The sensitivity of plants to low temperatures has been assessed by a number of methods, including measurements of visible symptoms of injury, vital staining techniques, protoplasmic streaming, plasmolysis and changes in the pattern of chlorophyll fluorescence kinetics (Baker et al., 1983; MacRae et al., 1986). The aim of our study was to test the possibility of using changes in photosynthetic capacity and in slow fluorescence kinetics in leaf discs of Eucalyptus globulus to screen resistance to below-zero temperatures, which we compared with the classic tissue necrosis method.


The purpose of this contribution is to extend some recent results on sparse representations of signals in redundant bases developed in the noise-free case to the case of noisy observations. The type of question addressed so far is as follows: given an (n,m)-matrix A with m>n and a vector b=Axo, i.e., admitting a sparse representation xo, find a sufficient condition for b to have a unique sparsest representation. The answer is a bound on the number of nonzero entries in xo. We consider the case b=Axo+e where xo satisfies the sparsity conditions requested in the noise-free case and e is a vector of additive noise or modeling errors, and seek conditions under which xo can be recovered from b in a sense to be defined. The conditions we obtain relate the noise energy to the signal level as well as to a parameter of the quadratic program we use to recover the unknown sparsest representation. When the signal-to-noise ratio is large enough, all the components of the signal are still present when the noise is deleted; otherwise, the smallest components of the signal are themselves erased in a quite rational and predictable way


Abstract The research on the influence of groundwater level fluctuation on pit properties is a new subject in actual engineering, and the research on pit-in-pit has not been deeply studied. In this article, the finite element (FE) model of pit-in-pit is established based on FE method, and DISP subroutine is programmed to realize the fluctuation of groundwater level over time. The deformation characteristics of exterior enclosure structure under the condition of with or without groundwater level fluctuation are compared considering effect of different inner pit's excavation locations, depths, sizes, and insertion ratios. The results show that the maximum lateral displacement of the pit exterior enclosure structure is inversely related to the pit toe coefficient and the insertion ratio, and is positively related to the depth ratio and the area ratio, and there is a critical value for the pit toe coefficient. Considering the fluctuation of the groundwater level, the lateral displacement of the cantilever enclosure structure is larger than that without considering the groundwater level fluctuation.


Based on the Census for Transportation Planning Package (CTPP) 1990, in this paper I will attempt to explain intraurban variations of commuting time and distance in Columbus, OH. Whereas commuting times are directly available from the CTPP, commuting distances are recovered by GIS network techniques as the shortest-time distances through the urban road network. Explanations of commuting are first attempted by measures of job proximity such as distances from employment centers and a gravity-based index accounting for job competition among workers. The influence of employment centers on commuting sheds new light on polycentric urban models. The variation of commuting distance is well explained by the gravity-based job proximity index. That is to say, how far people commute is explainable to a large extent by urban land use. However, how much time people spend on commuting is complicated by their socioeconomic status, which affects their choice of commuting modes. Finally the research demonstrates the promise of explaining commuting times by workers' characteristics such as percentage of black workers, female labor participation ratio, percentage of multiple-worker households, home-ownership status, educational attainment, and wage rate. In the analyses, spatially lagged dependent variables are introduced to control for the effect of spatial autocorrelation.


S AND TITLES, DIVISIONS AND SECTIONS ent periods ranging from 2 to 79 weeks. In occluding teeth, odontogenesis was abnormal and eruption was reduced drastically. In nonoccluding teeth, tooth development proceeded normally and eruption, although less than the normal, was three to six times greater than in the occluding teeth. Thus, the amount of eruption that takes place depends on the relation between the quality of the periodontal ligament and the amount of occlusal interference. Occlusal contact is the regulating factor for the amount of eruption that takes place; the magnitude of the latter, in turn, will determine whether odontogenesis proceeds normally or abnormally. 4. THE ROLE OF ATTRITION AND OCCLUSAL CONTACT IN THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE RAT INCISOR.-Y. Michaeli and M. M. Weinreb, Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, and School of Dentistry, Hebrew University, Hadassah, Jerusalem. A series of experiments was conducted to study the effect of occlusal contact on the physiology of the rat incisor. The first experiment studied the unimpeded eruption of the mandibular incisor, which was found to be double the normal rate. Occlusal contact, therefore, serves as a regulator of eruption. Mitoses counts in the nonoccluding teeth revealed an increase of 27 %. A later kinetic study of the inner enamel epithelium showed that in these teeth the generation time was shorter, whereas a large proliferative compartment participated in cell production. These facts can explain the relatively small increase in the mitotic index. A second experiment studied the effect of occlusal contact on these teeth in the absence of attrition. This was accomplished by crowning one pair of antagonistic incisors. Eruption was reduced considerably and definite folds of dentin and enamel formed at the basal end. This proves that growth is a primary process and that attrition has to take place to preserve equilibrium. On the basis of these results and a reevaluation of related experiments, the following hypothesis was proposed: There are three factors that control the rate of eruption: growth of the basal end, occlusal contact that counterbalances the previous one, and the periodontal ligament, which is the mediator between these two forces. All these factors act together in harmony to result in the normal rate of eruption. The amount of eruption that takes place depends on the relation between the quality of the periodontal tissue and the amount of occlusal interference present. Normal tissues in the presence of increased occlusal interference or impaired tissues in the presence of normal occlusal restraint will both result in a reduction in the rate of eruption. It is this relation, rather than the quality of the tissues alone, that explains the reduced eruption in hypophysectomized or lathyritic rats. Vol 5


The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the importance of financing residential real estate and income of households in the variation of housing prices in São Paulo. House prices have risen in an unprecedented way in the country, raising doubts about the sustainability of this increase. Some people say that this price increase is based on increasing the income level of the population, and yet, in a market historically repressed, but some argue that the fundamental cause has been the fast increase in loan approvals to finance the purchase and construction of housing units. Using linear regression analysis of time series of variables related to the construction industry, by the method of ordinary least squares (OLS), various statistical tests were performed to assess which would be those with greater explanatory power in relation to price increase measured by the index Fipe Zap-selling price of residential property in the city of Sao Paulo. The result has been reached which supports the two hypotheses, either that the increase in income and the increased release of funding have important influence on house prices. And yet, each isolated variable in a simple regression model, has less explanatory power than the integrated model by both and also for other variables related to the sector.


There are two traditional approaches to meeting international users' requirements during content generation. The first is localisation which adapts a content to meet the language, cultural and other requirements of a specific locale. The second is personalisation which involves delivering relevant content and presenting information according to individual users' preferences. The fundamental question that must be answered in generating personalised content is: what are the relevant attributes for personalising content? Work to date in personalisation has been based on several logicbased standards and frameworks that have been proposed. However these different standards have led to a degree of inconsistency in the field and are open to accusations of validity. This research aims to empirically identify the relevant attributes for personalising content. It focuses on data obtained from technical support forums on the web, a growth area in terms of customer support. It uses a grounded-theory based approach to analyse the conversations on these forums in order to identify the personalisation attributes of the support provided. This paper reports on a preliminary study in this work, which analyses data from a number of technical support forums, and presents an initial taxonomy of empirically derived personalisation issues for this domain.


The article reviews the history of study of the 12th 15th centuries' monuments, which are located in the forest-steppe zone of Eastern Transbaikalia and belonged to the Undugunskaya archaeological culture. The work analyzes the results of many years' researches, which were started from the opening of the first monument of this culture near Lake Undugun in 1974 and are continuing up to the present time. The article takes up conclusions made by scientists on the major issues relating to Undugunskaya archaeological culture.


In the studies of surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), it is considered to be a key point to couple the surface plasmons of metallic nanomaterials and structures to resonate, which can assist higher SERS signal enhancement. This paper is to explore a strategy for plasmon resonating based on the leaky mode resonance (LMR) of a polyimide (PI) optical waveguide (OWG), for the purpose of achieving the highly sensitive evanescent field-excited SERS. PI was chosen to build the waveguide layer due to its merits of exhibiting small extinction coefficients in the natural light frequency, low cost, high flexibility, easy fabrication, and almost no Raman spectral interference. The OWG configuration guarantees a high harvesting efficiency for the incident light. Ag nanoparticles were assembled on top of the OWG layer as plasmonic antennas to provide a large scattering cross section based on the coupling of the LMR and metal plasmon resonance (MPR), which supports highly efficient SERS radiation and being conduci...


When we refer to the manner of a teacher, we do not mean the refined manner of a teacher as an individual. What we mean here is the paragon of virtue and learning of teachers as a whole. It is reflected in three aspects. The first is "Be fond of the teaching job and seek precision in his/her studies"; the second is "Be worthy to be called 'teacher' and dedicated to the cultivation of talents"; the third is "Be popular and cooperate with people, and embark on new things". The three aspects represent the base, the essence and the key of the paragon of virtue and learning of a teacher respectively.


This paper describes the creation and development of Samara Science Center of Russian Academy of Sciences. The information about its structure, personnel and administrative staff is given. The most significant results and developments and main fields of research of the institutes, which belong to the Center, are also discussed.


Problems of improvement of an educational and entertaining concept of the museum sphere along with traditional kinds of activity of the museum are analyzed in the article. The author pays attention to the use of multimedia of technologies and interactive practices, revealing the most effective among them.


