II DECLARATION................................................................................................................................ III ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................. IV LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... VIII LIST OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................................... IX CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH PROBLEM ............................................... 1 1.1 The Basics of Agricultural Farming Activities ........................................................................... 3 1.1.1 Farming activities ........................................................................................................... 3 1.1.2 Methods of marketing to the agricultural community .................................................... 7 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................................... 9 2.1 Theory ....................................................................................................................................... 9 2.2 B2B Brand Image Dimensions ................................................................................................. 9 2.2.1 Brand equity ................................................................................................................... 9 2.2.2 Brand image ................................................................................................................. 12 2.3 Price Premium as an Indicator of Brand Strength.................................................................. 21 2.4 Agricultural Sector of South Africa.......................................................................................... 22 2.5 Summary ................................................................................................................................. 26 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH QUESTIONS ................................................................................27 3.1 P1: Brand familiarity has a strong impact on B2B consumers' willingness to pay a premium during the purchase of physical capital. ............................................................................................ 27 3.2 P2: Product solutions have a strong impact on B2B consumers' willingness to pay a premium during the purchase of physical capital. ............................................................................................ 27 3.3 P3: Service associations have a strong impact on B2B consumers' willingness to pay a premium during the purchase of physical capital. ............................................................................. 28 3.4 P4: Distribution attributes have a strong impact on B2B consumers' willingness to pay a premium during the purchase of physical capital. ............................................................................. 28 3.5 P5: Relationship between B2B and suppliers has a strong impact on B2B consumers' willingness to pay a premium during the purchase of physical capital. ............................................ 28 3.6 P6: The company association that is behind the product has a strong impact on B2B consumers' willingness to pay a premium during the purchase of physical capital. ........................ 29 CHAPTER 4: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND DESIGN ..............................................30 4.


Natural rubber is used as an important raw material by the pressure sensitive adhesives industry. However, the normal quality variation is relatively high compared to synthetic polymer alternatives. This paper discusses measurements of the magnitude and nature of this natural rubber quality variation using a special dynamic mechanical rheological tester. Also the paper discusses some of the causes of this variation and the new ASTM Standard (D7050) that describes how effective sorting can be implemented to improve product consistency Introduction More natural rubber is consumed annually than any single synthetic elastomer; yet the quality of this natural product is influenced by many special factors not associated with synthetic rubber production. For example, the Hevea tree clone from which the rubber latex is obtained and the age of the tree can affect natural rubber quality as well as the soil and climate conditions. Natural rubber molecular weight distribution can be bimodal or unimodal. Figure 1 shows three types of natural rubber distributions. Figure 1. Type A distribution is a skewed unimodal distribution. Type B is bimodal with the height of the lower MW peak at half or less of the higher MW peak while Type C distribution is distinctly bimodal with the height for the lower molecular weight peak almost equal to the height of the peak for the high molecular weight portion. Bimodal is reported as the most common distribution for latex. Also the magnitude of the molecular weight distribution (MWD) can vary greatly. The MW / MN ratio is reported to vary


A CAD-oriented circuit model for the optically-controlled GaAs MESFET was developed on the basis of a dedicated characterization method. By exploiting separation of direct and indirect photo-induced effects, a simple but accurate modeling of both the static and microwave characteristics of the illuminated transistor was achieved. As demonstrated by the test circuits implemented, good agreement between measured and simulated performances can thus be obtained with limited device parameter identification effort.


A carbon removal device with vibration detection and protection functions is connected to an engine to be decarbonized and comprises a gas output unit and a vibration detection unit. The gas output unit can output gas to the engine to be decarbonized. The vibration detection unit comprises a vibration detector capable of detecting vibration of the engine and a controller electrically connected with the vibration detector and the gas output unit. The vibration detector is used with the controller, and when the engine stops operating or operates abnormally, the gas output unit is controlled to stop outputting the gas; meanwhile, the problem of backfire or excessive pressure caused by excess accumulation of the gas is avoided, and engine carbon removal is more stable and safer.


The Introduction situates the fifteen chapters of the volume in the context of the sharp decline in Addison's cultural and literary reputation since the beginning of the twentieth century, seeking to outline ways in which this collection might help reverse that decline, or at least challenge the ideological prejudices and critical misapprehensions that block a rounded appreciation of Addison and his writings. It is in three sections, each concerned with one of the subgroupings into which the volume's chapters divide: first, the five chapters which treat Addison's most definitive works, The Tatler, The Spectator, and Cato; then the four which deal with his works (now largely neglected) in verse and prose before The Spectator; and finally the five which assess his reception and influence in Britain and Europe from the eighteenth century through Romanticism to the Victorian age. This collection of essays, the first ever published on Addison that covers his career as a whole (rather than just the literary periodicals), reminds us of the range and variety of his work and of the correspondingly diverse responses it has occasioned through the ages. In doing so, the Introduction argues, it should help loosen the hold of the narrower conception of Addison as moral exemplar and epitome of bourgeois civility, deriving from partial constructions of The Spectator and Cato, which once underpinned his fame but now drastically imperils it.


As introduced in the paper by Fricke et. al., given a graph G = (V, E), the γ-graph G(γ) = (V(γ), E(γ)) is the graph whose vertex set corresponds 1-to-1 with the γ-sets, or minimum-cardinality domi...


There are insights to be gained from the examination of innovation processes conducted by entrepreneurs in low and medium technology (LMT) sectors such as agricultural production. The research question addressed in this paper is: How can agricultural entrepreneurs innovate with largely undifferentiated and low-margin products? The research objective is to better understand the emerging articulation of factors regarding competencies and capabilities agricultural production entrepreneurs can mobilise to innovate in LMT. The syntax of qualitative system dynamics (QSD) is used to present a dynamic hypothesis of competence and capability development by agricultural entrepreneurs. The contribution is an analysis of the underlying feedback loop structure in support of knowledge management practice in LMT product, characteristic and process innovation by agricultural entrepreneurs, and could generally be useful to understand innovation management in other LMT sectors more generally.


The present invention relates to a quality evaluation unit of the Viterbi decoded data using zero-state pyeonggaryang invention are four hypothesized rate for the demodulated data input words, each of the zero-state for the 9600bps, 4800bps, 2400bps, 1200bps the Viterbi decoding unit for outputting pyeonggaryang; a register for storing a state pyeonggaryang each zero output from the Viterbi decoder; And quality of the Viterbi decoded data, and evaluates when a zero-zero state pyeonggaryang to lead the state pyeonggaryang zero stored in the register for optimum quality, determines a hypothesized rate of zero state pyeonggaryang the low end to the actual transmission rate and means. Therefore, according to the present invention, as described above, by using the zero-state pyeonggaryang for the demodulated data input to the Viterbi decoder as quality parameters, the quality assessment is an accurate and, in the conventional technique of using a bit error rate as quality parameter It has the effect of reducing the rate decision error compared to.


Aimming at the present aero-engine test system is only applicable to specific engine,an universal aero-engine test software is designed.Frame construction of test software is built by universal experimental model.The experimentel model is introduced,a specific model is set up for a specific test with wide variety of capabilities,which provides diverse solutions that meets the demands of the engine test community and multiple engine type.The design of modularization enhances the program with more flexibility and expandability.The practical application shows that the software can run steadily,is convenient to operate,and is able to achieve the prime purpose.


AbstractThe study utilized geomorphic and structural geology analysis integrated analysis to understand the effect of West Qurna Oil Field (or West Qurna Structure) on the part of Euphrates river route, whether it's related to neotectonic activity or it's a natural phenomenon. The Euphrates River Drainage Basin is located in the northern part of the Basra governorate in the south of the Mesopotamian Basin. The channel of the river is mostly straight and characterized by large loops. The channel sinuosity of this river system is analyzed in order to draw conclusions on the neotectonic activity of the region. The original status of the river thalweg was digitized from recent satellite images using the new Landsat 8 Scenes. Sinuosities at different sample section lengths were computed in a GIS software environment ArcGIS 10, providing so-called 'sinuosity spectra' for each point of the analyzed using a moving-window method and different window sizes channels. High sinuosity sections were correlated to geological subsurface structures of West Qurna Oil Field identified, indicating their neotectonic activity. A structural analysis (geometric and genetic analyses) performed to identify its type, origin and to find its relevance to main regional tectonic events. The geometric analysis detect that the bending fold mechanism (vertical force) could responsible about form West Qurna oil. Thus, thinning feature associated with West Qurna Oil Field. This mechanism could be connected with growth of salt structure of Hormuz Salt below it as confirmed by negative residual anomaly associated with West Qurna Oil Field.


