer this problem, we design an unsupervised framework that is able to learn directly from the full-resolution images without any preprocessing. The model is built based on a novel generative multiadversarial network. We use a two-stream generator to extract the modality-specific features from the PAN and MS images, respectively, and develop a dual discriminator to preserve the spectral and spatial information of the inputs when performing fusion. Furthermore, a novel loss function is introduced to facilitate training under the unsupervised setting. Experiments and comparisons with other state-of-the-art methods on GaoFen-2, QuickBird, and WorldView-3 images demonstrate that the proposed method can obtain much better fusion results on the full-resolution images. Code is available. [Online]. Available: https://github.com/zhysora/PGMAN.


Introduction: Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) is a growing problem in England, with approximately 3.1 million (6.7%) people living with T2DM and a further 5 million at high risk of developing T2DM as of 2017. England's National Health Service is undergoing rapid transformation aimed at improving population health through multi-sectoral partnerships to align and integrate needs, priorities, and goals across healthcare, public health, prevention, and social care. This qualitative study sought to understand the impact of healthcare transformation on T2DM prevention and care in England.  Theory and Methods: This study is underpinned by the understanding that health systems are complex adaptive systems characterised by continuing self-organisation, non-linear interactions, interdependent and dynamic relationships, and multiple feedback loops. With this in mind, we conducted 38 semi-structured in-depth interviews with 11 persons with T2DM (PWDs), 14 healthcare professionals/providers (HCPs), and 13 health policymakers/decision-makers (PDMs). Participants were purposively and snowball sampled. We conducted thematic analysis in QSR NVIVO11 to inductively identify themes and subthemes from the data, drawing on grounded theory techniques including line-by-line analysis and the constant comparative method.  Results: Three key themes emerged. All interviewees (across PWDs, HCPs, and PDMs) emphasised the urgency of England's growing T2DM burden and its contributors, including obesity, socio-economic deprivation, and unhealthy food environments, as a key driver of transformation. Increased awareness of T2DM at population-level was mentioned as a parallel development.  Additionally, participants highlighted how a person-centred, holistic approach is crucial to the transformation of T2DM prevention and care. Within this theme, each interviewee group highlighted contrasting, yet overlapping, subthemes. PWDs noted their preferences for empathetic, joined-up care that considers their cultural and ethnic differences and backgrounds. HCPs described shared care planning, cultivating patient-provider relationships, and multidisciplinary teams as characteristics of high-quality, holistic care provision. PDMs pointed to population-level needs driving development of policies and initiatives to tackle T2DM, especially in health and social care integration.  Participants also identified system-level barriers to transformation and integration. Participants across all groups reported funding and human resource limitations as key challenges impacting the care continuum, from primary prevention to acute hospital-based care. PWDs observed that the health system, especially primary care, was under strain as a result. HCPs explained how organisational and change management factors, namely strategic leadership and national and local priority-setting, were critical drivers of transformation. HCPs and PDMs noted the impact of factors outside the health system, particularly democratic cycles and political agendas, on sustainability and scalability of transformation efforts.  Discussion: This study offers insights into the multi-layered factors that impact healthcare transformation on T2DM prevention and care in England. From a complex adaptive systems viewpoint, these factors span systems hardware (e.g. organisational restructuring, capital investments) and software (e.g. cultural shifts, clinical practice improvements), and bottlenecks to meaningful, sustainable transformation often occur at the nexus of the two (e.g. mindset and practice change aligned to strategic priorities and resource allocation). This study also demonstrates that the health system is an open system affected by a multitude of external factors, including inequality, structural environment, and socio-political climate.


Polyadenylation of 3′ forming in eukaryote concerns three elements located in precursor mRNA downstream region: efficiency element (EE), position element (PE) and the actual site for cleavage and polyadenylation. Several base sequences of EE and PE have been proposed by many experiments. The secondary structures of 180 yeast genomic downstream regions (200 bases downstream the stop codon) have been analysed in detail. It is showed that about 86% of EE sites and 89% of PE sites are related to the regions of non paired loop (hairpin loop, bulge loop, interior loop or multi branched loop) or to connecting single strand. This result suggests that the identifications and actions of EE and PE by trans factors, to certain extent, are dependent on the structural features of EE and PE in the secondary structure. According to the secondary structure of mRNA, the prediction accuracy of EE and PE sites may be improved.


Abstract : This specification establishes the detailed design of a collection of form-based applications identified as the User Interface Services (UIS). The UIS is a collection of applications that use the Form Processor. Each application is individually accessed by filling its name in the function item on the IISS Function Screen. Each application presents a form to the user which must be filled in with information for processing by that application. The application then communicates with the Form Processor through messages created and sent by the Application Interface and handled by the User Interface Monitor of the Form Processor.


This paper presents some simulation results for a supply chain, that describes the different construction phases of car engines. In particular, the supply chain is modeled using differential equations: the load evolution is given, inside each arc, by a conservation law with constant processing rate; the dynamics at a node is solved considering ordinary differential equations for queues, that model the exceeding parts. For simulations, some numerical schemes based on Upwind and explicit Euler methods are proposed and compared with alternative approaches, which use different time and space meshes and data structures. This last alternative allows to obtain high computational gains, with consequent advantages in terms of industrial processes simulations.


This Contemporary Comments considers the attacks upon Indian students in Australia during 2009 and 2010. It explores some of the geo-politics around claims that the attacks are racist and what might at stake in promoting or refusing to recognise this claim.


Despite recent treatment advances prognosis for the majority of AML patients remains bleak. AML patients over 60 years of age treated with intensive chemotherapy have an estimated 2-year survival of 20% and only 10% at 4–5 years. This is attributed to unfavourable cytogenetics, preceding myelodysplastic syndrome and limited abilities to tolerate intensive chemotherapy. We and others have previously demonstrated that tumour cells engineered to express B7.1 and IL-2 can stimulate T cell and NK cell responses against the unmodified tumour cells and prolong the survival of vaccinated animals in mouse models of leukaemia. However, development of whole cell vaccines for AML have been severely hampered by the fact that primary AML cells are poorly infectable with RV, AdV, AAV and HSV. Therefore we have constructed self-inactivating lentiviral vectors incorporating enhancer elements and a myeloid efficient promoter to express B7.1 and IL-2 in a monocistronic "fusagene" configuration as a single fusion protein. This polyprotein is post-synthetically cleaved to generate biologically active membrane anchored B7.1 and secreted IL-2. This provides transduction efficiencies of between 40%–99% for B7.1 and 2-15ng/10 6 /24hrs of IL-2 secretion in both established and primary AML cells, following a single round of infection at an MOI of 10. The combined expression of IL-2 and B7.1 in AML blasts enables increased in vitro stimulation of allogeneic T cells and autologous T cells obtained from both non-remission and remission patients (post-BMT or non-BMT recipients). In addition, IL-2/B7.1 AML cells stimulated an increase in lymphocyte numbers, expansion of CD8+ cells and increased expression of T cell activation markers. Furthermore, the stimulated lymphocytes secrete greater levels of Th1 cytokines and show evidence of specificity, as indicated by their increased proliferation in the presence of unmodified AML compared to remission bone marrow cells. This data supports the notion that IL-2/B7.1 whole cell vaccination could stimulate therapeutically useful immune responses in AML patients.