ABSTRACT In this study, viscosities of different crude oils was determined in the temperature range of (298–373 K) in presence of ethoxylated nonyl phenols as nonionic surfactant with ethoxy group numbers 4 and 9 (nonyl phenol 4 and nonyl phenol 9). Viscosity was measured using Viscolab PVT viscometer. Viscosity of crude oil decreased with the increase of concentration in the range of 0–1.4 g l−1). The most radical change was observed in the presence of nonyl phenol 9. For both surfactants, the viscosities of crude oil decreased with the increase of temperature, but the effect of temperature on the viscosity of crude oil decreased when surfactant concentration increased. Because of the formation of mixed micellar aggregates, the effect of mixed surfactants on the reduction of viscosity was more obvious than individual surfactant, but mixed surfactants had very little sensitivity to the temperature than individual surfactant. The best mixture of two surfactants system was observed in the mass ratio of 3 for nonyl phenol 9 and nonyl phenol 4.


There are few reports on the conservative treatment of acute combined injuries of the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) and medial collateral ligament (MCL). This study investigated 8 cases at one year after conservative treatment. All cases were men with a mean age of 26.7 years (range: 15 to 39) and an average follow-up of 19 months (range: 12 to 28). All 8 patients had undergone magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Arthroscopy following the injury was performed to rule out intra-articular pathology and to identify the degree of the PCL tear. They were treated by immobilization of the knee in a plaster cast for about five weeks and the use of Don-Joy brace for three to six months. Full return to sports activity was allowed six months after adequate quadriceps and hamstring muscle strength was demonstrated. The clinical results were evaluated by the IKDC score. Subjective evaluation based on the IKDC score rated 6 as normal, 1 as nearly normal, 1 as abnormal. However, in view of total evaluation, 2 were rated as nearly normal, 5 as abnormal, 1 as severely abnormal. These results indicate the necessity of surgical treatment for achieving static and functional stability of the PCL.


Drought is one of the most serious natural disasters exacerbated by climate change. Changes in precipitation and temperature in the future increase the likelihood of drought in China. In this study, a stepwise cluster ensemble downscaling (SCED) model was developed to bias‐correct projections of temperature and precipitation from multiple RCM outputs, and further characterized the drought hazards. The developed SCED model was used to aggregate and correct the results of multiple regional climate models, and its performance was proved to be reliable by comparing with the observed results. The proposed SCED method has been applied for drought projections over the Fujian province, China. The results showed that the changes of precipitation and temperature in Fujian would have obvious spatial heterogeneous characteristics. The temperature in the southeast coastal areas will increase by up to 4°C and the precipitation will decrease by 3.1% in the late 21st century, while the temperature rises and precipitation increases in the southwest. Temperature in inland areas will be lower and precipitation will be less. The drought hazards were also characterized by both SPI and SPEI based on biased‐corrected projections from SCED model. According to the SPI and SPEI indices, although the number of dry months in Fujian province will not change significantly in future, the spatial and temporal heterogeneity may become more explicit. Moreover, the moderate drought (from SPI) may increase while the general drought may decrease (from both SPI and SPEI). For extreme droughts, there would not be visible changes detected by SPI, but an increasing trend characterized since the impact of temperature was included in SPEI. In addition, there would be an increasing trend on drought when increasing temperature and precipitation occurred simultaneously.


39States as international persons — Recognition of acts of foreign States and Governments — Sovereign immunity as bar to jurisdiction over agency of foreign State — Act of State doctrine operative once such jurisdiction obtained — The law of the United States of America.


Objective To study the effects and side effects of oxcarbazepine in treating primary trigeminal neuralgia.Methods Oxcarbazepine were applied to 29 patients with primary trigeminal neuralgia and failed to respond to the treatment of carbamazepine or cannot endure the side effects.An assessment was made based on the degree of pain after one and four weeks respectively.Meanwhile,side effects from these patients were observed respectively.Results The curative rate of oxcarbazepine was 55.5%(16/29) and 72.4%(23/33)respectively after one and four weeks.Conclusion It is safe and effective to use oxcarbazepine in the medical treatment of trigeminal neuralgia especially for the patients who are unresponsive to carbamazepinen or cannot endure side effects.


Given the complexity of the new supervisory architecture in the Euro zone, it seems necessary to provide a proper theoretical framework for the lawful exercise of both regulatory and supervisory tasks within the SSM. In this paper we endeavour to offer one such a framework. In particular, Section 2 provides an overview of the new institutional architecture of banking supervision within the SSM and a brief description of selected aspects of the SRM that directly interact with the SSM. Section 3 considers the limits to the SSM's powers directly stemming from the SSM Regulation. Section 4 and 5 address the constitutional limits to the ECB powers; in particular, Section 4 discusses the limits deriving from the horizontal and vertical distribution of regulatory and supervisory competences within the SSM whereas Section 5 explores the coexistence of prudential and monetary Treaty's mandates and its implications. Section 6 expands on fundamental right protection and its implications for the SSM. Section 7 concludes, showing that (a) the constitutional distribution of competences within the SSM is likely to be more ambiguous than necessary, (b) the relationship between prudential and monetary tasks described by the SSM Regulation seems to be quite questionable and (c) the SSM may raise important questions about the implications of the exercise of the supervisory tasks conferred upon the ECB and NCAs for the fundamental rights of the entities subject to supervision.


In this paper, a brief review of Pulsed Phase Thermography (PPT) principles are recalled followed by investigations of a neural network applied to quantitative depth discrimination in PPT in the case of aluminum specimens. The paper includes theory and experimental investigations.


This paper aims to present the municipal bond market development in Romania in the context of financial decentralization and to emphasize its importance for local development but also for the safety of the portfolio investment.


This paper mainly studied color-protection of Chinese chestnut during different temperature, different water content and different pH value. The brown stain of enzyme-acceleration has avoided by enzyme-passivation. By orthogonal experiment, the optimal formulation of color-protection solution is ascorbic acid 0.5 %, phytic acid 0.3 %, citric acid 0.5 % and Ethylenediamine Tetraacetate-2sodium 0.15 %.


Glaciers are widely recognized as the best terrestrial indicators of climate change. Nevertheless, changes that have occurred since the end of the Little Ice Age (LIA) are often poorly understood. In Italy, glacier front variations in the last 100 years have been well documented, thanks to the efforts of the Italian Glaciological Committee (Comitato Glaciologico Italiano, CGI), which coordinates annual surveys on all glaciers, since 1927, in order to measure their front positions. However, although front variations are the easiest measurements to take in the field, they only partially describe changes that occur on the entire glacial mass. Moreover, the last national glacier inventory dates back to 1957–1958, which was promoted by the CGI on the occasion of the International Geophysical Year. Authors of the present work herein provide an updated inventory of present-day (2006) glaciers in the Western and South-Western Piedmont Alps (situated in the provinces of Turin and Cuneo). Along with the present-day glacial outlines, the map also includes a reconstruction of the extent of the glaciers during the Little Ice Age, inferred from morphological features such as LIA and post-LIA moraine ridges as well as the aid of historical archive data. Some basic glacier morphometric parameters (surface, length, width, mean slope, highest and lowest altitude, exposure) were computed for the two specified time periods (LIA and 2006). This study was carried out under the framework of the project 'GlaRiskAlp – Glacial Risks in Western Alps', project n.° 56 under the 2007–2013 ALCoTra programs.


J. C. Anderson London: Chapman and Hall. 1968 Pp. viii + 248. Price £2 10s. This book, the second by Prof. Anderson in the series Modern Electrical Studies, is intended for second and third year undergraduates and for students beginning postgraduate research. The material is presented in a simple and illuminating way and the mathematical content should present no difficulties to students at this level.


Infinite-dimensional control theory often provides complex solutions to various control problems. However, in practical applications one would like to have real solutions. We show that the standard solutions are real given real data. We call a (possibly matrix- or operator-valued) holomorphic function G real (or real-symmetric) if G(z) = G(z) for every z. We show that if such a function can be presented as G = NM-1, where N, M ∈ H∞, then we have G = NRMR-1, where NR, MR ∈ H∞ are real and weakly right coprime. Thus, if a real function G has a stabilizing compensator (a function K such that [-GII-K]-1 ∈ H∞), then G has a real doubly coprime factorization and a Youla parameterization of all real stabilizing controllers. If a LTI system of the form ẋ = Ax + Bu, y = Cx + Du or of the form xn+1 = Axn + Bun, yn = Cxn + Dun has real (possibly unbounded, constant) coefficients A, B, C and D, then the system is stabilizable iff it is stabilizable by a real state-feedback operator. This holds for both exponential and output stabilization. The stabilizing state-feedback operator is the standard LQR feedback operator, hence the standard (complex) formulae can be used to find this real solution. Analogous results hold for other optimization, factorization and approximation problems too.


This article presents an excerpt from a speech given by the Minister of the State Family Planning Commission at the Annual National Conference on Family Planning in Beijing, China, on March 16, 1998. Minister Zhang indicated that the Political Bureau, Communist Party-Central Committee called a meeting in February 1998. The aim was to hear a progress report by the State Family Planning Commission. The Bureau approved a series of goals set by the year 2000 and by mid-century. 1) China's population should be under 1.3 billion by 2000. Programs must emphasize the reduction of birth defects and improve reproductive health services. 2) Total population should be under 1.4 billion by 2010. Greater efforts should be made to improve the quality of life and to address problems of population aging and the rising sex ratio. 3) Population should continue to be controlled by 2021, and have an improved quality of life and access to reproductive health services. 4) Population should decline after 2050. Mid-1997 population was 1.236 billion, or 1.243 if Hong Kong population is included. The birth rate in 1997, declined in 20 of 31 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions. Rapid declines occurred in Gansu, Guangdong, and Hubei provinces. The 1998 goals for family planning are to strengthen leadership at all levels and performance at local levels, upgrade the qualifications of family planners at all levels, and to create positive public images and practices. The "Three Stresses" on IEC, contraception, and regular management/services will be implemented in 1998. This will require effective management, technical service, and mass participation networks.