Arc firing is one of the most popular combustion technologies used with boilers in Chinese large power plants burning low volatile fuels. At present, the generic problems met with in operating Chinese utility boilers with arc-firing are: too high a furnace temperature, furnaces slagging heavily or with such a tendency, high NO_x emission, superheaters overheated or troubled by steam temperature deviations, low combustion efficiency in case of firing anthracite, as well as unstable combustion to be observed under certain conditions. The above-mentioned problems are being optimized and analyzed in detail, which show that the fundamental cause lies in the want of a low NO_x burner with stable ignition and good combustion properties for burning anthracite and semi- anthracite coal. Measures for solving these problems are discussed out. Using the Multi-Enrichment Burner (MEB) developed by Tsinghua University as an example, the feasibility of improving combustion conditions in boilers with arc firing by using the impellerless burners with superior combustion stabilizing properties is taken into consideration. Figs 3, tables 2 and refs 16.


This article provides a descriptive analysis of how methodological factors contribute to the accuracy of customer churn predictive models. The study is based on a tournament in which both academics and practitioners downloaded data from a publicly available Web site, estimated a model, and made predictions on two validation databases. The results suggest several important findings. First, methods do matter. The differences observed in predictive accuracy across submissions could change the profitability of a churn management campaign by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Second, models have staying power. They suffer very little decrease in performance if they are used to predict churn for a database compiled three months after the calibration data. Third, researchers use a variety of modeling "approaches," characterized by variables such as estimation technique, variable selection procedure, number of variables included, and time allocated to steps in the model-building process. The authors find important differences in performance among these approaches and discuss implications for both researchers and practitioners.


The mixing performance of Dulmage screw was studied experimentally and numerically. In the experiment, Low density polyethylene and red colored mastebatch were mixed and extruded by using Dulmage screw or Full Flight screw. And then, the degree of color uniformity was measured on the cross-section of the extrudate. The masterbatch was distributed more uniformly on the cross-section of Dulmage screw than that of Full Flight screw. The degree of color uniformity for Dulmage screw was about two times higher than that for Full Flight screw. In the numerical analysis, the flow pattern of the masterbatch in the screw channel of Dulmage screw was visualized by means of particle tracking technique. The degree of the distribution of the masterbatch was quantified as the information entropy. The information entropy at the outlet of the screw changed periodically with the screw rotation speed. Furthermore, the masterbatch circulated between the screw surface and the barrel surface in the fin section, consequently the degree of the distribution of the masterbatch changed periodically. In case the masterbatch was distributed uniformly along the channel depth at the outlet of the fin section, the information entropy at the outlet of the screw became high. The result shows the mixing performance of Dulmage screw strongly related to the degree of the distribution of the masterbatch at the outlet of the fin section.


Minimally invasive Mitral Valve Procedures. While remaining a demanding surgical procedure following a learning curve, right anterior minithoracotomy has been established as the most popular access for minimal invasive mitral valve surgery. In comparison to median sternotomy increased time of operation, cardiopulmonary bypass and aortic cross-clamping is accepted in exchange for a smaller skin incision. Reported perioperative rates of complication and mortality are similar in both methods as well as long-term outcome concerning residual mitral regurgitation and need for re-operation. Combining excellent operative quality with an improved cosmetic result, which can be essential for female and younger patients, right anterior minithoracotomy provides satisfaction on both, surgeons' and patients', sides. J Kardiol 2016; 23 (9–10): 230–3.


In the intake valve phase control after an engine stop command is issued, the stop-time phase is used as the target value. In the intake valve phase control, when the mode changeover condition is not satisfied (''NO'' in S 130), and an electric motor that serves as an actuator is not in the locked-state (''NO'' in S 160), the highest-speed mode, in which the amount of electric power supplied to the electric motor is fixed to the maximum value, is selected in order to reliably change the intake valve phase by a required amount (SI 80). Then, the intake valve phase comes close to the stop-time phase and the mode changeover condition is satisfied (''YES'' in S 130), the control mode is changed from the highest-speed mode to the normal mode in order to set the control phase to the stop-time phase with higher accuracy (S 150), and the feedback control over the intake valve phase is executed.


Membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology has been proven as a single step process to treat wastewater and produces an excellent effluent quality capable for reuse. The membrane products available for MBR technologies reveals that almost all immersed membrane bioreactors are either rectangular FS or HF and that most sidestream membrane bioreactor technologies are MT. Some of the products in immersed techniques have been reviewed in this paper, such as Kubota and Huber for FS immersed techniques, and Zenon and PURON® membrane system for HF immersed technologies, Berghof and Norit X-Flow membrane for MT sidestream immersed technologies. There are also other products have been used as immersed technologies in wastewater treatment, such as NOVHIDRO rings and ceramic membranes.


Objective To prepare purify and characterize the polyclonal antibody against STEAP4.Methods The antigen epitopes of STEAP4 and its immunogenicity were analyzed and predicted by DNAStar software.A N-terminal partial peptide of STEAP4 was synthesized and coupled with bovine serum albumin (BSA).The conjugate was used to immunize New Zealand rabbits.The sensitivity and specificity of polyclonal antibody against STEAP4 were conformed by ELISA,Western blot and immunohistochemistry.Results The titer of the polyclonal antibody STEAP4 was 16 000.Western blot confirmed its high specificity.It could be used for immunohistochemistry analysis.Western blot results showed that the antibody could recognize the protein with molecular weight of 52 000.Adipose tissue specimens of paraffin sections were used with the antibody for the detection.STEAP4 protein expression was found in the fat cell membrane.These results were consistent with analysis of bioinformatics.Conclusions The prepared polyclonal antibody against STEAP4 had been prepared,which could be used to Western blot and immunohistochemistry,which will be helpful to the further study of STEAP4.


A group topology is said to be linear if open subgroups form a base of neighborhoods of the identity element. It is proved that the existence of a nondiscrete extremally disconnected group of Ulam nonmeasurable cardinality with linear topology implies that of a nondiscrete extremally disconnected group of cardinality at most 2ω with linear topology. A topological space X is said to be extremally disconnected if the closure of any open set in X is open. Extremally disconnected spaces have the following obvious properties: (1) Any two disjoint open sets in an extremally disconnected space have disjoint closures. (2) Any open subset of an extremally disconnected space is extremally disconnected. (3) The image of an extremally disconnected space under an open continuous map is extremally disconnected (this follows from the observation that, for any open continuous map f : X → Y and any A ⊂ Y , we have A = f(f(A))). Yet another, not so obvious, property is the following theorem of Isbell [1]: (4) A nondiscrete extremally space of Ulam nonmeasurable cardinality cannot be a P -space, i.e., must contain a nonopen Gδ set. (Recall that a cardinal κ is Ulam measurable if it carries a σ-complete (i.e., closed under countable intersections) nonprincipal ultrafilter on κ. The least Ulam measurable cardinal is measurable, so the nonexistence of Ulam measurable cardinals is consistent with ZFC, while the consistency of their existence cannot be derived from ZFC.) The problem of the existence in ZFC of a nondiscrete extremally disconnected group [2] is still unsolved. However, it is known that the nonexistence of a countable nondiscrete extremally disconnected group is consistent with ZFC [3]. In this note, we prove that if there exists an extremally disconnected group of Ulam nonmeasurable cardinality which contains a countable family of open subgroups with nonopen intersection, then there 2020 Mathematics Subject Classification. 54H11, 54G05, 03E35.


The development of science and technology makes the distance becomes closer, changes in information systems from offline to online also have an impact on education, His dilemma all the information can be obtained, regardless of valuable science even garbage too also exist. Because everyone can enter information into this virtual world. Teachers/Lecturers/Instructors as a source of knowledge are required to be technologically literate, ready or unprepared they should be able to adapt to online learning because of the times demanding so. In order for learning does not produce the science of teaching abysmal then teachers/lecturers/instructors are required to develop learning instruments before implementing online learning. So like a science then it takes someone to take knowledge from the teacher is to see the morality of the teacher, how to deliver a good, and shorten the way in seeking knowledge even from online learning.


In this article, the reasons generally used for the defense of democracy will be subjected to critical analysis, as a way of studying its various possible systems, their foundations, theoretical assumptions and results. This will demonstrate the substantial, epistemic and institutional advantages of deliberative models over other democratic alternatives.