The focus of this paper is the development of a digital escape room for pilots' training in flight safety procedures. To this end, we will discuss the methodology we used in order to make sure that each stage of the evolution of our digital platform is safe and suitable for educational use. Therefore, we will analyse the first stages towards the construction and evaluation of the scenarios incorporated in our entirely digital escape room that is intended for the T-6A Texan II pilots' education. Because of the educational character of the digital escape room, the theoretical background of our research is extremely important, since it provides the escape room with the educational aspect. As a result, for the narratives of our simulations and the development of our emergency cases, we used as our baseline the flight manual, the boldface procedures and the operating limitations of T-6A aircraft and we selected the categories of incidents/emergencies to be used as part of our virtual escape room. We, then, constructed the trial-run scenarios that we asked pilots to solve. Finally, we conducted extensive field research with the development and use of appropriate questionnaires and interviews to evaluate the realism of our scenarios. Based on the feedback we received from the field research, we will conclude this paper by discussing the limitations of this study, but also our ideas for future improvements and a timeline on our research progress, as well as on further developing our virtual escape room.


This thesis presents novel measures to estimate the degree of semantic similarity between words using one or more knowledge sources. Several evaluations show that they improve the accuracy of related works. These measures have been applied to clustering to compute the similarity/distance between individuals described by textual attributes. Clustering results show that a proper interpretation of textual data at a semantic level improves the quality of the clusters and ease their interpretation.


Treating export tax of a large country as equivalent to a sales tax, this paper derives all formulae at autarky, free trade, and after tax and offers all possible comparisons. All derived formulae are in terms of three adjustment weights of home country and the ratio of inverse demand slopes. For the first time, it derives a formula for the net welfare gain which is a concave quadratic function in export tax. It finds formulae for the optimal export tax and for the maximum net welfare gain.


Extended Abstract Abstract A materialized hypertext view is a hypertext containing data coming from a database and whose pages are stored in HTML les. This paper deals with the maintenance issues required by these derived hyper-text to enforce consistency between page content and database state. Here, hypertext views are deened as nested oid-based views over the set of base relations. An algebra is proposed, which is based on a speciic data model and which allows to deene views and view updates. A language has been deened, whose instructions allow to update the hypertext to reeect the current database state. Incremental maintenance is performed by a simple algorithm that takes as input a set of changes on the database and automatically produces the update instructions. The motivation of this study is the development of the Araneus Web-Base Management System, a system that provides both database and Web site management.


During the past decade, continuum topology optimization became an important industrial tool for the conceptual design of mechanical structures. The field of evolutionary computation provides suitable stochastic optimization algorithms for problems involving strong non-linearities or black-box simulations, for which existing gradient-based methods are not feasible. Due to the high design freedom of the phenotypic space, the encoding of the structural design is a critical aspect when applying evolutionary algorithms. Currently, the encoding approaches are scattered throughout different literature fields. This paper gathers them and provides a contemporary overview on the various structural representations used in conjunction with evolutionary computation for topology optimization. The important influence of the representation on the scalability of the approaches motivates the proposed categorization in three groups: Grid, Geometric and Indirect Representations. The existing representations are described and discussed on a conceptual level and chances and challenges are outlined.


With the increasing number of internet users, many organizations prefer jobs advertisement via online job portals. Using online job portals data for forecasting industrial demand and trends is becoming popular. Software Industry plays a vital role in economy of developing countries like Pakistan. In this article Pakistan software industry is explored to draw statistical conclusions related to industrial demand for specific job roles, programming languages, gender, age and qualification etc. by data analysis of jobs advertisement. This is done by extracting and analyzing jobs advertised on Pakistan most popular job portal Rozee.pk. The results give an overview of current demand in Pakistan software industry, and are beneficial to student counseling organizations, job applicants, researchers, professionals working in software industry and Government in planning and decision making.


The paper investigates the relationship among the foreign direct investment (FDI) and political stability by investigating the country-level FDI flows, FDI inward performance and political stability measures. Countries with high political rights have higher FDI outflows. Also, countries with high level of corruption of government and low level of democracy have higher FDI inflows. The results are consistent with the argument of that political factors are important in explaining FDI flows. We also find that FDI inward performance has consistently positive relationships with the level of corruption of government, while negative relationships with the political rights, when key variables from factor analysis are included.


This paper examines the different interpretations of the beginning of chapter 22 focusing on the second sentence. A new interpretation based on the syntactic construction of the participle πυνθανόμeνος is proposed.


A good understanding of computer BIOS setup and the characteristic of each BIOS configuration is key to fully improve a computer's capability and make it assist our teaching and scientific research more effectively.


Over the last 30 years, figures on the American radical right have sought to justify the use of violence against the national government. This can be seen in three key texts: the charter of the United States Christian Posse Association (1972), the Nehemiah Township Charter and Common Law Contract (1982), and Louis Beam's essay, 'Revolutionary Majorities' (1984). All three are characterized by antipathy toward the state, a desire to demonstrate the legitimacy of violence, a sense of membership in an elite, and a fusion of religious and legal fundamentalism.


In this article, we conducted a new hybrid method between Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II (NSGA-III) and SPEA/R (HNSGA-III&SPEA/R). This method is implemented to find the optimal values of the powertrain mount system stiffness parameters. This is the task of finding multi-objective optimization involving six simultaneous optimization goals: mean square acceleration and mean square displacement of the powertrain mount system. A hybrid HNSGA-III&SPEA/R has proposed with the integration of Strength Pareto evolutionary algorithm-based reference direction for Multi-objective (SPEA/R) and Many-objective optimization genetic algorithm (NSGA-III). Several benchmark functions are tested, and results reveal that the HNSGA-III&SPEA/R is more efficient than the typical SPEA/R and NSGA-III. Powertrain mount system stiffness parameters optimization with HNSGA-III&SPEA/R is simulated. It proved the potential of the HNSGA-III&SPEA/R for powertrain mount system stiffness parameter optimization problem.


Thick diamond films were synthesized on Al 2O 3 rod using a microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition technique,which can be taken over the traditional BeO rod and used in the wide band high power TWT to improve the heat dissipation greatly.After material tests and evaluation,parts assembly and tests,we′ve got the first good results as follows:Thermal conductivity:12 W/cm.℃,ten times better than BeO Rod;dielectric constant:e=5 0~5 5;RF loss:tanδ1×10 -3 ;resistivity:ρ10 13 Ω/cm;slow wave parts assembly thermal test:3 0 times better than BeO.The first TWT with diamond rods has passed all cold tests and has got following hot test results:Δf=4~8GHz,Pout=95W,G=35db.