© 2019 Contemporary Clinical Dentistry | Published by Wolters Kluwer Medknow The contemporary science has accomplished incredible achievements in diverse turfs. In this admiration, research in the field of genetics is noteworthy, since they can start a new era in medicine and science at large. However, nowadays, the research of stem cells and their use in modern medicine/dentistry often confronts the opposition from the part of the public as well as experts. In spite of considerable progress in the stem cells research, it still remains a kind of battlefield between adversaries and protagonists of the stem cells research. In actuality, there are no alternatives to further research in the field of genetic, including stem cells researches because the potential of these researches overshadows arguments of their opponents.


Within the last three decades, many characteristics of olfactory sensing in organisms have been established. Most of this information is semiquantitative at best, and further analysis of the physicochemical processes involved in the sensing sequence is necessary to pinpoint directions for future studies and to develop even a crude model of olfactory chemosensors. It is generally accepted that odorivector molecules must reach chemosensors physically; liaison by radiation through distance has never been proved and seems highly un1ikely.I The following scheme of the olfaction process is consistent with the known facts, e.g., in tests by olfactory panels. When maximum sensitivity is desired, relatively odorless air in the nasal cavity is suddenly replaced by air containing the odorivector. The replacement brings in a volume of air with n, molecules of the odorivector per ~ m . ~ Initially, this bulk volume is separated from the sensors by a boundary layer of odorivector-free air and by a film of mucus which bathes the olfactory cilia. The first steps in olfaction must, therefore, include diffusion of the odorivector through the air and the mucus layers. The concentration of odorivector in the sensor plane then builds up, the odorivector molecules attach to the sensor, and the electrical activity in the nerve leading to the olfactory bulb changes. Various fundamental and empirical physicochemical relations can be applied to this general scheme of the olfaction process.


The paper presents a fibre-optic linking system for a measurement and control system installed at an industrial HV laboratory. The indirect voltage and current measurement system is furnished with the E0/0E transducers and FO links. The exploitation requirements on the adequate measurement accuracy and reliability have necessitated the inclusion of additional, digital PO link feedback from the computer control system. The proposed measurement system with the FO link has been installed at an HV laboratory transformer of an electric power station and successfully tested together with the overall equipment.


Two XMM‐Newton observations of the peculiar blazar OJ 287 are introduced, along with the multiwavelength data obtained during a coordinated intensive WEBT campaign, and data obtained with longer‐term independent monitor programs, performed also by other facilities. An interesting variability trend in the optical band is discovered and XMM‐Newton observations, performed in correspondence with two active optical states (a flare and an outburst), indicate different flux levels, spectral slopes, and emission components.


A countermeasure to a partial-band follower jammer is proposed for frequency-hopped spread-spectrum communications. This technique randomizes the transmission technique used by the transmitter (and receiver). Either the information is carried by M tones which are transmitted in a frequency slot, or by M frequency slots which contain signal energy. As a counter-countermeasures, the jammer randomizes between jamming the same frequency slot being used by the communicator, or jamming a subset of the slots not being used by the communicator. The performance for randomized strategies for the communicator and jammer is investigated. It is shown that the proposed technique enhances the system's performance. >


The depletion of natural resources is of prime concern for the existence of mankind. Time has come to think on classifi cation of available resource water in terms of quality for use in various applications, i.e., Demineralized Water, Cooling Water, Domestic, Ash Handling etc. It would mean a step towards cost effective water management. The requirement of water at Koradi Thermal Power Station, Koradi is approximately 1 lakh m3 per day. The main source of water is Khairi dam built on Pench river. It is drawn in artifi cial pond (known as pond No.3) at KTPS. Water undergoes signifi cant changes in quality after entering pond No. 3. Demineralized water for all the seven units of Koradi Thermal Power Station (1100 MW) is supplied from water treatment plant, Stage-II. An attempt has been made to evaluate the change in intake water quality and cost on the basis of strong acid cation exchanger elute electrical conductivity and its impact on ion exchangers at demineralized water treatment plant.


Aspergillus Section flavi populations, natural and in vitro aflatoxin (AF) production in dried Cavendish bananas (Musa cavendishii), a major agricultural commodity in Southern Philippines, were evaluated. Aspergillus Section flavi was isolated from fresh and dried Cavendish bananas, food-contact surfaces, and the air surrounding the production area. Isolates were identified to be Aspergillus f lavus based on spore type and conidial structure. Of 20 Aspergillus Section flavi isolates tested, 8 (40 %) produced AFB1 + AFB2 ranging from 1 ƒÊg/kg to 16 mg/kg in rice, Cavendish banana and Yeast Extract Sucrose medium. Six (75 %) of the 8 isolates produced >20ƒÊg/kg total AF which is the Philippine regulatory limit for AF in food and processed peanut


As the wiring complexity and interference caused by too many system modules,frequent communication and complex structure while the hardware simulation of flight simulator is performing,a scheme of flight deck simulation is proposed.The host computer deals with the logical operation and simulates the function.The slave computers collect the operation information.They are networked by CAN bus to realize the flight deck function simulation.The general structure of the system is described,and data transmission protocol of the flight deck is designed.Combined with the actual application,the hardware structure of data transceiver module and software realization method of data transmission in node are given.Test results indicate that the data transmission is stable and reliable,and has achieved the expected purpose.This scheme is applied to the flight deck hardware simulation of other types of aircrafts.


This work deals with the two-diode model of a photovoltaic (PV) panel. It provides the per-unit energy and current representations in addition to identifying its unknown parameters. Mathematical equations have been proposed and built using the MATLAB/Simulink simulator to achieve this goal. Only one variable has been adjusted to get all the unknown parameters simultaneously at standard test conditions (STC). Three variables have to be adjusted under any other atmospheric conditions. Two different technologies have been used. The accuracy of the proposed mathematical model has been provided using the absolute relative error between the simulated value and the measured one. The biggest values of the absolute relative error are 0.000788%, 0.0006157%, and 0.000616% under STC, nominal cell temperature condition (NOCT), and random daily atmospheric conditions, respectively.


After placing the debate on the minimum income in a European context, this article analyses the minimum social assistance program in France. The creation of a minimum income support allowance (or RMI) by the government of Michel Rocard constitutes the culmination of a historical process that transforms the logical categories. The complexity and relative failure of the insertion policies that accompany the RMI have several effects on the outcome of the minimum income. The creation of anactive solidarity income (or RSA) responds to the problems of�inactivity traps�, but it does not put an end to the debate about the architecture of minimum social assistance or the role of income redistribution in the fight against social exclusion and poverty. This debate opens the door for considering instituting a universal basic income.


One of the goal of many techniciens/artists during the different steps required to create an image is to deliver a specific look. The texture is an important part of the process in which the…


The use of surface-functionalized polymers has shown great potential for application, emphasizing the development of flexible optoelectronic devices (FOD). There are several ways to carry out this functionalization, attributing different characteristics to the resulting material. In the present study, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) films were surface-functionalized with [4-(2-hydroxy naphthyl)diazenyl] benzoic acid using UV radiation and the direct grafting method. The resulting films were characterized using different techniques, which enabled the identification of functional groups characteristic of the compound azo, thus proving that both methods used for surface functionalization were efficient. Subsequently, the sensing capabilities of these films were evaluated by being exposed to solutions of different cations. The fluorescence signal was the measurable response, in which its variation is dependent on the interaction of analytes with the functionalized surface of the PET film. The main advantages observed in this study are simplicity, low cost and the possibility of using recycled polymer, contributing to sustainable development and environmental conservation.


It is proposed a telecommunications terminal and method for support of maintenance and / or repair of vehicles, wherein a vehicle includes a diagnostic interface, wherein the vehicle is associated with a vehicle identification information, the vehicle identification information is attached to the vehicle such that the vehicle identification information is optically detectable wherein a a wireless interface exhibiting communication module or is connected to the diagnostic interface wherein the diagnostic interface comprises a wireless interface, wherein said telecommunications terminal comprises a further wireless interface, wherein the telecommunication terminal is configured to a retrievable via the diagnostic interface and to process the vehicle state information concerned, the mobile telecommunication terminal having a camera device, wherein the diagnostic interface, the wireless interface site and the other wireless interface are configured to transfer at least one of the vehicle state information pertaining to the telecommunications terminal, the camera device of the telecommunication terminal is configured to detect the vehicle identification information, by means of a part of the information relating to the vehicle state and on the other hand, the vehicle identification information at least one measure can be defined for maintenance and / or repair of the vehicle.


Combined approach for the unification of levelling networks in New Zealand The unification of levelling networks in New Zealand is done using a combined approach. It utilises the joint levelling network adjustment and the geopotential-value approach. The levelling and normal gravity data are used for a joint adjustment of the levelling networks at the South and North Islands of New Zealand while fixing the heights of tide gauges in Dunedin and Wellington. The results reveal a good quality of levelling data; the STD of residuals is 2 mm for the whole country. The comparison of the newly determined and original normal-orthometric heights confirms the presence of large local vertical datum offsets and systematic levelling errors. Since the geopotential-value approach is based on the Molodensky's theory, the newly adjusted normal-orthometric heights are converted to the normal heights. This conversion is based on applying the cumulative normal to normal-orthometric height correction computed from levelling and gravity anomaly data. In the absence of the observed gravity data the gravity anomalies along levelling lines are generated fromEGM2008. The GPS-levelling data and EGM2008 are used to estimate the average offsets of the jointly adjusted levelling networks at the North and South Islands with respect to World Height System defined by the adopted geoidal geopotential value of W0 = 62636856 ± 0.5 m2s-2; the estimated offsets are 10.6 cm and 27.5 cm.