Part 1 Autonomous women and visionary politics: the first wave personal politics the General Austrian Women's Association practical politics - the activities of the General Austrian Women's Association equal but different - the League of Austrian Women's Associations the feminist fringe coda - 1914-18. Part 2 Philosophers of feminism: autonomous feminism and feminist theory a champion of reason - Irma von Troll-Borostyani the synthetic ideal - Rosa Mayreder eugenics and feminism - Grete Meisel Hess political feminism and spiritual feminism. Part 3 The feminist imagination: feminist aesthetics and imaginative literature moral feminism psychological feminism the visionary imagination conclusion - the legacy of visionary imagination.


The paper firstly gave a brief introduction of automatic monitoring system and Georobot products well-known at home and abroad,and described the importance of Georobot in contemporary automatic deformation monitoring.By analyzing the automation workflow of Georobot,it secondly definited a common type of Georobot.Then,it introduced different coordinate types mentioned in the development of Georobot automatic Monitoring software.Finally,the paper took TOPCON's GTS901A GeoRobot as an example,instantiated the common georobot type,got GTS901A GeoRobt object,developed GeoRobot Online Automatic Deformation Monitoring(GROADM) software,and completed the field test.


In many practical computer engineering projects, will use the ID as a unique identifier. Many methods to generate ID, but it is not easy to choose a cost-effective solution. Through the improved ID method to generate common defects, ID manufacturing is to build a high performance and low cost, for rapid generation of distributed only under the environment of ID.


During the harvests of 2009 and 2010, 163 musts were obtained from grape samples collected in eight islands of the Archipelago of the Azores. The sampling plan included traditional and hybrid grape varieties from vineyards in appellations of origin and abandoned vineyards. In 2009, 2640 yeast isolates were obtained from the initial stage of fermentation, belonging to more than 20 species. Differences between most representative yeast species were apparent between islands, grape varieties, and the kind of vineyard. From the final fermentative stages, a total of 2850 isolates were obtained (1470 and 1380 in 2009 and 2010, respectively), whereas 1770 isolates were assigned to the species Saccharomyces cerevisiae. These isolates were classified in 275 strains (168 in 2009 and 107 in 2010). The percentage of S. cerevisiae and the number of strains per fermentation showed differences between islands, type of vineyard and sampling year.


We consider the problem of stabilizing flexibly jointed robotic manipulators via simple linear state feedback controllers. The proposed controllers guarantee exponential stability on bounded sets: given any bounded subset of the state space, there exists a controller such that this set is a region of attraction for exponential stability. No restriction is imposed on the stiffness of the joints; joints of arbitrary flexibility are permitted. Global exponential convergence is guaranteed for systems with constant inertia matrix.


The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of a pretreatment with insulin on ovarian and fertility response in true anestrous buffaloes with to gonadotrophin-releasing hormone (GnRH). Eighteen buffaloes with inactive ovaries were randomly allocated into three groups: Group-I treated with GnRH (G1, n=6) where each buffalo received an intramuscular injection of 20 μg of Buseralin acetate (Day 0); Group-II treated with insulin plus GnRH (G2, n=6) in which each buffalo received a subcutaneous injection of long acting bovine insulin at the dose rate of 0.25 IU/ kg bodyweight once daily for 3 consecutive days, followed by an intramuscular injection of 20 μg of Buseralin acetate on Day 4 ; and the control group (G3, n=6) in which each buffalo given an intramuscular injection of 2.5 ml of sterile saline on Day 0. In response to the treatment, estrus was 33.33% and 66.66% of the animals within 9.5±3.18 and 26.5±6.61 days from the start of the treatment, respectively, in G-1 and G-2; however, estrus was induced in none of the control animals. The conception rate at induced estrus was 100% in both the treatment groups. The mean serum progesterone (P 4 ) concentration was less than 1 ng/ml on day before the start of treatment, day 7, and 14 following the start of treatment in all


The article considers the trends in the development of diplomatic processes and trade and economic relations in the countries of Central Asia in the context of the Great Silk Road. Besides, the importance of the Great Silk Road in establishing and maintaining diplomatic relations between the centers of political life, the major states of Europe and Asia was invaluable was investigated.
KEYWORDS: Great Silk Road, diplomatic relations, communication, trade, embassy, civilization, trade.


The present paper compares the tea crop in Kenya and China from plant genetic improvement perspective with the associated plant improvement factors. Comparison is made for ecological production conditions noting the vast area lying under different environmental conditions for China that are suitable for growing of the different varieties of tea to the limited choice of conditions in Kenya. China has both subtropical and temperate conditions in both elevated and low altitude areas in which tea is conditioned to grow unlike Kenya that grows its tea specifically in cool high altitude areas that have high and well-disiributed rainfall. Tea is noted to have originated in China and has been under cultivation in that country for thousands of years. Historical development and climatic conditions in the respective countries is noted to have been key in determining the choice in the selection and adaptation of the different varieties within different regions and between the two countries. However, producer preferences, and "tradition" of tea growing and ecological conditions are the main conservative limitation to the range of varieties exploited in Kenya. With historical initial source of planting material and proximity to India, the subtropical China varieties have had remote influence on choice of the types and varieties widely grown in Kenya. With evolution of the crop in Kenya, and challenges to the crop being manifested, lessons and experiences need revisiting. An overview of the crop challenges and management structure of the industry are presented Possible lessons and opportunities for exploitation in genetic improvement of the crop are summarized. The paper is presented with the objective of providing a forum on which the two countries can examine opportunities on which information is shared for technological and biological advancement of the tea crop.


Let G be a solvable Lie group. Let $\chi$ be a character on G with values in $\mathbb R$. Let $\mathfrak B$ be a Banach space on which G is made to act by bounded operators, with the equality $\Vert gb\Vert=\chi(g)\Vert b\Vert$ satisfied for all $g\in G$ and $b\in\mathfrak B$. A criterion is given on the pair $(G,\chi)$ for the cohomology group $H^1(G,\mathfrak B)$ to vanish. Using this criterion, we classify up to Cr conjugacy all the volume-preserving locally free Cr actions of G on closed manifolds with dimension $\dim(G)+1$, for G belonging to a wide class of solvable Lie groups.


This article argues that thinking about entrepreneurship as a potential instrument for relief from endemic poverty and disadvantage, especially among the Indigenous, has all too often been captive to a concept of entrepreneurship that is built out of constrained economic and cultural assumptions. The authors develop this argument from a critical discussion of contributions by Karl Polanyi and Robert Heilbroner. The result is that approaches to venture have been encouraged that are sometimes a poor fit for the circumstances of those they are meant to benefit, and other forms that could have considerable promise have gone unexplored. This article outlines some features of Indigenous culture and build on the analysis of David Harper to construct an improved notion of entrepreneurship that allows for these distinctive features. The article concludes that research and policy making concerning entrepreneurship as an instrument of development among the Indigenous need to be undertaken with this reconstructed understanding of entrepreneurship that is a better fit for the realities of Indigenous culture.


This project is a follow-up to and an expansion of, an earlier report, Juvenile and Young Adult Firearm Use in South Carolina. There were two sets of objectives for the original project. The first involved determining the extent to which firearms are involved in violent crimes committed by children and young adults, identifying key characteristics of those arrested for committing these crimes, identifying who was being victimized by these crimes, and discovering under what circumstances these crimes were being committed. The second set of objectives involved learning more about what motivates children to possess firearms in the first place, how they manage to acquire firearms, and what factors are associated with the decision to use or possess firearms. The purpose of this report is to expand upon the first set of objectives and to reanalyze the findings of the second set, with the goal of achieving a higher degree of confidence in the self-reported data.


The cotton whitefly, Bemisia tabaci (Genn.) a serious pest of cotton in the Sudan, it's incidence arised following the use of chemical insecticides (D.D.T.) to control its competitor the jassid insect (Empoasca lybica). The hirsutum (American types) cotton varieties were noted more attractive to white flies than the barbadence (Egyptian types). Hairiness characteristic of American types was proved the factor causing this attraction. The present work which was conducted in the Faculty of Agriculture (Shambat) was an attempt to ascertain this aspect. Two varieties (Hirsutum types) namely Acala (93) H and Barac (67) B were selected for this study. Results obtained indicated that the variation Acala (93) H was found to harbor more whiteflies, it showed the highest hair density and longer hair than the variety Barac (67) B. Also during this study it was noted that the youngest leaves at the top of the plant on both cultivars always had the highest numbers of Bemisia tabaci, presence.