The increase of the electric permittivity in the chain direction, ∈ r , ∥, during in situ solid-state polymerization of diacetylene crystals depends linearly on the polymer content within experimental error. This linearity is understood to be independent of the distribution of chain lengths due to a saturation effect of the linear polarizability in the chain direction. The increase of ∈ r , ∥ by typically 1.8 from the monomer to the polymer value can be explained within a simple theory which takes into account a modified Genkin Mednis approach for the monomer


COVID-19 and health inequities: the case for embracing complexity and investing in equityand community-driven approaches to communication Renata Schiavo, Gretchen Van Wye and Erma Manoncourt Editor-in-Chief; Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, New York, NY, USA; Health Equity Initiative, New York, NY, USA; Strategies for Equity and Communication Impact (SECI), New York, NY, USA; New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York, NY, USA; International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUPHE), Paris, France; Paris School of International Affairs, Sciences Po, Paris, France; New York University School of Global Public Health, New York, NY, USA


This dissertation focuses on continuity and change in a local knowledge culture, the nursing teacher education in Stockholm, during the years between 1958 and 1999, with a strong emphasis on concep ...


Recently, S. Aggarwal [Chin. Phys. B 23 (2014) 093203] reported energy levels, radiative rates, and the lifetimes for the lowest 60 levels belonging to the 2s22p5, 2s2p6, and 2s22p43ℓ configurations of F-like tungsten. There is no discrepancy for his calculated energies for the levels and the radiative rates for the limited number of E1 transitions, but the reported results for the lifetimes are highly inaccurate. According to our calculations, errors in his reported lifetimes are up to 6 orders of magnitude for several levels. Here we report the correct lifetimes for future comparisons and applications, and also explain the reason for the discrepancies.


THE health of children has dramatically improved over the past decades. Life expectancy at birth in both developed and developing countries has risen swiftly and much of this rise is attributable to large reduction in infant and child mortality. Many efforts have been made to study infant and child mortality along with maternal mortality in almost all developing countries. But such academic attention has been lacking in studying the determinants of adult health and mortality in these countries. Further, very few studies are available on the consequences of adult mortality, particularly with regard to its socio-economic and health impacts on the family (Roy et al., 2000). This is the group which constitutes the working force and is very crucial for the development of any society because they are economically productive, biologically reproductive and responsible for the support of the children and elderly population (Feachem et al., 1992). Additionally, the proportion of adults out of total population increases substantially as a country passes through the demographic transition process. According to the Population Division of the U.N., the percentage share of 15 to 64 age group people of the world in 1960 was 57 and it has increased to 64.4 in 2005. On the other hand, percentage share of population below 15 has been reduced from 37 in 1960 to 28 in 2005. Any distortion or change in the enormous age group may have substantial impact on the socio-economic development of a country. It is found that the consequences of adult ill health and mortality are substantial and larger than those of non-adults. Adult ill health and mortality can directly affect production, earnings, investment and consumption and health of the other members of the household


Computer simulations using finite difference time domain of conical pits show that electric field intensification within multilayer high reflector coatings is minimized when the incident and cone angle are matched.


There are several different well studied moduli of smoothness on the unit sphere, including the classical one defined via the translation operators (i.e., averages over rims of spherical caps), the one introduced by Z. Ditzian via the group of rotations, and the recent one introduced by Y. Xu and myself via finite order differences over Euler angles. This paper surveys some properties of these three different moduli of smoothness and some related results obtained recently, such as the direct Jackson inequality and its Stechkin type inverse, the strong inverse inequality of type A and the equivalence with different K-functionals. I will also compare different moduli of smoothness and show that they are in fact equivalent in L spaces with 1 < p < ∞.


A lanthanum coordination compound with glycine {[La(Gly)3.2H2O].(ClO4)3}n (Gly = NH+ 3-CH2-COO-) was synthesized and obtained in the form of single crystals. Its X-ray crystal structure has been determined and the IR spectrum has been studied. Crystallo


Focusing on the environment problems of rural construction are not count of.This paper summarizes the typical problems on rural construction developing from these three aspects of agricultural,industrialization and life of residents.And it proposes the correspondent solution to promote the environment quality of new rural.


The antioxidant activity of the total flavonoids of the four medicinal Chrysanthemum was determined.These kinds of the total flavonoids were detected by UV spectrophotometry after ethanol extraction and AB-8 macroporous resin purified.By taking a certain amount of total flavonoids to prepare flavonoids solution,we determined the antioxidant activity using DPPH.The results showed that the total flavonoid contents of the four medicinal Chrysanthemum were the huangshan Chrysanthemum 2.45%,the Chu Chrysanthemum 2.05%,the Bo Chrysanthemum 2.01%,and the Hangzhou white chrysanthemum 1.26%.It can be seen from the IC50 that the order of the strength of antioxidant is the Chu Chrysanthemumthe Huangshan Chrysanthemumthe Bo Chrysanthemum the hangzhou white chrysanthemum.Namely the four medicinal Chrysanthemum have a wealth of total flavonoids and a strong antioxidant activity.The total flavonoids in the huangshan Chrysanthemum are the highest and the antioxidant activity of the the chu Chrysanthemum is the strongest.


Children with profound cognitive impairment (PCI) are a heterogenous group who often experience frequent and persistent pain. Those people closest to the child are key to assessing their pain. This mixed method study aimed to explore how parents acquire knowledge and skills in assessing and managing their child's pain. Eight mothers completed a weekly pain diary and were interviewed at weeks 1 and 8. Qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis and the quantitative data using descriptive statistics. Mothers talked of learning through a system of trial and error ("learning to get on with it"); this was accomplished through "learning to know without a rule book or guide"; "learning to be a convincing advocate"; and "learning to endure and to get things right." Experiential and reflective learning was evident in the way the mothers developed a "sense of knowing" their child's pain. They drew on embodied knowledge of how their child usually expressed and responded to pain to help make pain-related decisions. Health professionals need to support mothers/parents to develop their knowledge and skills and to gain confidence in pain assessment and they should recognise and act on the mothers' concerns.


This paper empirically examines the impact of recent changes in Japan's trade patterns on domestic factor markets. According to our factor content analysis, Japan's net-exports changed in a direction that Japan has come to export more physical and human capital-intensive products over the past two decades. On the other hand, a major part of the macro-economic change in the capital-labor ratio and the change in the skilled-labor ratio can be attributed to a within-industry shift rather than a between-industry shift. Our empirical analysis provided evidence that the deepening of international division of labor contributed to skill upgrading in Japan. Vertical intra-industry trade and outward FDI had a strong positive effect on the increase in the share of skilled workers.


Wet wheat straw (38 to 56 % DM) was chopped, homogeneously mixed with urea (3 to 4 % based on DM) and ensiled for at least 60 day. Three ind ividual feeding experiments with growing bulls were carried out. All b ulls consumed 2 kg concentrates per animal and day; control animals at e untreated wheat straw; urea treatment straw silage was offered restr ictively (pair fed to untreated straw, exp. 1) or ad libitum (exp. 2). Bulls consumed 3,10 to 3,68 kg DM of untreated straw and 5,13 to 5,52 kg DM of urea treated straw silage. Daily weight gain increased from 408 til 520 g (untreated straw) to 502 till 738 g fed with urea straw silage. Increased net energy intake and higher weight gain of bulls fed with urea treated straw silage resulted from: higher digestibility or energy content of treated straw under pair fed conditions (= 30 %), increased energy supply from treated straw resulting from the increase d DMI of bulls fed ad libitum (= 17 % of higher energy intake). Silage making from wet straw (= 50 % DM) and supplementation of urea (= 25 kg per t) may be recommended.