This article aims to present a teaching experience in the area of graphic design. This experience was applied in two classrooms of Graphic Design technological course, at the Faculdade das Americas (FAM), in Sao Paulo (SP), as part of an extension project. Through research methodology and design, students were asked to create semantic panels, pictograms and a tag that identified part of Rua Augusta known as Baixo Augusta. This section of the street is full of cinemas, theaters, nightclubs, bars, snack bars and restaurants that provide a wide and varied cultural and gastronomic life for the young audience that frequents it. The project, specifically linked to the Graphic Design technological course, is actually part of an extension project of Faculdade das Americas, whose units are concentrated in three buildings of this famous street of Sao Paulo that, with its own distinctive characteristics, defines publics and tribes, many of whom are part of the institution's faculty and student body. We selected one of the group identity manuals, the estudio Unknown, for better representing the street through pictograms, and as an example of a successful integrated project as an academic and pedagogical activity for graphic design students.


The goal of this work is to research the application of cryptography in the security of the process of evaluation in on-line environments, creating a framework of protocols which is collectively called e-evaluation. More specifically, we begin by providing a description of an e-evaluation system in both the hardware and the software level and introducing suitable cryptographic techniques so as to satisfy the security requirements of the e-evaluation process, giving examples of applications where there is use of electronic evaluation procedures.

In the first part of this work we research the way the concept of security is integrated within the process of evaluation, the reasons for which there is need for integrating security techniques in that process and the benefits we gain by them. Then we provide a short description of techniques being use in the electronic evaluation process as well as where and how cryptography is applied in them.
In the second part, we provide a description of the cryptographic techniques and protocols that have applications in the e-evaluation framework and their mathematical background.
In the third and final part, we make a presentation of the applications of e-evaluation in education.


Social network analysis has garnered increasing attention in recent years, with implications across a broad range of applications. One particular subfield, link prediction, has become a key part of modern counter-terrorism efforts. However, the difficulty of finding reliable and publicly accessible terrorist network data has limited academic research in this direction. Previous work at the University of Maryland has investigated supervised link classification on a publicly available dataset, the Profiles in Terror (PIT) knowledge base, using Relational Markov Networks (RMNs). This paper introduces models which combine singular value decomposition and logistic regression to yield improved results across all tasks. We discuss issues discovered in the processing method used by the UMD group and suggest improvements. Finally, we apply the models to a new dataset published at Carnegie Mellon University, but conclusions are undermined by the small size of the dataset and the scarcity of positive examples.


Glossary 16S rRNA gene Highly conserved RNA involved in polypeptide synthesis that is commonly used for making phylogenetic inferences. BAC Bacterial artificial chromosome. contig A set of overlapping sequences derived from a single template. cosmids Vectors containing cos sites for phage packaging that are used to clone large DNA fragments. environmental DNA Genetic material extracted directly from a microbial community. environmental gene tag Short sequence obtained from metagenomic sequencing. fosmid Large-insert cloning vector based on the F-plasmid of Escherichia coli. genome The genetic complement of an organism. metaproteome The collective protein complements of a microbial community. microbiome The collection of microorganisms residing in a particular habitat. mini scaffold A single paired-end read. read The output of an individual DNA sequencing reaction. scaffold Contigs linked by overlapping regions.


The Gampong Customary Court always strives to achieve justice for competing communities by seeking harmony and harmony as required by Qanun Number 9 of 2008 concerning the Advancement of Customs and Customs. However, there are many obstacles in solving wars because of each of them. The purpose of this study is to identify and explain the control over the payment of inheritance through the Customary Court in Gampong Jambo Mesjid, Kota Lhokseumawe and the obstacles encountered by the organizers of the Traditional Court of Gampong Jambo Mesjid, Kota Lhokseumawe in order to complete the inheritance. This type of assessment is a qualitative approach with a sociological juridical approach. The data sources used are primary data, including the results of interviews with informants and respondents. Secondary data sources come from primary legal materials, secondary legal materials and tertiary legal materials. According to the results of the study, it is known that; The mechanism for inheritance disputes through the Customary Court in Gampong Jambo Mesjid, Kota Lhokseumawe is carried out through deliberation techniques between members of the Gampong Customary Court, community leaders, and also from the families of the two disputing parties. Cases are resolved by prioritizing the principles of peace, kinship, and finding reliable sources of information on the matter. In a dispute, the disputing parties must be notified in accordance with the rules of common law, religion, and applicable positive law. The result of a joint decision, "Gani Ali Basyah is charged with paying compensation to Ti Aman in the amount of Rp. 7.500.000, - (Seven million five hundred thousand rupiah)". The obstacles faced by the executor of the Traditional Court of Gampong Jambo Mesjid, Kota Lhokseumawe in resolving the dispute were the difficulty of dealing with the defendant, the occurrence or difference of opinion between the defendant and the plaintiff, and the fact that the parties to the dispute did not provide information. We have filed a case with the Village Court to conceal the facts that led to the inheritance dispute, the provocation of third parties and the lack of accurate data on inheritance. It is recommended to open the views of the conflicting parties about the peace efforts and various legal aspects and their scope. The community has the right to continue to peacefully resolve inheritance disputes through the Gampong Customary Court. The settlement of cases will follow the mechanism recommended by Islamic law.


In this paper,we develop initially the theory on the intersections of maximal subalgebras for Lie color algebras,obtain their some properties and give some necessary and sufficient conditions for solvable Lie color algebras and nilpotent Lie color algebras,respectively.


With the objective of reinvigorating damaged corn seed, the technique of wetting and drying the seed with five types of water and 10 imbibition times. Estimating the variables emergency percentage, emergency speed, seedling length and root length, and plant height 30 days emergency. For the variable speed of emergency for imbibition time the highest vigor corresponded to 18 and 12h, and with an emergency percentage of 62% higher in 10% of the control, it was 4, 8 and 18h. In water types for emergency percentage, the highest values were observed in artesian well and Key water. In seedling length with values of 25 to 24 cm were distilled water 30h, artesian well 8h y 18h; and the control was 22 cm. In radicle length the highest values corresponded to E. Pure® 24h and key water 14h. For plant height in 8h artesian well present a value of 175 cm, and the control with a value of 165 cm.


The guidance and control problem of spacecraft approaching an asteroid using constant continuous thrust is studied in this work. The range of interest is from hundreds of kilometers to several kilometers, in which relative measurements of much higher accuracy than based on Earth can be used to facilitate further hovering or landing operations. Time-fixed glideslope guidance algorithm is improved by introducing a substitute of an existing control parameter and combined with elliptical relative orbital dynamics to rendezvous the spacecraft with a prescribed location in the proximity of a given asteroid. A vast range of values for the control parameters are explored and suitable combinations are found. To fully validate the robustness and accuracy of the proposed control algorithm, Monte Carlo simulations are done with the navigational error and implementation error considered.


The present invention discloses a coaxial connector assembly (2), which is provided with a main housing (10), the main housing receiving the coaxial plug connector (12). Provided holding housing (14), which is locked to the main housing (10), and (12) holding the coaxial connector in place. In certain embodiments, the holder comprises an integral locking plate housing, cable exit member (16) may be connected to the locking plate for the cable to exit an angle of 90 degrees with respect to the coaxial connector (12) orientation. In another embodiment, the lock plate is integrally connected to the coaxial cable sleeve, and comprising a locking member connected to the cable exit of the locking portion.


Purpose: To compare the effect of exposure to particulate matter on the ocular surface of normal and experimental dry eye (EDE) rat models. Methods: Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles were used as the particulate matter. Rats were divided into 4 groups: normal control group, TiO2 challenge group of the normal model, EDE control group, and TiO2 challenge group of the EDE model. After 24 hours, corneal clarity was compared and tear samples were collected for quantification of lactate dehydrogenase, MUC5AC, and tumor necrosis factor-&agr; concentrations. The periorbital tissues were used to evaluate the inflammatory cell infiltration and detect apoptotic cells. Results: The corneal clarity score was greater in the EDE model than in the normal model. The score increased after TiO2 challenge in each group compared with each control group (normal control vs. TiO2 challenge group, 0.0 ± 0.0 vs. 0.8 ± 0.6, P = 0.024; EDE control vs. TiO2 challenge group, 2.2 ± 0.6 vs. 3.8 ± 0.4, P = 0.026). The tear lactate dehydrogenase level and inflammatory cell infiltration on the ocular surface were higher in the EDE model than in the normal model. These measurements increased significantly in both normal and EDE models after TiO2 challenge. The tumor necrosis factor-&agr; levels and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase–mediated dUTP nick end labeling–positive cells were also higher in the EDE model than in the normal model. Conclusions: TiO2 nanoparticle exposure on the ocular surface had a more prominent effect in the EDE model than it did in the normal model. The ocular surface of dry eyes seems to be more vulnerable to fine dust of air pollution than that of normal eyes.


Studies on the immunity to Trichinella spiralis in mice are reported. In three experiments, the worms of a single immunizing infection were either eradicated or sexually sterilized prior to the deposition of larvae. Immunity was induced in the mice, as indicated by a 54 to 69%o reduction in the enteral phase of a challenge infection, and a 53 to 91% reduction in the parenteral phase. In a fourth experiment mice were exposed to six abbreviated immunizing infections (each of 1 day's duration) before being challenged. Although the control challenge infection was light and variable, the immunized mice showed a reduction of > 99% in the parenteral phase of the challenge infection. In the final experiment, one group of infected mice was so treated as to allow the enteral phase to run its course, but without the production of larvae. In another group, the adult worms were allowed to produce larvae until the 21st day of infection. An attempt was then made to eradicate the infection in both groups, and the mice were subsequently challenged. The immunity acquired by the mice with the enteral-only infection was at least as strong as that acquired by the mice with the biphasic enteral- parenteral infection. This was in spite of the fact that the latter mice harbored a number of "immu- nizing" larvae at the time of challenge, whereas the former did not. While the failure of the biphasic infection to induce a stronger immunity may have been due to the debilitating nature of this infection and its intensive therapy, the results support the conclusion that the parenteral phase of trichinosis does not enhance the immunity induced by the enteral phase.