The present study aimed to use a comprehensive approach for evaluating 12 factors related to embryo quality (shape, size and transparency), donors (age, ET type, number of recovered embryos and day of uterine flushing), recipients (age), males (age and individual variations), and environment (season and year) which could affect the outcome of ET in terms of pregnancy (PR) and pregnancy losses in dromedary camels. During three breeding seasons, 116 donors females were mated repeatedly at 12 to 14-day intervals by fertile camel males (n=33) without stimulation of the ovaries (WSPO). Superovulation (SPO ET) regimen was applied for each donor female twice or thrice per season. In the occasions of applying superovulation regimen, donor females having an ovulatory follicle were mated instead of GnRH administration and superovulation regimen was applied 4 days post-mating (MIX ET). The uteri of all donor females were flushed at Day 8 or 9 post-mating and a total of 2095 embryos were recovered and transferred individually to 924 recipient females. Pregnancy diagnoses were conducted at Day 10 after ET (Days 18 to 19 of gestation) by using progesterone assay and by transrectal ultrasonography (TRU) at Days 30 and 60 of gestation. By using logistic regression analysis, transparency of embryos and age of recipient females had significant effects on PR at Days 18 to 19 (P< 0.01), 30 (P < 0.01) and 60 (P < 0.01; P < 0.05, respectively) of gestation. The shape of embryos had significant effects on the PR at Days 30 (P < 0.05) and 60 (P < 0.01) of gestation. Type of ET and the breeding season (year) had significant (P< 0.05) effects on the PR at Day 30, while day of flushing had the same effect on PR at Day 60. Regarding the pregnancy losses, transparency and shape of the embryo, type of ET, breeding season had significant (P<0.05) effect on the late embryonic mortalities (LEM) and shape and season of year had significant (P<0.01 and P< 0.05, respectively) effect on LEM/early fetal mortalities (EFM). Regarding male individual factor, there was a tendency for a significant (P =0.055) effect of camel males on the PR at Days 18 to 19 and rate of LEM. In conclusion, transferring a spherical, transparent or a large-sized embryo (> 750 µm) into recipient females aging between 8 and 11 y could greatly improve the PR from Days 18 to 60 of gestation. Also, embryo recovered from donor females with Mix ET type or embryos sired by certain camel male or at Day 8 post mating of the donor could improve the two-month PR. In addition, transferring a transparent or spherical-shaped embryo or embryos recovered from donor females with SPO or Mix ET could reduce the pregnancy losses during the first two months of pregnancy.


Gallic acid (GA) is a natural antioxidant, which scavenges free radicals and protects against oxidative damage. This study was done to examine the effects of gallic acid in myocardial dysfunctions associated with diabetes. Diabetes mellitus type 1 (DMT1) was induced by a single intraperitoneal dose of streptozotocin (STZ, 45 mg/kg). As a result of induction of diabetes, the level of serum glucose, glycated hemoglobin (HbA-1c), homastatic-insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), troponin-T, lipid profiles, as well as the activity of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and creatine kinase-muscle bone (CK-MB) were increased. On the other hand, insulin and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels were decreased. In addition, the diabetic rats exhibited marked trend for increased malondialdehyde (MDA), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), interlukin-1β (IL-1β), interlukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) levels, accompanied with decreased reduced glutathione (GSH) content, superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) activities in the heart tissues. Furthermore, an increase in P53, Bax and caspase-9 in the heart tissues of diabetic rats was recorded, as well as a decline in Bcl2 level. On the other hand, diabetic rats which treated with GA orally at a dose of 25 mg/kg daily for 8 weeks, showed amelioration and improvement in the most tested parameters. The current results suggest that GA owns strong therapeutic potential in treating and regulating diabetes and attenuating its associated complications in the heart.


Issued in 1986, the Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) Specification is only now gaining a foothold in the design community. LRFD is based on an ultimate strength and reliability approach and is a more rational design procedure. The safety factors are comprised of load factors and strength reduction factors for different loadings, while the ASD (Allowable Stress Design) method uses a safety factor on the yield stress value to obtain an allowable stress. Examination shows that when design is based solely on strength considerations, LRFD is considerably more economical than ASD for office floor beams spanning 30 feet to 46 feet. A study is reported in which serviceability issues were investigated. The study results are tabulated. It was found that using LRFD results in beam sizes that are one or two sizes lighter than those obtained using ASD. Study results relating to dead-to-live-load ratios, load deflections, and vibration problems are discussed.


Given data in the form of a collection of (x,y) pairs of real numbers, the symbolic function identification problem is to find a functional model of the form y = f(x) that fits the data. This paper describes a system for solution of symbolic function identification problems that combines a genetic algorithm and the Levenberg-Marquardt nonlinear regression algorithm. The genetic algorithm uses an expression-tree representation rather than the more usual binary-string representation. Experiments were run with data generated using a wide variety of function models. The system was able to find a function model that closely approximated the data with a very high success rate. This is the abstract of Mingda Jiang's M.S. thesis done under direction of Alden Wright. Versions have already been presented at two conferences and will appear in the proceedings of those conferences: 1. "A Hierarchical Genetic System for Symbolic Function Identifications", Proceedings of the 24th Symposium on the Interface: Computing Science and Statistics, College Station, Texas, March 1992 2. "An Adaptive Function Identification System", Proceedings of the IEEE/ACM Int'l Conference on Developing and Managing Intelligent System Projects, Vienna, Virginia, March 1993


Grid technology brings about a lot of innovative ideas and technologies for the development of Decision Support System. The existence of description languages, semantics, service publishing methods and Grid middleware have up to now enabled interoperability between decision resources available across the Grid environment. However, there is an emerging need for the ability to dynamically discover how available services, resources and data could be utilized not only to process a task, but to achieve the desired outcome in the most suitable manner. In this paper, we investigates the emerging need for Grid workflow to aid decision support on the Grid and proposes a Grid workflow scheduling system that is a Petri net-based graph model and incorporates a reasoning system designed to perform such a task.


In this paper the influence of hangover and hangbefore criteria on automatic speech recognition is presented. Voice activity detection (VAD) algorithm is nowadays almost always part of automatic speech recognition systems. Hangover and hangbefore criteria can be integrated into VAD algorithm after basic VAD decision. Hangover and hangbefore criteria can improve speech recognition results. However, there is a question, how many frames should be taken for hangover and hangbefore criteria. The duration of vowels, diphthongs and semivowels is important to define how many frames must be detected as speech, so that we can decide if hangover and hangbefore criteria will be used at all. The frames of consonants have low spectral energy. Especially energy of unvoiced fricatives, unvoiced stops and nasals is very low. First, these frames are detected as silence. However, with hangover and hangbefore criteria they are again considered as speech. Speech recognition experiments show that hangover and hangbefore criteria can improve speech recognition results. Speech recognition experiments also show that hangbefore criterion has a more important role in speech recognition than hangover criterion.


The leucocytozoids of the Muscicapidae sensu latu are reviewed and Leucocytozoon phylbscopus of the Sylviinae, L. liothricis of the Timaliinae, L. dubreuili, L. mcclurei and L. shaartusicum of the Turdinae are redescribed. Leucocytozoon francai, L. gbvannolia and L. mirandae are declared synonyms of L. dubreuili. Leucocytozoon timaliae n. sp. is described from a South African babbler.


The design, surgical insertion and results of a plastic draining implant for severe glaucoma are reported. The need for pharmacological control of bleb inflammation is stressed and the favourable long-term outlook for patients with such implants is discussed.


The objective of this study was to present economic-financial projections of Sport Club Internacional (SCI). To this end, two different projections were made in the income statement (IS) and in the Balance Sheet (BS) of the Club, thus creating two scenarios where in one, the club stays in Series "B" and another in Serie "A" of the championship Brazilian (Brasileirão). Through this study it was possible to address the revenue of the football club, which highlights the revenue of televised games, identifying the results of the club and its variations.


We study how psychosocial stress affects willingness to compete and performance under tournament incentives across gender. We use a laboratory economic experiment in which a task is compensated under both tournament and piece-rate schemes and elicit subjects' willingness to compete. Stress is exogenously introduced through a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test, and stress response is measured by salivary cortisol levels. We find that stress reduces willingness to compete. For female subjects, this can be explained by performance: while tournament incentives increase output in the control group, women in the stress treatment actually perform worse when competition is introduced. For males, output is not affected by the stress treatment and lower competitiveness seems to be preference-based. These results may explain previous findings that men and women react differently to tournament incentives in experiments, as well as gender gaps on the labor market, since many key career events involve competition in stressful settings (e.g. entrance exams or job interviews). JEL codes: C9, D04, J15


PATHETIC POLITICS: AN ANALYSIS OF EMOTION AND EMBODIMENT IN FIRST LADY RHETORIC by STEPHANIE L. WIDEMAN May 2017 Advisor: Dr. James L. Cherney Major: Communication Degree: Doctor of Philosophy This dissertation explores the theoretical and practical relationship between our understandings of emotion's role in political decision-making. In this pursuit I seek a resurrection for pathos's legitimacy in rhetorical studies through the pursuit of the pathetic political realm. This work has three primary concerns: how may pathetic power be accessed, from where does this power originate, and how might political actors enact this power for their own political goals. I draw primarily from theories related to visual rhetoric and the body in order to provide perspective on how the body is politicized through the pathetic realm. As a site for analysis I look to Michelle Obama's time in the Office of the First Lady. Theoretical perspectives are drawn from a range of scholars including Aristotle, Robert Hariman, and Susan Bordo to extricate the positioning of the body within American politics.