In today's era of globalization, various sectors have been facing increasing competition. In order to compete and survive, companies have been under pressure to effectively produce faster at lower costs, thus capitalizing on technology to be both productive and profitable. To address demands, the application of lean management has allowed for the production of goods in the least amount of time whilst keeping the production cost low. Previous studies have provided insights on the effect of lean production on industries, but have not considered the effect of lean manufacturing on employee satisfaction. This study aims to examine the effect of lean production on perceived job satisfaction of workers in a plastic manufacturing company in Valenzuela. The researcher conducted a survey consisting of 40 workers in Techtron Industrial Corporation. This research examined which measures of lean production have affected perceived job satisfaction of workers in plastics manufacturing. The results of the study attested that lean production factors such as perceived total productive maintenance and perceived employee involvement positively affect the job satisfaction of workers. This study could provide awareness to the workers in plastics manufacturing regarding the significance of their role how to thrive in lean production implementation.


Guided propagation of THz light has been intensely developed recently. We describe our efforts towards dynamic, optical control of the flow of light in waveguide structures, enabling reconfigurable photonic components for the terahertz frequency range.


Naturally occurring variants with deletions or mutations in the C‐terminal PreS1 domain from hepatitis B virus (HBV) chronically infected patients have been shown to promote HBsAg retention, inhibit HBsAg secretion and change the extracellular appearance of PreS1‐containing HBV particles (filaments and virions).


The preliminary study was motivated by concern over the problems that affect reading comprehension among Year 4 ESL pupils in a government Chinese vernacular primary school in Johor, Malaysia. It was aimed at identifying Malaysian primary Year 4 ESL pupils' reading comprehension problems in narrative text. Data were collected through the use of 15-item questionnaire with a 5-point Likert scale which involved 80 pupils that were randomly selected as sample for the study. Percentages were used to analyze the data collected. The findings revealed that the problems studied affected pupils' reading comprehension. The most significant problem in reading comprehension among Year 4 ESL pupils was the motivation. Pupils lack the desire in reading English texts and were uninterested in the topics. The second and third problems were perceived to be background knowledge and learners' background knowledge respectively. The respondents perceived the reading process as the least problematic. The implications of the study are teachers should be more aware of the reading problems faced by the pupils and use more interactive teaching strategies.


ion turns predicates into names (of classes of objects which belong to the extensions of the given predicates). 33. (Which it would be one of the tasks of the future ontological theory to determine more precisely). 34. StEW, II/1, p. 284, my translation. 35. P.F. Strawson, "Truth", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary volume,, 1950, as repr. in Logico-Linguistic Papers, London: Methuen, 1971, p. 197. 26 What must be noted is that we do not have four distinct states of affairs side-by-side, like matches in a box. To suppose that there were four, separately existing states, would be simply to be misled by the separateness of the four sentences; for whilst the sentences are strictly demarcated from each other, the corresponding 'states' are rather fused together, in complex ways. As Ingarden puts it: ... the states subsisting in an object itself are not demarcated from each other in the way that they seem to be when we consider them as the correlates of a manifold of different types of assertative sentences involving reference to that object. The relative self-containedness of the sentences – even when these are connected together – carries with it an intentional demarcation of the individual states of affairs. But whilst the demarcation of states imposed by our sentences is intentional, the underlying positive statal fabric is still autonomous. This yields an answer to certain initially very tempting arguments against the possibility of an ontology of autonomous states of affairs. Strawson, for example, claimed that since, if you peel the statements off the world you thereby also peel the fact off it too, it must follow that facts are to be regarded as enjoying a merely secondary existence as reflections of our sentences. Strawson's error was to mistake the dependence of the


Using a schematic charge distribution of the atom it is shown that the polarizability can be extracted by analyzing differential cross sections for n-Pb at energies about 100 eV. An increase of the polarization effect in the angular distribution is found at forward directions, where the Schwinger interaction dominates the scattering.


Enhanced miniaturization and system integration of microelectronics components demands growth in novel solutions toward embedding active and passive components into substrates, clothes, protective sleeves of consumer goods - smart, thin applications in general. As a result, the embedding of very thin silicon dies and metallic structures into highly flexible polymeric, paper like or textile materials causes several mechanical problems preventing those applications from being utilized. This paper intends to demonstrate and discuss advantages and needs of using fully parameterized finite element modeling techniques for design optimizations of thin devices on the basis of damage evaluation and fracture mechanics approaches. For improving that method, the evaluation of mixed mode interface delamination phenomena and fracture of embedded thin silicon were combined with experimental investigations.


Summary Clonal myogenic cell cultures were established from a potential heterozygote for a mutantDuchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD)genewhowas also heterozygous forisozymes oftheX-linked enzyme glucose-6phosphate dehydrogenase. Previous tissue culture studies ofthis muscle donordemonstrated equal proliferative capacity ofmyoblasts that hadlyonized either thepaternal or maternal X-chromosome, indicating that mutation oftheDMD gene does notaffect growth ofmyoblasts. Ifthis muscle donor were a gonadal mosaic, this conclusion wouldbeincorrect. Inthepresentstudy, onlythose myogenic colonies expressing theglucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase-A isozyme were found toexpressdystrophin, indicating thatthis woman was indeed a heterozygote forDMD.Bydocumenting dystrophin deficiency ina specific population ofmyogenic cells fromthis woman, we verify our previous conclusion regarding thenormal proliferative capacity ofDMD myoblasts. Somatic cell testing ofdystrophin expression may offer an alternative to established genetic carrier testsforthose women inwhomdeletions oftheDMD arenotdetectable, whose pedigree structuredoes notpermit linkage analysis, or inwhomstandard phenotypic analyses areambiguous.


Yanbian is one of China's major forest areas and its forestry has become a pillar industry combining afforestation,logging,processing,forest chemistry, machinery manufacture,building and installation, tourism with commerce and trade in the area. Therefore, we should strengthen the management of forest resources assets,speed up the reform in forest economic operation structure,and steer its way to diversification and scale operation.


variations in airways resistance did not mention much of the carefully documented early studies of this phenomena and of its interrelations with histamine responses and with circadian variations in direct hypersensitivity responses.2627 Many other authors have also failed to explore the rather elusive publications on chronobiology published over the past two decades. Those who have not taken an interest in the relevance of rhythmicity to their clinical or biological interests may find useful the reviews from those groups who have. The reports of some of the symposia they attended provide a route to many of the earlier publications.677a14242628.33 In the future these may be seen to have an importance not perceived at the time. A leading article in theBMJ in 1979 could refer to only a handful of reports correlating immunity and biological rhythmicity; now a library search would yield more than


Young people from refugee backgrounds face a number of challenges in adjusting to life in a new country. Recently, there have been more studies documenting some of these challenges and experiences, and offering recommendations for the health and education sector to appropriately respond to their needs. This study sought to investigate some of the experiences and challenges faced by female Afghan Hazara refugee adolescents as a precursor to program development occurring within a community health service in the outer southeastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. This paper reports on a cross-sectional participatory qualitative research study undertaken with young Afghan female adolescents aged 14–17 years of Hazara ethnicity. The results document some of the key contested gender and cultural challenges facing these young women, their aspirations for their lives in Australia, and how this research has informed community health practice.