Objective To explore the relationships between the mental health,self-acceptance and coping style,and to provide bases for the psychological counseling.Methods A total of 154 poverty undergraduates were tested with SCL-90,Self-Acceptance Questionnaire(SAQ) and Coping Style Questionnaire(CSQ).Results Scores of SCL-90 and Affection-Palliative Coping Style(AP-CS) were higher among poverty undergraduates than others,and lower scores were found in SAQ and Problem-Oriented Coping Style(PO-CS).Significant negative correlation was found between scores of each factor in SCL-90 and total score of SAQ,scores of self-acceptance and PO-CS(r=-0.243 9 to-0.536 5,P0.01).Scores of SCL-90 were negatively correlated with self-evaluation(r=-0.201 6 to-0.390 1,P0.05) but positively correlated with score of AP-CS(r=0.255 8 to 0.536 5,P0.01).Conclusion The mental health of the poverty undergraduates is influenced by their coping style and attitude of self-acceptance.


The presence, distribution pattern and host preference of the African Invader Fly, Bactrocera invadens (Drew, Tsuruta and White) was studied in three different locations in Akure and its environs, Federal University of Technology Akure (FUTA), Federal College of Agriculture (FECA) and Ipogun (Ondo State, southwestern Nigeria) on mango, citrus and pawpaw for a period of eight weeks. Trapping of the fruit flies was done using fabricated plastic bottle traps baited with Methyl Eugenol (ME) (4-allyl-1,2-dimethoxybenzen) pre-mixed with insecticide, Plan D. The flywas present in the three locations sampled throughout the study period. Average value of the fly obtained revealed that Bactrocera invadens was most abundant at Ipogun village compared with FECA and FUTA and was significantly different at p > 0.05. The result also showed no significant difference in the number of catches at FECA and FUTA, but showed significant difference in Ipogun throughout the period of the study (p > 0.05). Pattern of catches was also observed to increase with the number of weeks on all the hosts at the three locations. The computed mean density of the fly in the various locations showed that number of fly caught was most on the mango host than citrus and pawpaw, though, no significant difference was observed between the three hosts at the end of the eight weeks. This study has provided information on the presence, distribution pattern and preference for already identified hosts within the region. It is therefore recommended that continuous monitoring of the fly's population be initiated, while the comprehensive control measure is urgently required.


the wide-ranging knowledges produced by feminism since the 1970s are quite remarkable, reliant upon diverse aims, separate objectives and different intellectual concerns. This contribution charts feminist research while thinking about how the socio-historical, political and cultural contexts shaped what was said and how it was said. Conceived in the politically radical context of the women's liberation movement, and at an historical time in North America and Europe where women were lobbying for changes in legislation, initial feminist interest in television was, in the words of Charlotte Brunsdon, Julie D'Acci and Lynn Spigel, a call 'to action growing out of a deep conviction that women's oppression was very much related to mass media representations and that change was not only urgent, but possible.' Raising awareness about how patriarchal ideology excluded, silenced and oppressed women would indelibly mark thinking about the processes and practices that produced ideas about what it means to be a woman in culture. Shaping scholarship was the guiding principle that gender is nothing more than a socially constructed phenomenon rather than some immutable state of being conditioned by biology. Judith Butler in the 1990s went further to question the male/female binary, advocating that even the sexed body was culturally formed. Her view that both gender and sex were nothing more than cultural constructions, performances to be repeated and subject to regulatory norms rather than something natural would impact tremendously on thinking about how gender gets produced and circulated. In addition, the relationship between feminism and television benefited from a wider engagement with the burgeoning field of British cultural studies (based at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham). Growing out of post-structuralist approaches to theorising ideology, and firmly rooted in post-Marxist concerns with the subversive capabilities of cultural practices and mass culture, scholarship was committed to understanding popular culture as a site of struggle over meaning. E. Ann Kaplan describes how this early Feminist Television Criticism: Notes and Queries


In the first study to employ dual-spacecraft cross-spectral techniques in the magnetosheath, we have analyzed ISEE 1 and ISEE 2 magnetic field and plasma data from an afternoon magnetosheath crossing to determine dominant MHD wave modes and directions. Our principal discovery is of guided MHD waves traveling along the flow-modified wave characteristics (the curves along which wave energy is propagated in a flowing medium - see, for example, Akhiezer et al. [1975]). Wave polarizations were determined by transforming the magnetic field to a field- and boundary-aligned coordinate system. We have inferred wave propagation directions using the time delays between the passage of coherent structures across the spacecraft. Weaker broadband coherent oscillations in the direction radial from the planet could be associated with large scale motions of the shock and/or magnetopause, but the dominant signals appear not to be from such a source. Separate broadband Alfven and slow magnetoacoustic waves have been identified in the inner sheath, propagating across the field and flow toward the magnetopause. In the outer magnetosheath the most prominent disturbances were narrow-band Alfven waves propagating downstream and along the field. The phase propagation directions detected for the largest amplitude signals were closely aligned with the flow-modified wave characteristics, the group propagation directions. From this result, we infer that the sources of the dominant wave activity are localized MHD disturbances on the bow shock and not spatially coherent distributed sources such as bulk boundary motion. We suggest that the flow-modified characteristics of the two field-guided MHD modes may play an important role within the magnetosheath, determining the directions along which energy is transmitted between the solar wind and the magnetosphere.


For the first time, we introduce a generalized form of the exponentiated generalized gamma distribution [Cordeiro et al. The exponentiated generalized gamma distribution with application to lifetime data, J. Statist. Comput. Simul. 81 (2011), pp. 827–842.] that is the baseline for the log-exponentiated generalized gamma regression model. The new distribution can accommodate increasing, decreasing, bathtub- and unimodal-shaped hazard functions. A second advantage is that it includes classical distributions reported in the lifetime literature as special cases. We obtain explicit expressions for the moments of the baseline distribution of the new regression model. The proposed model can be applied to censored data since it includes as sub-models several widely known regression models. It therefore can be used more effectively in the analysis of survival data. We obtain maximum likelihood estimates for the model parameters by considering censored data. We show that our extended regression model is very useful by means of two applications to real data.


Summary Group A streptococci persisted in the tissues of rabbits, in the absence of bacteremia, for periods up to 104 days following infection. Except in the case of suppurative arthritis such persistence was not associated with any demonstrable pathological lesion. Cortisone might have played a part in reestablishing a bacteremia in rabbits long periods after the acute infection. The significance of these findings in relation to the pathogenesis of rheumatic fever is discussed.


Base on the specific condition of the Pengjia garden tunnel,according to the numerical simulation of the construction condition,also recommending reascnable excavation sequence and supporting methods,the two sets of construction plans which has been adopted during the construction process have been confirmed,on the basis of the active construction plan,we can obtain the influence to the arch and surface subsidence caused by the various working procedure.


The paper discussed fatalities in the Nigerian construction industrya case of poor safety culture. It views safety culture as the set of beliefs, norms, attitudes, roles, social and technical practices that are concerned with minimizing the exposure of employees, managers, customers and members of the public to conditions considered dangerous or injurious. It assumes that incorporation of positive safety culture into investment in machines and technology (socio-technical investments) by Nigerian construction companies will result in better safety performance of employees (reduced rate of unsafe acts)and the company (reduced rate of fatalities). The research question addressed the extent of the relationship between poor safety culture and increased rate of unsafe acts/fatalities in the Nigerian construction industry. The place of study comprises of twelve construction companies, two from each of the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria while the duration of study is between August 2012 and July 2013.A descriptive research design was used in executing the study using 600(judgmentally determined) randomly selected respondents from twelve construction companies in the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria for questionnaire administration. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results from the data analysis indicated that significant relationship exists between poor safety culture and increased rate of unsafe acts/fatalities in the Nigerian construction industry and recommends among others: regular site safety audits Original Research Article British Journal of Economics, Management & Trade, 4(3): 431-452, 2014 432 to identify/eliminate potential workplace hazards, regular staff training to improve their hazard identification skills, involvement of management and workers in addressing safety matters, formation of safety committees to identify and eliminate potential workplace hazards and making hazard identification/reporting everyone's responsibility.


The present invention relates to a storage stable and fast curing epoxy resin composition (rapid curability) are all excellent semiconductor encapsulation. Art epoxy resin composition for semiconductor encapsulation is epoxy resin (A), phenolic resin (B), curing accelerator (C) and a curing a curing accelerator accelerator having a core / shell structure, which is sealed as a core within a shell comprising a thermoplastic resin It includes microcapsules (D). Semiconductor encapsulating plastic packages, epoxy resin composition, a curing accelerator, a storage stability and rapid curability.


One of the challenging applications in face recognition is video surveillance, where unconstrained low-resolution video data is captured both in day and night time (visible and near-infrared) with multiple subjects in frames, which are matched with high resolution gallery images. Due to the lack of an existing database for such a cross spectral cross resolution video-to-still face recognition application, this still remains an open research problem. The aim of this research is to come up with robust face recognition algorithms in surveillance scenarios. For this, we first present a video database which can be utilized to benchmark face recognition algorithms addressing crossspectral and cross-resolution matching. The proposed Cross-Spectral Cross-Resolution Video dataset version 2 (CSCRV-v2) contains 460 videos pertaining to 252 subjects with an open-set protocol. We then focus on the first step in the face recognition pipeline i.e., face detection and propose an algorithm FaceFinder. FaceFinder addresses shortcomings (like high false positive rate) of existing face detectors by making use of human body segmentation results of a trained Convolutional Neural Network model specifically designed for semantic segmentation. Experimental results on CSCRV-v2, are compared with that of two off-the-shelf face detection algorithms to show the efficacy of the proposed algorithm. We then focus on face recognition and present results with two commercial matchers for two experimental scenarios on the data. It is our assertion that our research will further facilitate the research community to develop robust face recognition algorithms to handle real world surveillance scenarios.