Introduction: The growth and cellular immune function of human immunodeficiency virus infected children is impaired by their nutritional status. Most of them experience nutrition deficits and malnutrition, but a longer follow-up metabolic syndrome has been described. The aim of the study was to assess the nutritional status, physical activity, and quality of life in human immunodeficiency virus infected children and adolescents. Methods: Cross-sectional study with a sample of 31 human immunodeficiency virus infected patients assessed based on anthropometry: weight, height, body mass index, triceps skinfolds, and mid-upper arm circumference. Body composition obtained by electrical bioimpedance and expressed as fat mass and lean body mass, dietary intake through recall 24-hour, physical activity through a Baecke questionnaire of habitual physical activity and health-related quality of life through Kidscreen-27. Results: Z -scores of body mass index revealed 25% overweight and 7.1% obese. Dietary intake of critical vitamins, nutrients, minerals, sugar, and energy do not correspond to dietary reference intakes. The Baecke questionnaire of habitual physical activity demonstrated that the physical activity of males is higher than females. The differences by gender were found in physical well-being ( p < 0.05) and psychological well-being ( p < 0.05), with males being associated with better well-being, they also presented higher physical and psychological well-being, autonomy and parent relation, and social support and peers. Higher body mass index z -score values were associated with lower values of resistance, reactance, fiber intake, and physical well-being. Discussion: Patients presented an unbalanced dietary intake. However, most were eutrophic. The subjects follow the trends of healthy children concerning physical activity, the same is not seen about health-related quality of life.


We present some methods for improving the performance a system capable of automatically identifying audio titles by listening to broadcast radio. We outline how the techniques, placed in an identification system, allow us detect and isolate songs embedded in hours of unlabelled audio yielding over a 91% rate of recognition of the songs and no false alarms. The whole system is also able of working real-time in an off-the-shelf computer.


Background: Dengue fever is currently regarded globally as one of the most important mosquito-borne viral diseases. Children suffering from dengue fever shows a large variation in clinical features and laboratory parameters.   This study was focused to evaluate the clinical presentation, associated laboratory and radiological profiles that may be useful to diagnose dengue fever.Methods: Prospective observational study including 500 children with serological positive dengue fever admitted in a tertiary care hospital in South India.Results: In this study mean age of presentation of children with dengue fever was 8.4±1.2 years with male predominance. The incidence of children presenting with DF, DHF and DSS was 61%, 23% and 16% respectively. The most common symptom was fever in 100% patients followed by vomiting in 69%, abdominal pain in 64.2%, bleeding manifestations in 43% and periorbital pain in 28.8% of patients. The NS1 was positive in 39.2% cases, dengue IgM in 29% of cases and IgG positive in 30.4% cases. By ultrasonography it was observed that 34% of patients had ascites, 28% with pericholecystic edema, 12% with bilateral pleural effusion, 10% with right sided Pleural effusion and hepatomegaly and 5% with splenomegaly. The most common cause of death was cardiorespiratory arrest secondary to DIC.Conclusions: Detection of Ns1 antigen to diagnose dengue is proposed to be superior when compared to antibodies detection. It is also concluded that diagnosis of dengue should be made comprehensively by clinical examination with supporting laboratory and radiological investigations.


A Herpes Consensus allows the simultaneous detection of 6 human herpesviruses: herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV‐1) and type 2 (HSV‐2), human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), varicella‐zoster virus (VZV), Epstein‐Barr virus (EBV), and human herpes virus 6 (HHV‐6). This technique was used first to examine retrospectively 100 DNA extracts from 95 CSF and 5 aqueous fluids, prepared by treatment by saturated NaCl followed by ethanol precipitation (n = 63) or by simple boiling (n = 37) and stored at −80°C, and secondly to test prospectively 38 CSF samples for which two DNA extracts were prepared with commercially available DNA extraction kits. In all cases, the results were compared with those of an "in‐house" PCR. Concordant results between both PCR and the Herpes Consensus techniques were obtained in 61 of 63 DNA extracts prepared by treatment by saturated NaCl (97%) and in only 31 of 37 boiled samples (84%). Both commercially available methods of DNA extraction examined appear to be suitable for Herpes Consensus PCR, although they cannot remove completely PCR inhibitors that must be sought in case of negative results. This preliminary study shows that the Herpes Consensus method should be of value for rapid diagnosis of herpesvirus infections on condition that it is performed on purified DNA extracts. J. Med. Virol. 62:349–353, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


Hysterectomy is one of the most common non-obstetric surgical procedures performed on women. Little is known about the factors affecting decision making process regarding hysterectomy in Malaysia. The study aimed to explore factors affecting women decision regarding hysterectomy among Malaysian women. This study has enrolled 100 women eligible for hysterectomy in the department of general gynecology ward in the university of Malaya hospital, Malaysia. A structured questionnaire was administered by interview. Descriptive analysis was used to obtain the frequencies. Chi square test and simple logistic regression test were performed to assess the association between variables. The majority of participants aged 41-50 years (52%) and married (74%). Twenty seven out of 100 participants made their decision on the operation within one month while 73 women decided after one month. Some complications were only known by the minority of patients such as injury to ureter (47%), injury to nerve (8%), incision hernia (18%), vault prolapse (21 %), and deep vein thrombosis (43%). Most of women delay their decision on the surgery (73%). Factors associated significantly with decision were ethnicity, religion, knowledge on complication, discussion with spouse and doctor.. Cultural factors, opinion of husband and doctors and knowledge of the complication play an important role in the decision of women. It is important to provide suitable information and social support for patients to help them in their decision-making. Participation and support from spouses and doctors should also be encouraged.


The comprehensive meta-analysis reported by Nathan et al. (1) used comparable methods and produced results similar to those in our recent meta-analysis (2), which dealt with the same group of patients and clinical trials. Despite these similarities, the authors of the two studies reached different conclusions. Nathan et al. concluded that the data did not support the routine use of autologous bone marrow transplantation (ABMT) in adult acute myeloid leukemia patients in first complete remission. Indeed, Nathan et al. concluded that their data supported the use of non-myeloablative chemotherapy for patients who do not have a matched sibling donor because there was no statistically significant difference in overall survival between the treatment groups. By contrast, we believe the data do support the routine use of ABMT in adult acute myeloid leukemia patients in first complete remission. With the current increasing use of peripheral blood stem cells in ABMT, the development of new and safer transplant techniques, and the availability of supportive therapy, toxicity and treatmentrelated mortality is now substantially lower [i.e., 0%–6% (3)] compared with the high rate of 14% reported in 1998 by Cassileth et al. (4). As a result, we expect that disease-free survival and overall survival will be longer for patients who receive ABMT than for those who do not. To test this assumption, we calculated the expected death rates for the ABMT arms of each of the six studies included in both meta-analyses (1,2). Our calculations were designed to assess three different simulations concerning treatment-related mortality: The first analysis assumed similar death rates in both groups (ABMT versus chemotherapy or no further treatment); the second and third simulations assumed death rates of 3% and 5%, respectively, for patients who received ABMT with peripheral blood stem cells (3). The number of expected deaths in this arm was calculated according to the following formula: (number of patients receiving ABMT) (assumed percentage of treatmentrelated mortality) (actual number of patients who died in complete remission) (actual death rate of relapsed patients) (actual number of patients


PART I: DESCRIPTIVE PARAGRAPHS 1: Writing about a Treasured Possession 2: Writing about a Special Place PART II: EXPOSITORY PARAGRAPHS 3: Writing about a Favorite Activity or Hobby 4: Writing about a Custom 5: Writing about Choosing a Field of Study 6: Writing about a Family or Cultural Value PART III: WRITING ESSAYS 7: Writing about a Decision 8: Writing about the Value of an Ethnic Studies Course 9: Writing about Overcoming the Odds 10: Writing about the Way Males and Females Are Raised 11: Writing about Arranged Marriages.