The purpose of this study is to generate a quantitative means of assessing the relationship between lean production practices and a company's sustainable performance. A composite lean index (CLI) is formulated using multi-attribute value theory (MAVT) in order to measure a firm's lean performance. A composite sustainability index (CSI) is developed using MAVT to measure a company's sustainable performance considering its quadruple bottom line. Lastly, a multiple layer data envelopment analysis (MLDEA) model is set up to evaluate a company's sustainable performance using its lean manufacturing practices. The CLI is considered as the virtual input to the MLDEA model while the (CSI) is treated as the virtual output. "Efficient" firms are determined to score high in Supplier and Customer Relationships and Human Resources whereas "inefficient" companies scored low in Supplier and Customer Relationships and Process and Equipment. Furthermore, "efficient" companies are found to exhibit high scores in Worker Training, Parts Delivered JIT by Supplier, and Customer Orders Delivered JIT while "inefficient" companies have low scores in Orderliness and Cleanliness in the Plant, Error-Proof Equipment, and Rigorous Preventive Maintenance.


AbstractA dynamic model for the characterization of a two-degree-of-freedom (2DOF) twin-rotor multi-input multi-output system (TRMS) in hover is extracted using a black box system identification te...


Weblogs, described by one of their creators as the 'pirate radio stations' of the web, are a new, personal and determinedly non-hostile evolution of the electric community. Weblogs are platforms for intelligent reaction to current events and ubiquitous pundits and in recent year, educators have also used it to facilitate the progress of learning. This article introduces the definition of weblog and the major hosted weblog sites: Blogger, LiveJournal, Pitas, Xanga, and WordPress. It also explains the different types of weblogs, from personal blog to topical blog, thoughtful blog, friendblog, collaborative blog, political blog, directory blog, corporate blog, advice blog, formats blog, audio blog, and photoblog. This article reports on the process of using weblog to develop an online exhibition for typography research and education. It also provides an overview of weblog functions, such as, easy uploading of images, video files, audio files and information, digital archiving of exhibits, online gallery space, and comment and feedback in an interactive format. DESIDOC Journal of Library & Information Technology , 2014, 34(2), pp. 103-109. http://dx.doi.org/10.14429/djlit.34.6751


To document the successful treatment of patients with recurrent dysthyroid optic neuropathy (DON) by medical decompression. We presenting a case of 60 year-old Malay lady have been diagnosed to have thyrotoxicosis with multi nodular goiter more than 10 years. During the course of illness she had multiple episodes of recurrent DON on both eyes. She was successfully treated with cortico-steroid therapy and regained back her previous good vision. Medical decompression with cortico-steroid gives good outcome even in patient with recurrent optic neuropathy.


The article considers issues of assessment of ecological and economic efficiency of environmental activities. The authors propose methods of assessment of ecological and economic efficiency of activity of small enterprises that do not produce tangible goods.


wavelength are characterised for this purpose. Relative intensity noise (RIN) and small signal modulation measurements have been performed and resulting spectra are fitted to theoretical curves in order to obtain internal device parameters. Different operation regimes, where transverse single- or multi-mode emission occurs, are investigated. At low temperatures the quantum efficiency of the VCSEL is increased, leading to photon-number fluctuations below the shot noise limit. A special electrical probing is used to minimize parasitics and to inhibit RF-interference.


We report results of the computer simulation of the kinetic gelation process of the formation of a two-dimensional network. The simulation is performed on a basis of a two-dimensional triangular lattice. Our aim is to analyze the distribution Ng(s) of the pore size s in the network, as dependent on the concentration of the linear polymer molecules in the system. Here we demonstrate, that for some critical concentration of the molecules the obtained distribution is close to Ng(s) ∝ s −τ and it does not depend on the probability of merging. The obtained value of the exponent τ agrees with the result for clusters in the theory of percolation on the two-dimensional lattice.


A method has been proposed to study the characteristics of bond between steel and concrete. The method involves a bond pullout test and holographic interferometry and is suitable for investigating the two stages of bond, adhesive and frictional.


In this paper,Bai-Perron endogenous structural break test is used to test structural breaks of Carbon trading,crude oil and stock markets.Then price sequences were trending processed to separate effect of structural breaks.On this basis,VAR model is built to research the inter-relationship among the three markets,combined with nonlinear Granger causality test,impulse response and variance decomposition technology.The results show that there are more than two significant structural Granger breaks in the three markets and these break points have strong internal correlation,indicating the markets have a certain linkage between each other when subjected to the impact of major events;there is significant bidirectional nonlinear Granger causality among three markets and they are causes and advancements of each other.By separating the effect of structural breaks,we find that Carbon fluctuations is found mainly due to its own,and the impact from oil and stock markets is little,which indicates the collaboration among the three markets is not significant.This research has an enlightenment function for related enterprises to develop reasonable carbon trading policies and regulatory authorities to develop financial policies.


might have done for the political history of the struggle between Crown and Whigs Lord North is described, with justice, as representing " that union between the corruptible and the incorruptible which is one of the beautiful mysteries of political existence at every period of our history," but there are many who would disagree with the author in describing Burke in 1790, as half mad, "miserably deteriorated, a broken elderly man, not invariably sober who shrieked and ranted while members walked out," and there are still fewer who would agree that his " disordered imagination rioted in the most unsavoury metaphor . . . and his general style was full of images which are definitely pathological in origin." N.W.P.


Aims: To test, under comparable conditions, several parameters affecting sensitivity of PCR detection in order to establish a PCR procedure suitable for the routine detection of Listeria monocytogenes in food.


It has been claimed that in Parisian French high and mid front vowels in utterance-final open syllables are often devoiced and pronounced with a fricative-like noise. We investigated this phenomenon in spontaneous and read speech samples recorded from three generations of Parisian French speakers. Acoustic measurements indicate that the majority of vowels in read speech samples are at least partially devoiced, and show noise between 2-4 kHz. Devoicing and closure occur only in vowels that are in Intonation Phrase final position, and carry a low IP boundary tone. Male speakers in conversation showed the least devoicing. In reading and in conversation, 61 to 87 year-old speakers devoiced the target vowels as often as younger speakers did. We interpret the devoicing and closure of the vowel as the effect of an increased articulatory release before pause.


The article presents a descriptive investigation of the political-institutional dynamics of the Alianza Program for the Country (Programa Alianza para el Campo) in Mexico, through a case study in the State of the same name. The objective is to discuss the institutional arrangements for Mexican rural development and the sociopolitical implications in the new Rural Society-State relationship. Antecedents of the program are presented as well as its structure and operation. Political actors and processes related to the program and its operation in the State of Mexico are identified. Methodology consisted of analyzing official information, qualitative interviews with public officials and journalistic notes.