Let G be a simple connected graph on n vertices and di be the degree of its vertex vi , , i = 1, 2, . . . , n. The (i, j)-entry of the Randić matrix of G is equal to 1/ √ di d j if vi and v j are adjacent, and zero otherwise. In this paper, we obtain that the Randić spectral radius of G is ρ1(G) = 1, which improves the results of Bozkurt et al. [MATCH Commum. Math. Comput. Chem. 64 (2010) 321–334].


Objectives: Toevaluate the effectiveness of antenatal dexametha- sone before elective caesarean section at 37-39 weeks of gestation in reducing incidence and/or severity of neonatal jaundice.Patients and.
Methods: A randomized controlled study was done in the Depart- ment of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Mansoura University Hospital. The study group received three doses of intramuscular dexameth- asone 8 mg ampoules at 8-hourly interval over 24 hours ended 48 hours before time of elective CS. Control group received the usual management without dexamethasone. Neonates were followed up and those who presented with neonatal jaundice within the first 72 hour of delivery (physiologic jaundice) the level of total bilirubin was measured.
Results: The study included 200 cases. Hundred cases (50 %), re- ceived single course of antenatal dexamethasone and 100 control cases (50%). the incidence of neonatal jaundice (group 1 was 34% and group 2 was 38%) and the mean level of bilirubin in neonates who develop jaundice (group1 was 11.52±0.56 mg/dl) and (group  2 was 13.08±0.72 mg/dl). No significant difference were found between the intervention and the control groups regarding the inci- dence of jaundice (p=0.56) while there was a significant difference in bilirubin level in neonates who developed jaundice (P<0.001).
Conclusion: Administration of antenatal dexamethasone before elective CS at 37-39 gestational weeks was associated with reduced incidence of neonatal jaundice and lower level of bilirubin in cases that developed jaundice.


It is probably fair to say that most people today imagine that Jesus only had twelve male disciples. Yet the Gospels speak of Jesus having many disciples. The twelve were a select group, designated apostles, and drawn from this larger company of disciples. Many women also followed Jesus, traveling with him throughout the towns and villages of Galilee. In this article I will discuss who these women were, what can be known about them, whether or not they were genuine disciples, and what it meant to travel with Jesus in first-century Palestine.


Improved road pricing would be an indispensable element in a road system run on commercial principles, with charges for road use not co-mingled with taxes, and with no discrimination against private road providers. But pricing imposed by a monopoly supplier, to 'restrain' motorised mobility, is unacceptable in a free society.


In this work, Nd0.7Ba0.3MnO3 was synthesized via cryo-milling method to investigate the effect of calcination temperature on the structure, microstructure, magnetic and electrical properties. XRD analysis revealed all samples can be indexed to orthorhombic structure systems with Imma space group accompany with some minor phases of Mn2O4 and BaMnO3. FESEM analysis confirmed that a slight increase in the grain size from 117.4 nm (600°C), 119.5 nm (700°C), 121.0 nm (800°C), 123.1 nm (900°C) to 138.4 nm (1000°C) was observed when different calcination temperature was applied. Four Point Probe measurements showed that all samples are in paramagnetic insulating region and TMIT is lower than 20K. Resistivity increase when grain size reduces due to increase of effective grain boundary that weakens the electron hopping process via double exchange mechanism. Beside, a drastic increase of resistivity also observed due to present of minor secondary phase (BaMnO3) in sample C9.


Ghassib's (2010) paper is an interesting historical and philosophical discussion on the topic of knowledge production and a productivist industrial model in science. As I see it from the point of view of education, a weakness of the paper relates to the lack of discussion of the notion of creativity in science. The title includes the word 'creativity' and yet he does not explicitly address the nature of creativity in science, its relevance to science education or the teaching of gifted and talented children. To have done so may have made his account more relevant to this journal's readers.


Objective: To assess the recognition of facial expression of primary and social emotions and to correlate it with depressive and behavioural symptoms. Background Facial expressions play an important role in communication processes. Previous studies have indicated that ALS patients have disturbances in emotional perception and memory. Understanding social abilities in ALS patients is therefore a focus for further consideration and concern about the disease and patients management. Design/Methods: A group of 43 consecutive ALS patients and 54 controls were tested to evaluate their ability to recognize facial expressions of basic and social emotions. Further questionnaires were administered to the patients group in order to assess behavioural changes, mood and quality of life. Results: In recognizing facial expressions ALS patients made significantly more errors than healthy controls. Considering the 6 basic emotions, 12 patients and only 2 controls showed performances above the cut-off score. Similarly, patients made more errors than controls in the social emotion test. Bulbar onset or the presence of bulbar signs at the time of the evaluation was not correlated to the error recognition rate of basic and social facial expression. The error rate was not correlated to the patients physical status. We also found a statistically significant correlation between the facial recognition of basic emotions and neurobehavioral symptoms with a higher number of errors corresponding to a higher FrSBe score. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that patients with ALS show a different pattern of recognition in facial expression when compared to healthy adults. Emotional recognition deficits may occur in ALS, particularly with emotional facial expressions, and can arise independently from depressive symptoms. In our series the recognition of facial basic emotions seems to be correlated with the presence of behavioural changes of the frontotemporal type supporting the presence of a diminished social competence. Disclosure: Dr. Moglia has nothing to disclose. Dr. Calvo has nothing to disclose. Dr. Ilardi has nothing to disclose. Dr. Canosa has nothing to disclose. Dr. Cammarosano has nothing to disclose. Dr. Bersano has nothing to disclose. Dr. Bertuzzo has nothing to disclose. Dr. Manera has nothing to disclose. Dr. Moglia has nothing to disclose. Dr. Casale has nothing to disclose. Dr. Montuschi has nothing to disclose. Dr. Chio has nothing to disclose.


The utility model relates to a cooling system of a 3-liquid crystal display (LCD) projector adopting three light-emitting diode (LED) lamp panels to serve as light sources, which comprises a bottom plate, a heat conduction plate, a heat pipe radiator and a scavenger fan, wherein the heat pipe radiator comprises heat pipes and cooling fin groups; the heat conduction plate is a right-angle U-shaped platelike body; the side edges of the heat conduction plate are vertically connected to the upper surface of the bottom plate; the bottom plate surrounding three faces of the outer side of the heat conduction plate is provided with three cooling pin groups; the heat pipes are respectively connected and distributed on each cooling pin group, and thus, three independent heat pipe radiators are distributed around the U-shaped heat conduction plate; and the scavenger fan is arranged at the rear part of the bottom plate. In the utility model, the designed structure of the heat pipes is adopted, therefore, a production process is simplified and the cost of the cooling system is reduced; the cooling system with high efficiency, safety, energy saving, environmental protection and long service life is provided for the 3-LCD projector taking the three LED lamp panels as the light sources, and thereby, the cooling system is effectively ensured to stably work for a long time.


During the past several decades operational forecasts of tropical cyclone (TC) tracks have improved steadily, but intensity forecast skills have experienced rather modest improvements. Here we use 40 years of TC track data to show that storm intensity correlates with translation speed, with hurricanes of category 5 moving on average 1 m s−1 faster than tropical storms. This correlation provides evidence that the translation speed of a storm can exert a significant control on the intensity of storms by modulating the strength of the negative effect of the storm‐induced sea surface temperature (SST) reduction on the storm intensification (i.e., the SST feedback): Faster‐moving storms tend to generate weaker sea surface cooling and have shorter exposure to the cooling, both of which tend to weaken the negative SST feedback. Consistently, there exists a minimum translation speed for intensification and its value grows with TC intensity, resulting in a minimum translation speed for the existence of a TC in each intensity category. Furthermore, a composite analysis of satellite‐based SST measurements reveals that in the tropical region the average strength of the storm‐induced sea surface cooling can be explained by the superposition of an effect due to the storm intensity and an effect associated with the translation speed, and implies that the variability of upper ocean stratification may not be an important factor in this region. Our results suggest that progress in the prediction of TC tracks, particularly in the translation speed of storms, should lead to improved storm intensity prediction.


A phenomenological method of modeling positive temperature coefficient of resistivity junctions under different thermal and elastic boundary conditions as well as different interfacial trap distributions is detailed. Devonshire's thermodynamic approach and a modified Heywang–Jonker model are employed. Model calculations are applied to isothermal empirical results obtained in samples under uniaxial compressive loads as well as four‐point bending loads of trilaminate sensors. Some explanation of discrepancies found in the literature in sign and in magnitude of piezoresistive coefficients under uniaxial loads is offered. Trilaminate sensor behavior under four‐point bending loads followed satisfactorily the general trends predicted by the model.


Appropriate stratification tools for targeted surveillance after resection for colorectal cancer (CRC) are lacking. The objective of the current study was to investigate the effect of microsatellite instability (MSI) and DNA ploidy on surveillance after surgery.