1924 is the year of censure for Rosso di San Secondo's play Una cosa di carne (A thing of flesh). In response to the censorship the author accompanies the drama by a Prelude with which he declares that whorehouses are normally accepted by society, therefore it's ridicolous that is not accepted its fictional representation. The protagonist Micaela is a prostitute – the thing of flesh – but she is also a tridimensional human being that loves and desires to be a mother, instead the male character needs to label the women only like wife/mother or prostitute. However, for the author Micaela is precisely made of flesh: neither an angel nor a devil, just human.


In this paper, we study two types of the reducing subspaces for the weighted composition operator $W: frightarrow ucdot fcirc varphi$ on $L^2(Sigma)$. A necessary and sufficient condition is given for $W$ to possess the reducing subspaces of the form $L^2(Sigma_B)$ where $Bin Sigma_{sigma(u)}$. Moreover, we pose some necessary and some sufficient conditions under which the subspaces of the form $L^2(mathcal{A})$ reduce $W$. All of these are basically discussed by using the conditional expectation properties. To explain the results some examples are then presented.


The intestinal helminth Heligmosomoides polygyrus suppresses development of epithelial tuft cells, which are essential for the type 2 immune response, through secreted factors that block tuft cells both in intestinal organoids and when administered in vivo.


Objective To promote the development of general practitioners' on-the-job training in Zhejiang province by exploring the relevant measures for growth.Methods This study includes the situation of general practitioners' on-the-job training in each area of Zhejiang province.Results There exists such problems as the lack of sufficient exchange of ideas,impracticability of policies,inadequate logicality and rationality of the courses taught,immaturity of the basis for training and a shortage of teachers.Conclusion To solve the problems above,such programs need to make a greater effort at promoting exchangeof ideas,strictly implementing the relavent policies,enlarging the training field,improving the medical plan,completing the formation of teaching materials,strictly examining and verifying the entering conditions for training bases,and improving the quality and knowledge of the teachers of the training programs.


SCO, CSTO, Turkey, China, Russia, Central Asia This paper studies the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)'s objectives, its expanding process, the advantages and disadvantages of the new and old member states and SCOTurkey relations. There is an increasing political and economic rivalry between SCO's two important members (China and Russia). This study shows that China and Russia have different policies to contol the Central Asia. Russia has attempted to increase its influence in the region with the help of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), while China aims to do it with the help of the SCO. On the other hand, Turkey has increased its impact in the Central Asia policy and Turkey-SCO close relations will also play a significant role both in the SCO and Central Asia politics. It is also examined that the SCO policies are majorly driven by China. Thus, Chinese and Russian political and economic rivalry is concerned to deteriorate SCO functions.


We propose a battery-resistor circuit to give introductory laboratory students intuition about the concepts and expressions used for experimental measurement uncertainty, uncertainty of the mean and sums of uncertainties. In the model presented the uncertainty or noise can be thought of as noise in a loudspeaker, making the analogy simple to understand. The mathematics used is simple, requires no knowledge of statistics and provides correct expressions.


In this article has been proposed a new methodology for assessing the economic potential of textile enterprises. As a result of the analysis of foreign literature, the marginal values of the economic potential of the enterprise were determined. By the author have been proposed formulas for calculating indicators such as own working capital ratio, return on assets, return on long-term capital, etc. The level of financial security of textile enterprises operating in Uzbekistan has also been assessed and analyzed, and scientific proposals and practical recommendations have been developed to ensure their financial security. Proposed methods were implemented on private enterprise "OSBORN TEXTILE" and JointVenture "UZTEX TASHKENT" operating in Uzbekistan. Based on secondary accounting data of enterprises, the financial security situation of enterprises was analyzed and proposals for staving off threats were elaborated. This technique can be applied in all textile enterprises operating in the world.


The influence of the photo period, of pinealectomy and of bilateral enucleation on several endocrine organ weights of Japanese quail (Coturnix cotumix japonica) have been explored. At 5 weeks after hatching, pituitary, adrenal and gonadal weights were higher, and thyroid weight was lower, in birds maintained under continuous light (24L/OD) than in those held under a short phoroperiod (8L/16D) for 3 weeks. Blinded birds did not differ from sham-pinealectomized ones in these endocrine parameters. Pinealectomy abolished the photoperiod-dependent responses of the adrenal and thyroid, while pituitary and gonadal weights were unaffected. At 6 weeks after hatching, the previously observed thyroid response was not as pronounced, and pinealectomy no longer altered the adrenal response to the photoperiod. Thus, the photoperiod and the pineal appear to be important for maturation of several endocrine glands, and the eyes do not seem to be necessary for these photo-endocrine responses in Japanese quail. (Endocrinolog...


Gamma ray astronomy at energies 1011 1013 eV, which are strictly related to the identification and study of the cosmic ray acceleration sites, is the main scientific goal of the ARGO-YBJ experiment. The detector, which is now being assembled in Tibet (China) at 4300 m a.s.l., is a full coverage Extensive Air Shower array consisting of a carpet of Resistive Plate Chambers covering a surface of about 7000 m2. The high altitude ( atmospheric depth 600 g/cm2 ) and the full coverage ensure a very low primary photon energy threshold at few hundreds GeV (close to the limits of the satellite technology), while the detector time resolution σt 1ns gives a good pointing accuracy, thus allowing a high sensitivity to γ-ray sources. Moreover the large field of view and the high duty-cycle ensure the continuous monitoring of the sky in the declination band 20 δ 80 . The detector layout, performance and location, offer a unique possibility to make also a deep study of several characteristics of the hadronic component of the cosmic ray flux up to energies of hundreds of TeV. In particular, the structure of the shower core, the lateral distribution, the energy spectra and the angular (e.g. anisotropies) and time (e.g. solar flares) flux modulations can be measured with high sensitivity. Moreover, the use of a full coverage detector with a high space granularity gives detailed images of the shower front, that can be used to test different hypotheses on the cosmic ray interactions, the shower development in the atmosphere and particle physics at very high energies. In this work the general layout of the detector and its performance will be described, together with some of the first results coming from the data analysis of a relevant fraction of the apparatus that is already operating.


PURPOSE. The aim of our retrospective study was to analyze the patterns of associated thoracic injuries in patients underwent blunt chest trauma and rib fractures. METHODS. The study included 212 patients with rib fractures due to blunt thoracic trauma. The mechanism of trauma, the type of rib fracture and the type of associated injuries were analyzed. RESULTS. The patients were divided in two groups according to the number of fractured ribs-group I included the patients with up to two fractured ribs (72 patients-33,9%), and group II – with ≥3 fractured ribs (140 patients-66,1%). Associated chest injuries were present in 36 of the patients from group I (50%), and in 133 patients from group II (95%). Pulmonary contusion was the most common intrathoracicinjurie65,6% of the cases. The mean hospital stay was 8, 7 days. The lethality rate was 16,9% -all of them due to the associated chest injuries. CONCLUSIONS. The mortality related to rib fractures is affected by the associated thoracic injuries, the advanced age, and the number of fractured ribs.


The presence of thiosulfate oxidizing bacteria was examined in rhizosphere soils of 19 economically important plant species belonging to 10 different families. The results showed that the thiosulfate oxidizing bacteria were present in all the tested rhizosphere soils, and the total 32 thiosulfate oxidizing bacteria were recovered. Furthermore, the biochemical characterization revealed that 56% and 44% of the isolates belonged to the obligate chemolithoautotrophs and facultative heterotrophs, respectively. The isolates ATSR15P utilized 19.17 mM of thiosulfate and accumulated 11.65 mM of sulfate in the medium. Concurrently, the decrease in pH of the medium was observed. This study comprehensively demonstrates that the active sulfur oxidation is a ubiquitous phenomenon in the rhizosphere of crop plants in Korea.


This paper introduces the development of domestic and foreign library consortia, advances some problems existing in the operation of Chinese library consortia, and probes into the countermeasures for the sustainable development of the library consortia.


Past clinical evidence suggests that there is partly an association between suicide risk/mortality and mentally health condition. It is an interesting subject for modern diagnostic implication and therapeutic targeting. As a result, neuropathy in brain and relevant treatment (eased by anti-depressive agents or herbs) can be extensively explored. In order to find useful way for cutting off unnecessary suicide-induced human mortality, mental-related genes or molecules study may move forwards suicide risk prediction, prevention, targeting and application. This perspective highlights emerging areas of human suicide and mental healthcare.