In the paper we investigate statistical and topological properties of self-avoiding fractional Brownian trajectories. The attention is paid to the sub-diffusive fractal Brownian motion (fBm) producing compact spacial conformations with the fractal dimension $D_f\ge 2$ in the three-dimensional space. The statistical properties of self-avoiding polymers with the fractal dimension $D_f>2$ are analyzed both numerically and via the Flory mean-field approach. Our study is motivated by an attempt to mimic the conformational statistics of collapsed nonconcatenated polymer loops, which are known to form on large scales the compact hierarchical crumpled globules (CG) with $D_f=3$. Due to the nonlocal nature of topological interactions, the analytic and numeric treatment of CG is an extremely difficult problem. Replacing the topologically-stabilized CG by the self-avoiding fBm with properly adjusted fractal dimension, $D_f$, we tremendously simplify the problem of generating the CG-like conformations since we wash out the topological constraints from the consideration. To check whether a replacement of CG by self-avoiding fBm is plausible, we complute numerically, using the Alexander polynomials, the distribution of the knot complexity, $P(\chi)$, of self-avoiding fBm for $D_f =2.0,\, 2.08,\, 2.38$ in the 3D space. We show that with increasing $D_f$, typical fBm polymer conformations become less and less knotted. The combination of Flory arguments with the scaling analysis of self-avoiding fBm permits us to conjecture the dependence of the knot complexity, $\chi$, on the effective Flory critical exponent, $\nu_e$. The found relation $\chi(\nu_e)$ is supported by the Monte-Carlo simulations adjusted for generating the self-avoiding collapsed fBm trajectories.


Much interest has been attracted to the coordination chemistry of potential pentadentate Schiff-base ligands, 1,3-bis(salicylideneamino)-2-propanol (H3bsalpr) and its substituted derivatives, with two phenolato-oxygen, two imino-nitrogen, and one alcoholate-oxygen donor atoms, are of interest. In the crystals, these Schiff-base ligands have intramolecular hydrogen bonds between imino-nitrogen and phenolato-oxygen atoms and intermolecular hydrogen bonds between an alcohol-oxygen atom and a phenolato-oxygen atom of neighboring Schiff-base molecule.1–5 The reaction between these Schiff-base ligands and metal salts generates mononuclear copper(II),6 tetranuclear zinc(II)7 complexes with a tetradentate O, N, N, O-chelate, and dinuclear copper(II),8 nickel(II),9 manganese(III),10,11 and cobalt(III)12, and tetranuclear manganese(II,III)13,14 complexes with a tridentate O, N, O-chelate. Aiming at extending these systems, we decided to prepare a cobalt complex with 1,3-bis(3,5-dichlorosalicylideneamino)-2-propanol (H3bdcsalpr), which has not been reported so far. In this study, we performed a reaction between H3bdcsalpr and cobalt(II) chloride hexahydrate in the presence of triethylamine in acetonitrile, and determined the crystal structure of the isolated complex, which has been found to be a new mononuclear cobalt(III) complex with hydrolyzed Schiff-base ligands, 1-(3,5-dichlorosalicylideneamino)-3-amino-2-propanol (Hdcsalapr–), [Co(Hdcsalapr)2] Cl·2CH3CN·2H2O (1), as depicted in Fig. 1, is different from the expected dinuclear cobalt complexes that we prepared before.12 A Schiff-base ligand, H3bdcsalpr, was synthesized by a similar method to the previously reported one.5 1,3-Diamino-2propanol (0.703 g, 7.8 mmol) and 3,5-dichlorosalicylaldehyde (3.00 g, 15.7 mmol) were dissolved in methanol (70 cm3). The solution was refluxed for 3 h, and then left at room temperature. The resulting yellow precipitate was filtered off, washed with methanol, and dried under a vacuum. Yield, 3.16 g (93%). IR (KBr, cm–1): 3219 (ν(OH)), 3064 (ν(CH(phenyl)), 2951 (νasCH2), 2872 (νsCH2), 1626(νC=N). Single crystals of 1 were obtained as follows: H3bdcsalpr (42.5 mg, 0.1 mmol) was dissolved in acetonitrile (3 mL). To this solution, cobalt(II) chloride hexahydrate (24.0 mg, 0.1 mmol) and six drops of triethylamine were added. The resulting brown solution was filtered after standing for several days to remove a small amount of white precipitate, and then the filtrate was left at room temperature for a further several days to give reddish-brown crystals. Yield, 5.7 mg (7.8% based on the metal salt). Reflectance spectra: λmax 284, 422 (A1g→T2g), 550sh (A1g→T1g), 724 (A1g→T2g) nm. X-ray diffraction data were collected on a Bruker CCD X-ray diffractometer (SMART APEX) using graphite-monochromated Mo-Kα radiation. Crystal data and details concerning the data collection are given in Table 1. The structure was solved by an 2022 © The Japan Society for Analytical Chemistry


Abstract One of the greatest advantages of using complex coordinates on the study of rotating machinery is the gain on the physical insight into the forward and backward precessional modes. Together with the complex modal analysis formulation, other interesting tools were developed to characterize the shape and directivity of the whirl modes. These tools are helpful in understanding the bizarre phenomenon of mixed operational modes in rotors where some stations describe their precessional movement in the forward direction while others move in the backward direction. This paper enhances the discussion on the existence of these modes in flexible rotors when the rotating system is subjected to multiple unbalance forces applied on some stations of the rotor. It is worth noting that the concepts of the complex modal analysis are valid only for rotors operating at constant rotational speed. Consequently, if it is necessary to investigate the whirling motion of each station of the rotor when it is operating under non-stationary conditions, other procedures must be used. In this work, it is used the directional Wigner distribution, which is able to split the total response of any station of the rotor into its forward and backward components. The considered rotor is supported on anisotropic bearings and operates at varying rotational speed. The experimental results are presented, showing the usefulness of time-frequency distributions as an alternative tool to identify mixed modes.


When discussions on Corporate Social Responsibility are taking the centre stage in corporate circles as a means for sustainable business development, we deliberate on the issue of 'Child labor' as one of the stakeholders in this paper. Influence of the extant law on abolition of child labor has been faded away in the absence of political, judicial and executive branches' will power to tackle with the issue. Government has failed to do the balancing act between the extant law and the implementation of the law on abolition of child labor in its letter and spirit in the light of human rights of children who join the workforce by virtue of their social and economic status and not by choice. This paper explores the advantages of abolition of child labor not only in terms of legal and economic benefits but also to develop social responsibility of corporates to avoid child labor for the cause of future of India to have healthy and educated work force. This is possible only when the companies will choose value creation for future than the instant cost benefits at the cost of loss of innocence and future of children.


Abstract The Hanamiai archaeological site (Tahuata, Marquesas Islands) has yielded a stratified assemblage of bird bones associated with prehistoric Polynesian artefacts, cultural features, and other faunal materials spanning an 800-year period beginning at c.  ad  1025–1100. The majority of the c. 650 identifiable bird bones are from seabirds, most species of which are extirpated on Tahuata. Indigenous landbirds (rails, pigeons, doves, parrots, kingfishers, warblers) are represented by 70 bones of 10 species, among which two rails, a pigeon, a dove, and three parrots no longer occur on Tahuata. The stratigraphic distribution of bird bones suggests that exploitation of indigenous species was most intense early in the Hanamiai cultural sequence (Phase I; c.  ad  1025–1300). By c.  ad  1450 or before, the seven extirpated species of landbirds (and probably other species not recorded in the small bone sample) either had been eliminated or had become uncommon enough to elude archaeological sampling. A similar chronostratigraphic pattern of prehistoric landbird extinction has been documented for Mangaia, Cook Islands. While details of timing and taxonomy vary from island to island, an overall trend of early prehistoric depletion of birds is the rule across East Polynesia and all of Oceania.