Wireless sensor networks are one the most challenging fields in computer science and networking in particular with the exposition of Internet of things. The energy management is a crucial issue on wireless sensor network since it has a real influence on then network lifetime. Since such networks are used for many sensitive applications, they need to guarantee some quality of service requirements as continuous connectivity or continuous monitoring or balanced energy consumption over all the network nodes. In this paper, we suggest an algorithm which monitors the energy consumption of all nodes (in relation with their main activity: communication). We present an activity model of the network and evaluate how the remaining energy behaves. Our main objective is to predict (after a learning step) the energy consumption of all the nodes. Then, various techniques could be used to find a cure to such troubles (wake up sleeping neighbor nodes, increasing radio ranges of some neighbor nodes, etc). Simulations have shown interesting results, and large‐scale evaluation has to be undertaken to confirm the early results. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


We sought to identify genome‐wide variants influencing antihypertensive drug response and adverse cardiovascular outcomes, utilizing data from four randomized controlled trials in the International Consortium for Antihypertensive Pharmacogenomics Studies (ICAPS). Genome‐wide antihypertensive drug‐single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) interaction tests for four drug classes (β‐blockers, n = 9,195; calcium channel blockers (CCBs), n = 10,511; thiazide/thiazide‐like diuretics, n = 3,516; ACE‐inhibitors/ARBs, n = 2,559) and cardiovascular outcomes (incident myocardial infarction, stroke, or death) were analyzed among patients with hypertension of European ancestry. Top SNPs from the meta‐analyses were tested for replication of cardiovascular outcomes in an independent Cohorts for Heart and Aging Research in Genomic Epidemiology (CHARGE) study (n = 21,267), blood pressure (BP) response in independent ICAPS studies (n = 1,552), and ethnic validation in African Americans from the Genetics of Hypertension Associated Treatment study (GenHAT; n = 5,115). One signal reached genome‐wide significance in the β‐blocker‐SNP interaction analysis (rs139945292, Interaction P = 1.56 × 10−8). rs139945292 was validated through BP response to β‐blockers, with the T‐allele associated with less BP reduction (systolic BP response P = 6 × 10−4, Beta = 3.09, diastolic BP response P = 5 × 10−3, Beta = 1.53). The T‐allele was also associated with increased adverse cardiovascular risk within the β‐blocker treated patients' subgroup (P = 2.35 × 10−4, odds ratio = 1.57, 95% confidence interval = 1.23–1.99). The locus showed nominal replication in CHARGE, and consistent directional trends in β‐blocker treated African Americans. rs139945292 is an expression quantitative trait locus for the 50 kb upstream gene NTM (neurotrimin). No SNPs attained genome‐wide significance for any other drugs classes. Top SNPs were located near CALB1 (CCB), FLJ367777 (ACE‐inhibitor), and CES5AP1 (thiazide). The NTM region is associated with increased risk for adverse cardiovascular outcomes and less BP reduction in β‐blocker treated patients. Further investigation into this region is warranted.


The underlined parts of the following sentence from the Methods section of the Abstract [1] are wrong. We defined overt diabetes in pregnancy as an HbA1c ≥ 8 mmol/mol (6.5%) or a fasting plasma glucose ≥ 7.0 mmol/l, or a 2-h glucose level ≥ 11.1 mmo/L on a 75-g oral glucose tolerance test as a surrogate for a random glucose ≥ 11.1 mmo/l. It should read as: We defined overt diabetes in pregnancy as an HbA1c ≥ 48 mmol/mol (6.5%) or a fasting plasma glucose ≥ 7.0 mmol/l, or a 2-h glucose level ≥ 11.1 mmol/l on a 75-g oral glucose tolerance test as a surrogate for a random glucose ≥11.1 mmol/l.


Transient events are rarely observed because of their aperiodic nature and short time duration. Often, it is not practical to sample these events using traditional methods. Typically, electronic instruments are required to gather sufficient data to observe transient events in streams and rivers. In many cases, data loggers equipped with water quality sensors offer the only reasonable opportunity to study these events. Data gathered at high frequency from two small streams illustrate some features of transient water events. These events illustrate the variety of changes observed in streams during both natural and man-induced events. Transient events may result from impacts on the entire watershed or from direct inputs to the stream channel. How a watershed responds to an event may be characteristic of ecosystem response to the disturbance. Events which affect the entire watershed differ in mechanism between the two study watersheds. This is a result of the different nature of the two ecosystems. Direct stream effects are more common in the urbanized watershed, and have properties which are distinct from the events affecting the entire watershed. The response of the system to transient impacts provides insight into the processes within the ecosystems. Data from a two month period in 1995 is used to illustrate observation and analysis techniques.


The asymmetric cluster analysis was applied to the enrollement flow from high school to university among the Japanese prefectures to disclose and to compare university enrollment regions before and after the introduction of the Joint First Stage Achievement Test (JFSAT). The asymmetric cluster analysis used in the present study is characterized by two aspects. One is that it is based on the mean clustering so that small university enrollment regions can be disclosed as well. The other is that it allows the clustering based on self similarity. Eight university enrollment regions were disclosed before and after the JFSAT respectively, and seven of the eight were centered at same prefectures before and after the JFSAT, suggesting that university enrollment regions were almost unchanged. But there were differences in some respects, (a) After the JFSAT, university enrollment regions which were geographically not between the two largest university enrollment regions centered at Tokyo and Kyoto (north to the one centered at Tokyo or west to the one centered at Kyoto) became larger and more independent from the one centered at Tokyo, (b) After the JFSAT, university enrollment regions between the two largest enrollment regions did not become larger nor independent.


Into account the potential of physic nut (Jatropha curcas L.) oil production for biodiesel and this being a suitable oilseed cultivation in semiarid region due to its hardiness and resistance to adverse conditions of climate and soil, primarily to water stress opens up new perspectives for studies focused on the relationship of the species with salinity. With emphasis on this aspect, this study aimed to evaluate the parameters of emergence and early growth of physic nut under different salinity levels of irrigation water. The experiment was conducted in a greenhouse at the Center for Science and Technology Agrifood UFCG in the period May-June 2012. The seedlings were grown in a mixture of soil and cattle manure (2:1), with treatments arranged in a randomized block design with three replications, five salinity levels of irrigation water regarding electrical conductivity (EC w) 0 , 2, 1.2, 2.2, 3.2 and 4.2 dS m-1. Each plot consisted of four plants. We evaluated the percentage of emergence, speed of emergence and at 46 days after sowing, plant height, stem diameter, leaf area, fresh and dry weight of shoot and root dry mass. The salinity of irrigation water affected only the stem diameter and fresh weight of shoots with decreases of 6.39 and 13.81%, respectively, per unit increase of ECw.


Sampling rate converter for performing a rate conversion of an incoming stream of data, clocked at a first frequency, and output at a second frequency; said converter comprising: a circuit (2) for up-sampling the incoming data stream; a filter (3) for filtering the up-sampled incoming data stream; an interpolation filter (4) for interpolating the filtered up-sampled incoming stream of data; a FIFO (5) for storing the interpolated filtered up-sampled incoming stream of data, said storing being performed at said first frequency and the reading of said FIFO being performed at said second frequency so as to output the stored data at a second corresponding rate; characterized in that it further comprises: a control block (10) comprising a numerically controlled oscillator (NCO) used for generating said first frequency, the control of said NCO being based on information representative of the status of said FIFO (5) and also information representative of the modulation of the data and ratio of sampling rate change.


Other than using blog title generator, here are the 10 creative ways on how we generate amazing content marketing ideas for blog post to drive more traffic.


The existence of the financial market equivalent of arbitrage conditions is proved,using risk-neutral probabili-ty,linear programming and dual linear programming.On the basis,a mathematical model is established to judge whether it has the arbitrage opportunity in the financial markets.Finally,using the method and real diagnosis datas,the existence of arbitrage in China's securities markets is also proved.


A new approach of unmixing with the subspace method is proposed and an experiment using hyperspectral image was conducted. In stead of using conventional statistical unmixing procedures which incorporate all channel data to perform unmixing, the proposed approach assigns subspace for each unmixing class. In this method, unmixing is calculated by the projection of observed pixel vector on the class subspaces. This method is more stable than conventional methods against noises and works effectively as a feature extraction and data reduction procedure at the same time. Owing to these advantages, this approach is suitable for the unmixing of hyper spectral image which has high correlation between channels. The performance of this method is tested by an experimented using a hyper spectral airborne casi image acquired over a wetland area. Unmixing of 7 wetland vegetation classes were calculated using least square, quadratic programming, orthogonal subspace projection and subspace method. Finally, the results of unmixing experiment were compared and evaluated for the use of wetland vegetation monitoring.


Pork prices can not effectively reflect the information of supply and demand for asymmetric price transmission,which distorts the resource allocation of the pig industry market and is the main reason of cyclical fluctuations in pork prices. This paper discusses the causes of asymmetry price transmission,economic entities' asymmetric information and the characteristics of vertical pork markets. The mechanism of asymmetric price transmission is generated the intrinsic existence of information asymmetry. Therefore,expanding the scale of pig farming and reducing associated links are the key to breaking the longitudinally asymmetric information,asymmetry price transmission and promoting the healthy development of the pig industry.