In this paper, the performance degradation of a MIMO OFDM-based beyond-3G system, due to various impairments in the radio frequency (RF) circuitry such as AM-AM distortion of power amplifier (PA), in-phase/quadrature-phase (IQ) mismatch effects, is investigated. In order to accurately assess the overall effects of RF impairments on the system performance, constellation diagram and power spectral density (PSD) of the waveform as well as the traditional quantitative figures of merits like error vector magnitude (EVM) of the complete baseband/RF link are used. By analyzing the experimental results, the specification for the RF impairments that ensures a tolerable level of performance can be determined


Orthogonal experiment was used to optimize the centrifugal purification conditions of soy isoflavones. The results showed that the soy isoflavones content increased from 40.9% to 71.2% with the yield being 32.3% when the solution contained 20mg/mL soy isoflavones and was centrifugalized at 2×103r/min for 30 min at 40℃.


who attended, or is due to attend, the meeting of Meeting of Council on Wednesday, 16th November, 2016, 6.00 pm


Butor and Hyvrard are two of the very small number of French writers who think consistently in terms of the connections between France and the rest of the world. Butor has spent all his working life exploring causes and manifestations of culture. Hyvrard thinks rather in economic and philosophical terms. As they push beyond ethnocentric boundaries in their thinking they have also broken the boundaries of literature as traditionally conceived of in France. This article is a brief attempt to show the patterns of their thought and the literary structures that result from them. Michel Butor and Jeanne Hyvrard represent two different generations. Butor was born in 1926, Hyvrard in 1945, yet in many ways their literary beginnings are similar.1 Both write their first books as a response to a prolonged stay in a country very different from France, both are immediately concerned with the complexity of reality and our comprehension of it, both struggle with language and writing as means to transmit public and private complexities, both are very aware of context, and both present their central character as a pariah or exile. Butor1 s first novel, Passage a Milan (Editions de Minuit, 1954), written in Egypt, fits this description quite well, but it is his second novel, L'Emploi du temps (Editions de Minuit, 1956) which offers the real parallel to Hyvrard' s Prunes de Cythere (Editions de Minuit, 1975). Each novel presents the many layers that underlie a given circumstance, an awareness of historic and economic links between geographical locations and thus the abuses of colonialism, a rebellion against the status quo, and a narrator who is struggling desperately for emotional stability, an understanding of the situation and the ability to express what has been grasped. It is in the mode of presentation that the major difference between the authors becomes apparent. Butor's narrator, Jacques Revel, may be personally disoriented by his stay in Bleston in such a way that he identifies to a certain extent with Horace Buck the black immigrant, but he is only disoriented and not destabilized as are Buck and Hyvrard' s narrator Jeanne.2 Revel may feel that he is in exile but he can and does claim the culture around him cathedrals, museums, films of ancient cities, biblical and classical


We study relaxation under pressure of a radiation-amorphized material. The volume of zircon, ZrSiO4, amorphized by natural radiation over geologic times, was measured under high pressure using the precise strain-gauge technique. The volume shows logarithmic relaxation as a function of time. We compare the measured relaxation with the logarithmic relaxation of other different systems, and discuss the commonality of behavior in these systems in terms of local relaxation events that relax stress on a microscopic scale. We propose that logarithmic relaxation arises as the result of the elastic feed-forward interaction mechanism between local relaxation events.


Aging affects skeletal muscle metabolic function. Other studies have shown greater generation of reactive oxygen species and the resulting oxidative damage in Type‐II muscle fibers. We tested whether the greater oxidative stress results in a greater effect of age on metabolism in type II muscle. We compared oxidative metabolism in soleus muscle (SOL, primarily type I fibers) and extensor digitorum longus muscle (EDL, primarily type II fibers) of the C57BL/6 mouse in two age groups, 7‐9 months old (adult) and 27‐29 months old (aged). Saponin‐permeabilized muscles were measured with high‐resolution respirometry under ADP‐limiting (state 4) and activated (state 3) conditions. We found no difference in resting oxygen consumption (state 4) between SOL and EDL in adult muscle when normalized to wet weight. Aged muscle showed an elevation in resting oxygen consumption in EDL (62%, p<0.05), but not in soleus. Stimulated state‐3 respiration was higher in SOL, however there was no effect of age. These results suggest there is increased proton leak in the mitochondria during state‐4 metabolism in the predominantly type‐II EDL muscle with aging.


Familial renal glucosuria (FRG) is a hereditary disorder caused by variants in SLC5A2, encoding sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2). In this study, we aimed to characterize proximal tubule solute transport, glucagon secretion, and genotype-phenotype relationship in FRG patients.

 We sequenced SLC5A2 and PDZK1IP1 in 21 FRG patients and measured the renal threshold of glucose (RTG) in 15 patients. We built an open-source online calculator of RTG, evaluated the proximal tubule transport of amino acid, uric acid, and phosphate, and explored glucagon secretion after glucose ingestion in FRG patients.

 We identified 12 novel SLC5A2 variants (G484D, R564W, A212S, c.574 + 1G > C, W649*, S592Cfs*6, Q579*, Y339*, V39F, G491E, A464E, and G360D) in our cohort and yielded 111 SLC5A2 variants from literature review. RTG in our cohort ranged from 1.0 to 9.2 mmol/L. Patients with two SLC5A2 variants had lower RTG (3.9 vs. 6.2 mmol/L) and higher 24-hour urinary glucose excretion (24hUG) than single-variant carriers (291.0 vs. 40.01 mmol/1.73m2). Patients with homozygous missense or in-frame indels had mean 24hUG of 457.2 mmol/1.73m2, comparable to those with homozygous truncating variants (445.0 mmol/1.73m2) and significantly more than those with homozygous splicing variants (196.6 mmol/1.73m2). Patients with homozygous missense variants involving conservative residues (582.0 mmol/1.73m2) had more 24hUG than those with variants at non-conservative residues (257.6 mmol/1.73m2). Four out of 14 tested patients had mild aminoaciduria. The RTG of FRG patients had no significant correlation to phosphate reabsorption but a potential negative correlation to the fractional excretion of uric acid. Postprandial suppression of glucagon secretion was absent in most FRG patients.

 We built a comprehensive map showing the impact of SLC5A2 variant type and variant location on glucosuria severity. Our results highlighted the role of key residues in maintaining the transport function of SGLT2 and the functional link between glucosuria and reabsorption of amino acid and uric acid in FRG patients.


This paper describes the evolution of inequality and living standards and their driving forces in Spain during a period of more than thirty years. Since the beginning of the crisis Spain has been the OECD country where both market and disposable income inequality have grown faster and annual real income growth has showed its most regressive pattern ever since 1973. During the last decade, Spain suffered one of the largest decreases in mean household incomes due to the Great Recession and is the OECD country where the gap between the income slice of those in the highest decile and those in lowest has widened the most. We disentangle the main driving forces of this relevant rise in inequality (employment trends, earnings growth and the role of redistributive policies) and discover the trends in living standards of ordinary working-age households, particularly those around and below the middle of the distribution.


In the article author considers the State council on January which took place on 22nd, 2010 as the beginning of open discussion concerning the necessity of political system reforming. The author does attempt to generalize key performances and offers on change of the legislation in the field of improvement of mechanisms of political representation at federal and regional levels.


The most common medical diagnostic method for urinary bladder cancer is cystoscopy. This inspection of the bladder is performed by a rigid endoscope, which is usually guided close to the bladder wall. This causes a very limited field of view; difficulty of navigation is aggravated by the usage of angled endoscopes. These factors cause difficulties in orientation and visual control. To overcome this problem, the paper presents a method for extracting 3D information from uncalibrated endoscopic image sequences and for reconstructing the scene content. The method uses the SURF-algorithm to extract features from the images and relates the images by advanced matching. To stabilize the matching, the epipolar geometry is extracted for each image pair using a modified RANSAC-algorithm. Afterwards these matched point pairs are used to generate point triplets over three images and to describe the trifocal geometry. The 3D scene points are determined by applying triangulation to the matched image points. Thus, these points are used to generate a projective 3D reconstruction of the scene, and provide the first step for further metric reconstructions.