In statistics and theoretical computer science, the notion of exchangeability provides a framework for the study of large alphabet scenarios. This idea has been developed in an important line of work starting with Kingman's study of population genetics, and leading on to the paintbox processes of Kingman, the Chinese restaurant processes and their generalizations. In information theory, the notion of the pattern of a sequence provides a framework for the study of large alphabet scenarios, as developed in work of Orlitsky and collaborators. The pattern is a statistic that captures all the information present in the data, and yet is universally compressible regardless of the alphabet size. In this note, connections are made between these two lines of work- specifically, patterns are examined in the context of exchangeability. After observing the relationship between patterns and Kingman's paintbox processes, and discussing the redundancy of a class of mixture codes for patterns, alternate representations of patterns in terms of graph limits are discussed.


Using the example of the decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Dagestan, "tailored" according to the patterns of similar cases considered by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, the methodological role of the latter for law enforcement practice is shown in the article. According to the author, the very way of cognition of legal matter, the logical sequence and systemic interrelation of the legal positions used by him, forming integral legal constructions, can serve as a kind of legal model that determines not only the substantive, but also the procedural aspects of consideration and resolution of a certain category of cases by law enforcement agencies.


The effect of pulsed currents on magnetization reversal were studied on single ferromagnetic nanowires of diameter about 80 nm and 6000 nm length. The magnetization reversal in these wires occurs with a jump of the magnetization at the switching field Hsw, which corresponds to unstable states of the magnetization. A pulsed current of about 107 A/cm2 was injected at different values of the applied field close to Hsw. The injected current triggered the magnetization reversal at a value of the applied field distant from the switching field by as much as 20%. This effect of current-induced magnetization reversal is interpreted in terms of the action of the spin-polarized conduction electrons on the magnetization.


We have recently studied the Nd nuclei up to very high spins and identified several bands, which were interpreted as the manifestation of various types of collective motion: tilted axis rotation, principal axis rotation along the short and long axes, wobbling motion, chiral bands. All these types of excitation have been observed in 138 Nd and are discussed in the framework of the tilted axis cranking (TAC) and cranked Nilsson-Strutinsky (CNS) models.


The invention relates to a composite steel overturning device which comprises a horizontal moving oil cylinder installed on a base. The horizontal moving oil cylinder is connected with a horizontal moving supporting frame. A lifting frame and a lifting oil cylinder are installed on the horizontal moving supporting frame. The lifting frame and the lifting oil cylinder are connected. A pressure oil cylinder, a pressure roller, a rotation roller, an L-shaped material overturning plate, an overturning oil cylinder and a rotation motor are installed on the lifting frame. The rotation motor is connected with the rotation roller in a transmission mode through a chain. The pressure oil cylinder is connected with the pressure roller and the overturning oil cylinder is hinged to the L-shaped material overturning plate. As a pressure roller oil cylinder is added, overturning torque is improved and meanwhile, the overturning device is added, so that the applicability of a gag straightener is improved, the structure is more compact and the efficiency of overturning and straightening steel is higher.


In several countries, a decline in mortality, case-fatality and recurrence rates of stroke was observed. However, studies investigating sex-specific and subtype-specific (pathological and etiological) time trends in stroke mortality, case-fatality and recurrence rates are scarce, especially in Germany. The decline in ischemic stroke mortality and case-fatality might be associated with the high quality of acute care of ischemic stroke, but the exact determinants of early outcome remains unknown for Germany.

Therefore, as first step of this thesis, we investigated the time trends of subtype- and sex-specific age- standardized stroke mortality rates in Germany from 1998 to 2015, by applying joinpoint regression on official causes of death statistics, provided by the Federal Statistical Office. Furthermore, a regional comparison of the time trends in stroke mortality between East and West was conducted. In the second step, time trends in case-fatality and stroke recurrence rates were analyzed using data from a population- based stroke register in Germany between 1996 and 2015. The analysis was stratified by sex and etiological subtype of ischemic stroke. In the third step, quality of stroke care and the association between adherence to measures of quality of acute ischemic stroke care and in-hospital mortality was estimated based on data from nine regional hospital-based stroke registers in Germany from the years 2015 and 2016.

We showed that in Germany, age-standardized stroke mortality declined by over 50% from 1998 to 2015 both, in women and men. Stratified by the pathological subtypes of stroke, the decrease in mortality was larger in ischemic stroke compared to hemorrhagic stroke. Different patterns in the time trends of stroke were observed for stroke subtypes, regions in Germany (former Eastern part of Germany (EG), former Western part of Germany (WG)) and sex, but in all strata a decline was found. By applying joinpoint regression, the number of changes in time trend differed between the regions and up to three changes in the trend in ischemic stroke mortality were detected. Trends in hemorrhagic stroke were in parallel between the regions with up to one change (in women) in joinpoint regression. Comparing the regions, stroke mortality was higher in EG compared to WG throughout the whole observed time period, however the differences between the regions started to diminish from 2007 onwards.

Further it was found that, based on the population-based Erlangen Stroke Project (ESPro), case-fatality and recurrence rates in ischemic stroke patients are still high in Germany. 46% died and 20% got a recurrent stroke within the first five years after stroke. Case-fatality rates declined statistically significant from 1996 to 2015 across all ischemic stroke patients and all etiological subtypes of ischemic stroke. Based on Cox regression no statistically significant decrease in stroke recurrence was observed.

Based on the pooled data of nine regional hospital-based stroke registers from the years 2015 and 2016 covering about 80% of all hospitalized stroke patients in Germany, a high quality of care of acute ischemic stroke patients, measured via 11 evidence-based quality indicators (QI) of process of care, was observed. Across all registers, most QI reached the predefined target values for good quality of stroke care. 9 out of 11 QI showed a significant association with 7-day in-hospital mortality. An inverse linear association between overall adherence to QI and 7-day in-hospital mortality was observed.

In conclusion, stroke mortality and case-fatality showed a favorable development over time in Germany, which might partly be due to improvements in acute treatment. This is supported by the association between overall adherence to quality of care and in-hospital mortality. However, there might be room for improvements in long-term secondary prevention, as no clear reduction in recurrence rates was observed.


An optical method has been proposed for detecting torsion in a power transmission shaft in rcaltime. The method detects both light signals reflected on two mirrors attached to both sides of a rotating shaft and the time difference between them simultaneolisly. The system consists of a sensor head consisting of two semiconductor lasers, two mirrors, and two silicon photodiodes, and includes a data processing system composed of a comparator, high frequency oscillator, logic circuit, and counter. In principle, the method has no error factors.


Tungsten doped In2O3(In2O3:W,IWO) film is a new kind of transparent conductive oxide(TCO) film in which W is doped with high valence.Compared with other TCO films,the low carrier concentration,high carrier mobility and the transmittance in the near-infrared band of IWO films are achieved under the condition of the same resistivity.Direct current magnetron sputtering method was used to prepare IWO films.The X-ray diffraction,scanning electron microscopy were used to determine the lattice structure and morphology,spectrophotometry and Hall-effect measurements were used to investigate the electrical and optical properties of IWO films.The IWO film with the lowest resistivity of 6.3×10-4Ω·cm,highest carrier mobility of 34 cm2V-1s-1 and carrier concentration of 2.9×1020 cm-3 was obtained at the oxygen partial pressure of 2.4×10-1 Pa with the working pressure of 1.0 Pa.The transmittance in the visible light band is around 85%,and higher than 80% in the near-infrared band.