The itineraries of companies of the comm'edia dell' arte in Western Europe, from Bavaria in 1568 to Paris, London, and Madrid, are well documented;l That companies also travelled into Eastern Europe and Russia is only now coming to light. Yet companies, sometimes numbering as many as 35 persons, including singers and instrum~ntalists as well as players, spent decades between 1700 and 1756 at the royal courts of the Saxon kings in Dresden and Warsaw, at that time ,a united kingdom under King August II and his successor August III, and at the imperial courts in Moscow and St. Petersburg. K. M. Lea devoted a paragraph in her Italian Popular Comedy (1934, see footnote 23) to the commedia in Russia in the 1730's, associating it with the poet Trediakovski, whose surname she spells as though it were French (I, 159). Vito Pandolfì's monumental work 1 gives a brief account of " scenarii rappresentati alla corte dell'Imperatrice Anna Joannovna negli anni 1733-5." The printed collection of these, scenarii, published in 1917 by V. N. Perettz, consists of over 450 pages. Pandolfi also lists 17 scenarii performed in Warsaw between 1748 and 1754 (V., 373-5). Neither Lea nor Pandolfi made any attempt to estimate the reception and possible influence of the commedia on the later deve10pment of the Polish and Russian national theaters, when they were established in the 1760's. Sojoums of the comici in Russia during the earlyeighteenth century are passed over in silence in the standard histories of the Russian theater. There are, of course, non-literary reasons for this. The comici were cosmopolitan, patronized by royalty; they were not national or " popular." 8 Dzhigelov's book Italian Popular Comedy (Moscow, 1952) does not mention that the comici visited Russia. Until recent1y, a somewhat similar view prevailed in Poland. The literaturè of the eighteenth century was regarded by literary historians with hesitation as aristocratic or ignored in favor of mor'e proletatian writers. However, scholars (such


One of the key issues regarding PCR consumables performance (plates, stripes and respective sealing options) is their compatibility with several cycler systems available on the market. In this Application Note Eppendorf PCR/qPCR Consumables were tested on the main cycler brands and compared to consumable systems recommended by the cycler manufacturer. Physical thermo block compatibility (fitting) and PCR/qPCR assay param eters have been evaluated and these results show similar performance (sensitivity and efficiency) of Eppendorf consumables as compared to specific consumables of the competitor systems in most of the cycler platforms.


Read Books, United Kingdom, 2007. Paperback. Book Condition: New. 216 x 140 mm. Language: English . Brand New Book ***** Print on Demand *****.ELEMENTS OF ELECTRICITY BY ANTHONY ZELENY, PH. D. Professor of Physics, University of Minnesota SECOND EDITION FIFTH IMPRESSION McGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY, INC. NEW YORK AND LONDON 1935, BY THE McGRAW-HiLL BOOK COMPANY, PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION The treatment of the electromotive force impressed by a moving magnetic, field on a stationary conductor has been changed from that given in the first edition to one requiring the introduction of one more basic phenomenon which, however, is shown to be a consequence of relative motion. This treatment makes clear the distinction between the conservative and the non conservative electric fields and thereby also clarifies the picturing of electromagnetic pulses. The action of the thermocouple is treated at length and unusual clarity is believed to have, been attained by representing diagrammatically the magnitudes of the contributing Thomson and Peltier effects. The chapter on Alternating Currents has been enlarged, and capacitive circuits are now treated as fully as the inductive. The reciprocal relationship between electric and magnetic fields is fully developed. Practically every article is improved in some manner, the...


I. Specific Aims More than 25% of all mammals in the world are considered "threatened" with half of all species showing a downward trend in population and others considered extinct outside of captivity (International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) 2008 Red List of Threatened Species). This is true despite the numerous traditional conservation strategies that have been employed including captive breeding programs. One significant challenge in endangered species captive breeding programs is the limited number of individuals resulting in small gene pools and unsustainable populations. This situation is further exacerbated by the early deaths of animals, the inability to easily move individuals between zoological parks for breeding and incompatibility between potential mates. In this study, we introduce a novel approach to preserve genetic diversity by generating male germ cells (sperm) from skin fibroblast cells. We will use induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), cells closely resembling embryonic stem cells that can turn (or differentiate) into any cell type in the body including germ cells (GCs), to accomplish this goal. Our long term goal is to produce iPSC derived sperm and/or eggs capable of being easily stored and producing offspring. Once accomplished, this system can provide an important tool in breeding programs by:


Abstract In this paper, we proved a fixed point theorem for multi-valued non-self mappings in partial symmetric spaces. In doing so, we extended and generalized the results in literature by employing a convex structure for multi-valued non-self mappings using Rhoades type contractions. We also provided an illustrative example to support the results.


although a surrogate for ventricular dyssynchrony, is not predictive of acute and long-term response to CRT. The imprecision in the ability of surface QRS to predict response is explained by the complexity and multiple levels of electrical and mechanical dyssynchrony in the myopathic heart. This dyssynchrony can exist at numerous levels and can be inter-atrial, atrio-ventricular, inter-ventricular, intra-ventricular, or intramural. 6 Most studies have emphasized the importance of intra-Abstract Cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) has gained widespread acceptance as a safe and effective therapeutic strategy for congestive heart failure (CHF) refractory to optimal medical therapy. The use of implantable devices has substantially altered the natural history of systolic heart failure. These devices exert their physiological impact through ventricular remodeling, associated with a reduction in left ventricular (LV) volumes and an improvement in ejection fraction (EF). Several prospective randomized studies have shown that this in turn translates into long-term clinical benefits such as improved quality of life, increased functional capacity, and reduction in hospitalization for heart failure and overall mortality. Despite these obvious benefits, there remain more than a few unresolved concerns, the most important being that up to one-third of patients treated with CRT do not derive any detectable benefit. There are several determinants of successful delivery and response to CRT, including selecting the appropriate patient, patient-specific optimal LV pacing lead placement, and appropriate post-implant device care and follow-up. This article highlights the importance of collectively working on all of these aspects of CRT to enhance and maximize response.


This research aimed to find out the effectiveness of Flipped Classroom model to self efficacy and student concept mastery. This Research was conducted at SMAN in Bandar Lampung. The sample of this research was 22 students of X MIA1 as an experimental class and 21 students of X MIA2 as a control class. The research design used was Pretest-Posttest Control Group Design. Based on the result of self efficacy ANCOVA test with Fcount>Ftable  (15,28>4,09) and the result of concept mastery with Fcount>Ftable  (15,49>4,09),  it can be stated that  there are differences in mean of self efficacy and mastery of student concepts in the experimental class and control class which means that Flipped Classroom gives a significant impact to the self efficacy and student concept mastery. The conclusion of this research is Flipped Classroom learning model can improve self efficacy and ability to master student concept, this is indicated by the average difference of N-Gain self efficacy in experimental class 0.75 with high category and N-gain mastery of concept in experimental class 0,70 with high category.


Abstract This study applies a Geographical Information System to outdoor recreation management in an effort to find efficient management tools for social carrying capacity involving social variables such as displacement, conflict, crowding, and safety; and physical variable such as zone. These concerns include whether the relationships between social variables and physical variable exist or not; how social impact parameters can be used in GIS; and how GIS techniques can be applied to social carrying capacity. This study used dimensionless indicators to convert social data to spatially referenced data, namely, the Avoidant Zone Index (AZI), and visualization and spatial analyses. Identifying some problematic zones at Lake Mead needing further development of management strategies, authors found that there are relationships between social variables and the physical variable.


One of the important problems in learning mathematics is creative thinking. In some elementary or secondary schools, teachers still lack the facilitation of students to develop creative thinking skills. The solution to the problem is that it requires learning innovation to convey mathematical concepts so that students can practice and stimulate mathematical thinking skills. The objectives that have been studied are analyzing students' creative thinking abilities and dispositions through alternative solution worksheet learning. The disposition referred to in this study is a strong attitude of desire, awareness, interest, and sincerity in learning mathematics, as well as an appreciation of mathematics and applications in other fields. The research stages that have been carried out are designing learning activities through alternative solution worksheet learning to familiarize students with open-ended questions; give a test of the ability to think creatively, choose a research subject and provide a mathematical disposition questionnaire. The results of the research that had been carried out were students categorized as high-ability (33.33%), 10 students with moderate abilities (27.77%), and 14 low-ability students (38.88%). Learning that has used the Alternative Solution Worksheet approach makes students more active, more creative, independent, and more motivate.


We investigated the effect of fluorine-terminated diamond surface on the charged state of shallow nitrogen vacancy defect centers (NVs). Fluorination is achieved with CF4 plasma and the surface chemistry is confirmed with x-ray photoemission spectroscopy. Photoluminescence of these ensemble NVs reveal that fluorine-treated surfaces lead to a higher negatively charged nitrogen vacancy (NV-) population than oxygen-terminated surfaces. Using surface chemistry to control NV charges, in particular increasing the density of NV- centers, is an important step towards improving the optical and spin properties of NVs for quantum information processing and magnetic sensing.


Transnational organized crime is perhaps one of the most challenging threats to government institutions. Therefore, understanding the power dynamics between actors outside the law and the population of particular urban and rural sectors is one of the most critical national security and defense concerns. This article proposes the application of a series of concepts derived from theories of the natural sciences to underst and how, in some regions of Colombia, criminal activities have been perpetuated, which threaten the multidimensional security of the State, activities whose structure has, on some occasions, has supplanted the State in its functions.


Hypothesis / aims of study Over the last two decades, a prominent role of ATP in bladder sensation via the activation of purinergic receptors on sensory afferent neurons to regulate urinary bladder functions under normal and pathophysiological conditions has been established. A significant rise in stretch-induced ATP release from urothelium has been reported in patients with overactive bladder and interstitial cystitis [1]. Although in animal models, such as rat, mice and porcine, ATP release from the bladder has been demonstrated to occur via many different mechanisms, including connexin (Cx)43 and Cx45 hemichannels [2] and pannexin-1 and calcium homeostasis modulator 1 (CALHM1) channels [3], the cellular pathways responsible for ATP release from human bladder are still unknown. Characterising mechanisms involved in ATP release in the human bladder could be the first critical step to develop new therapeutics for disorders associated with increased ATP release. We, therefore, aimed to determine the involvement of pannexin1, CALHM1, Cx43 and Cx45 in regulating extracellular ATP signalling in human urothelial cells. We hypothesised that pannexin1 and CALHM1 channels and connexin hemichannels are ATP release channels in the human bladder and that bladder diseases are associated with abnormal expression and function of these channels.