We devised AND, OR and INHIBIT logic gates. They were based on the enzyme-induced DNA base flipping mechanism, which caused significant local conformation changes in DNA. This can be monitored via photonic signals as outputs. We also provided a prototype of a built-in biosensor capable of distinguishing single-base mismatches in a DNA duplex.


The essay sets forth some points about personal page′s manufacture, propagation, upper transmission and maintenance as well as the application for space, striving to make personal page perfect and increase the quantity coming to visit.


We report here, for the first time, a biotemplated synthesis of uniform CdSe nanoparticle (4.1 ± 0.5 nm) and a fabrication of two-dimensional CdSe nanoparticles (over one micrometre) with nanometric gaps by cage-like protein, Listeria-Dps.


In order to obtain compounds of enhanced therapeutic efficiency and low toxicty for the treatment of kala-azar, a long series of aryl-stibonic acids has been prepared and examined. Therapeutically successful compounds were obtained among the thiourea group, and are being introduced into clinical practice.


Purpose of the study: This retrospective study evaluated the results, complications and sequelae of 22 free fibular flaps used for bone reconstructions of the limbs assessed at mean 44.4 months. Material and methods: The tissue loss was the result of trauma in 20 patients and followed cancerology surgery in two. The localisations involved the upper limb in 15 patients and the lower limb in seven. Mean length of bone loss was 11.1 cm. Six injuries required skin cover in addition to the fibular flap. Five patients had had a cement spacer. Fixation methods were: internal fixation (n=14) and external fixation (n=8). Classical vessel anastomosis (one vein, one artery) was used in eight patients and a bridge method (recipient site artery by a fibular artery) in 14 patients. Results: Bone healing was achieved in 15 patients in 6.7 months on average. Healing was secondary in four patients after corticocancellous grafting. Three flaps failed. Factors significantly associated with favourable healing were: long time from trauma to flap repair, small size of the initial skin opening, first-intention Masquelet, internal fixation, and first-intention cancellous autologous graft. Early postoperative complications of the recipient site included two haematomas and three superficial skin deficiencies. Two graft fractures occurred in one patient and healed after orthopaedic treatment. There were few donor site problems: two early haematomas and two retractions of the flexor hallucis longus. Mean morbidity scores revealed very good results: 1.23/16 with the Point Evaluation System, 93.16/100 for the Karlsson score, and 94.29100 for the Kitaoka score. Globally, the functional assessment of the fibular flap was excellent for three patients, good for eleven, fair for four and poor for one. Discussion: Our healing rates and durations were not statistically different from earlier reports in the literature. We focused on rigorous preparation in terms of debridement and antibiotic therapy, insertion of a spacer, internal fixation, and complementary first-intention autologous bone graft. In addition, we propose a bridging anastomosis which simplifies the technique and gives the same results as the classical anastomosis methods.


The automatic segmentation of medical images is an intensely investigated problem, due to the quick rise of medical image data amount created day by day, which cannot be followed by the number of human experts. This paper searches for the most suitable classical machine learning method to be employed in the segmentation of various tissue types from volumetric multi-spectral MRI records of 6-month infant patients. Model training and model based prediction is performed using the 10 records of the train data set available at the iSeg-2017 challenge. All MRI records are treated with histogram normalization and feature generation, and then fed to six machine learning methods, which use them as train and test data according to the leave-one-out technique. The output of the classification algorithms is evaluated with statistical methods. The best segmentation accuracy is achieved by the random forest based approach, with a correct decision rate of 83.4%.


The utility model discloses an electromagnetic coil fire prevention device for a retarder. The electromagnetic coil fire prevention device comprises an upper frame, a lower frame, shielding devices and the retarder, wherein two ends of the retarder are respectively connected with the upper frame and the lower frame; the shielding devices are arranged on two sides of the retarder, and two ends of the shielding devices are connected with the upper frame and the lower frame. The electromagnetic coil fire prevention device is arranged on the outer side of the retarder, so that heat energy is used after being converted into magnetic energy; therefore the retarder is effectively protected, and resources are used. The electromagnetic coil fire prevention device has the advantages of simple structure, stable performance and longer service life.


Mechanism of increase in the ON-state voltage of 4H-SiC PiN diodes due to the expansion of single-Shockley-stacking faults (1SSFs), so-called bipolar degradation, was investigated by performing a technology computer-aided design (TCAD) simulation. Electrical characteristics in 15-kV class PiN diodes with a 1SSF monolayer in a voltage-blocking layer were calculated while modeling the 1SSF as a quantum well (QW) for electron conduction. The simulation results clarified that a potential barrier formed by electrons trapped in the QW does not significantly deteriorate the current conduction under a low applied voltage due to hole current and recombination current paths. However, since the concentration of trapped carriers in the QW becomes extremely high especially when increasing the applied voltage, direct and Auger recombination occurs considerably around the 1SSF. This suppresses the conductivity modulation, and then the contribution of the hole current decreases, leading to significant disturbance of the current flow due to the potential barrier and large voltage drop at the 1SSF. Accordingly, the increase in the ON-state voltage of SiC bipolar devices is attributed to both electron trapping to the QW and enhanced carrier recombination around the 1SSF.


The effects of total accumulated dose on the single-event vulnerability of NMOS resistive-load SRAM's are investigated. The bias-dependent shifts in device parameters can imprint the memory state present during exposure or erase the imprinted state. Analysis of these effects is presented along with an analytic model developed for the quantification of these effects. The results indicate that the imprint effect is dominated by the difference in the threshold voltage of the n-channel devices.


Weatherable thermoplastic polymeric compositions are formed by blending weatherable grafted rubber composition with an aliphatic diester selected from the group consisting of dialkoxyalkoxyalkyl diesters and dialkoxydialkoxyalkyl diesters of aliphatic dicarboxylic acids containing 4 to 8 carbon atoms.


The nature of interaction within Interactive Digital Narrative (IDN) is inherently complex. This is due, in part, to the wide range of potential interaction modes through which IDNs can be conceptualised, produced and deployed and the complex dynamics this might entail. The purpose of this whitepaper is to provide IDN practitioners with the essential knowledge on the nature of interaction in IDNs and allow them to make informed design decisions that lead to the incorporation of complexity thinking throughout the design pipeline, the implementation of the work, and the ways its audience perceives it. This white paper is concerned with the complexities of authoring, delivering and processing dynamic interactive contents from the perspectives of both creators and audiences. This white paper is part of a series of publications by the INDCOR COST Action 18230 (Interactive Narrative Design for Complexity Representations), which all clarify how IDNs representing complexity can be understood and applied (INDCOR WP 0 - 5, 2023).


Early engagement in advance care planning (ACP) is recommended in heart failure (HF) management. We investigated the preferences of patients with HF regarding ACP and end‐of‐life (EOL) care, including their desired timing of ACP initiation.