State and local transportation agencies have responsibility for the design, construction, and inspection of high-mast roadway lighting projects, using prescribed guidelines. These guidelines require many measurements of the illuminance levels of highway lighting installations to determine whether the installations achieve the desired design goals, to determine whether manufacture specifications are met, and to document long-term aging effects. The state of the art in photometry, or the measurement of light visible to the human eye, has been developed to a very high degree of accuracy and reliability by commercial manufacturers of photometric instruments. One large drawback to these instruments in highway work is that the readings are normally taken by an operator carrying the instrument to the location to be measured and hand-recording the value. This approach is very time consuming and dangerous as well, if readings are required from a busy, in-service roadway. This study has resulted in the development of a simple, cost-effective, and easily assembled illuminance measurement system to evaluate high-mast (80-180-ft) roadway lighting systems from a passenger vehicle traveling at traffic speeds. The system provides readings, in footcandles, at fixed distance intervals as short as 15 ft. The measurements are then recorded on a computer disk for later analysis. The printed analysis provides a footcandle value for each traffic lane at each distance interval and a calculation of the maximum, minimum, average, and uniformity ratio. The system is assembled from commercially available units with a minimal amount of construction, resulting in easy implementation.


All physicians experience situations in which they need the knowledge, skills, and attitudes commonly thought of as belonging to psychiatry. This section of the book aims to help physicians to acquire these. It includes: (1) guidance on how to assess medical patients for psychiatric illness; (2) information about psychiatric presentations and the differential diagnoses most relevant to general medical practice; (3) brief reviews of the psychiatric disorders most commonly seen in general medical practice and the practical management of these; (4) guidance on the use of psychotropic drugs and psychological treatments when given as part of general medical care; (5) evidence-based strategies for helping patients who are smoking, using alcohol excessively, or who are overweight.


On the basis of Lexicalization,the origin and derivation process of reflexive "ziji"in modern Chinese are mainly studies in this paper.The conclusion is that the formation of"ziji"is the lexicalization of"zi"and"ji "which are two separated ingredients in old English.Analogy and bond are the mechanism of its lexicalization.


Purpose
This paper aims to present "Bouncecasting," a seminar gaming foresight approach useful for examining "wicked problems" where the path to the future is uncertain and malleable and where major stakeholders may have different preferences for different futures. The approach gets its name because it goes back and forth between forecasting and backcasting, provides for give and take among different groups of stakeholders and creates and compares multiple scenarios depicting plausible futures.

Design/methodology/approach
After defining Bouncecasting, presenting its main features and providing a recommended way of conducting Bouncecasting studies, the approach is illustrated by four Bouncecasting projects conducted between 1998 and 2004.

Findings
The four projects taken together show that Bouncecasting can be used to address a range of wicked problems in a practical way. The projects considered in sequence show the evolution of the method.

Originality/value
Bouncecasting is a way of doing foresight that examines in an integrated way multiple characteristics of a policy problem, thereby providing promising solutions for complex issues. Although there have been over a dozen Bouncecasting studies conducted by the author and different sets of colleagues, this is the first general description of the approach.


. The vegetation of a mire in a medium-high rainfall area of South Island, New Zealand is described. The central part of the bog is raised 6 m above the surroundings, suggesting that it is ombrotrophic, and the species present are those of apparently ombrotrophic bogs elsewhere in New Zealand. pH of < 4.0 and Ca/Mg molar quotient of < 1.0 also indicates ombrotrophic conditions. Within the mire, these criteria provide effective discrimination between the fen (rheotrophic) and bog (ombrotrophic) communities. A bimodal distribution of ordination scores suggests that the change in pH and in Ca/Mg quotients cause a switch to operate.


Anyone who watched last year's football World Cup in Germany will have been shocked at how poorly the England team performed. Off the pitch, however, the wives and girlfriends of the England players excelled, with the acronym "WAG" being coined in the light of their antics, usually involving drinking and shopping to excess. Football WAGs like Victoria Beckham are staples of glossy magazines such as Heat and Hello. But their fellow glossy mag, Physics World, has so far failed to pay tribute to physics WAGs, by which I mean those non-scientists who are attached to a physicist. This article attempts to remedy the situation - and of course it also applies to the physics husbands and boyfriends (HABs) out there too.


We investigate the dynamic response of plasma detachment against the Edge Localized Mode (ELM) using a one-dimensional fluid code. It is found that the heat flux to the target plate after an ELM crash in the detachment starts to increase with a delay, contrary to the sudden increase in the attachment. Larger electron heat flux and smaller ion heat flux to the plate are found in the detachment due to the strong equipartition between electron and ion temperatures, while their heat fluxes are similar in the attachment. In addition, we find the reverse flow in the detachment caused by ELM unbalancing the plasma pressure. Finally, we examine the grassy-ELMs, and find the accumulation of the heat flux pulses in the detached divertor.


In this paper, a novel digital control topology for high bright LEDs is proposed. And this driver can identify the open strings in LEDs array automatically to increase the reliability of the LEDs. There are two stages in this topology. The front stage is a PFC circuit controlled by the chip MC33262, and the DC/DC stage is a half bridge circuit controlled by the micro-controller. The output current of the controller is adjusted according to the number of the strings in the open-circuit state, so the current of a single LED ring can keep a constant value even when the number of working LED strings is changed. In the paper, the design process of the system is presented, an 112W prototype is presented in the laboratory, and the experimental results verify the control method proposed in the paper.


The concepts of reachability and controllability do not coincide but reflect a fundamental difference between the dynamical characteristics of different classes of multi-variable systems. This difference is discussed in relation to discrete-time linear dynamical systems and is illustrated by a simple numerical example.


Unless their level of performance on delayed-response problems is very high, monkeys show a decrement when the opaque screen of the WGTA is lowered. This did not occur when the objects were concealed for a comparable period by a small hand screen, suggesting the deficit was due to the signal that lowering the screen meant trial termination.


Background: To compares the effectiveness and acceptability of sublingual versus vaginal route of misoprostol for cervical priming prior to vacuum aspiration. Material and methods: In this prospective clinical study, a total of 70 women with period of gestation between 6 and 12 weeks selected randomly for day surgery abortion were sequentially allocated into two groups of 36 and 34. All selected women received 400 mg of misoprostol 3 hours prior to vacuum aspiration either by sublingual or by vaginal route in the hospital. Results: For all periods of gestation, sublingual misoprostol significantly improved cervical dilatation. Duration of the procedure and amount of blood loss were comparable in both the groups. Patient acceptability was higher in the sublingual group. Conclusion: Cervical priming with sublingual misoprostol is effective and convenient route with high patient acceptability rate.


Reactivity is a key parameter in nuclear power plants (NPPs). It reflects the balance between neutron generation and consumption inside the reactor core. Therefore, reactivity monitoring inside the reactor core is essential to ensure the safe operation of NPPs. However, no physical sensor is available for the measurement of reactivity. It can be either inferred indirectly from the reactor period or estimated using the reactor flux variation. The inference of reactivity from the reactor period has its own limitations. Therefore, reactor flux-based reactivity computation is of more interest. Various techniques based on deterministic as well as stochastic approaches for online computation of reactivity using the reactor flux are reported in the literature. In this article, a Rao-Blackwellised unscented Kalman filter (RBUKF)-based adaptive state estimator is proposed for the online estimation of reactivity from the output signal of neutron detectors. The efficacy of the proposed adaptive RBUKF over nonadaptive RBUKF is established through simulations under different transient scenarios.


Fetal and neonatal alloimmune thrombocytopenia (FNAIT) is caused by maternal IgG antibodies produced against incompatible human platelet antigens (HPA) on fetal platelets. The IgG antibodies cross the placenta and can cause clearance of fetal platelets, thrombocytopenia and bleeding, sometimes severe. Most cases are identified in first pregnancies when bleeding, bruising and thrombocytopenia are recognized after delivery of the infant. Laboratory tests of the parent's blood that show HPA-specific antibodies in maternal serum and incompatibility between the parents for the cognate HPA confirm a diagnosis of FNAIT. In white populations, HPA-1a antibodies are the most frequently implicated (>80%), followed by HPA-5b antibodies ( ̃15%). It is well-established that infants affected by FNAIT involving HPA-1a antibodies frequently have severe thrombocytopenia (platelets ≤25 000/μl) associated with organ bleeding and intracranial haemorrhage (ICH). However, our understanding of the clinical significance of HPA-5 antibodies is less clear. Case reports of infants born with FNAIT due to HPA-5a or HPA-5b antibodies generally have higher platelet counts than infants born with FNAIT due to HPA-1a antibodies, and bleeding is often less severe. One possible reason for this difference is that platelets express significantly more ( ̃80 000 molecules/platelet) of the glycoprotein complex (GP)IIb/IIIa that carries HPA-1a on GPIIIa (CD61) than they do of GPIa/ IIa (3,000–5,000 copies per platelet) that carries HPA-5 on GPIa (CD49b). However, there are exceptional cases of FNAIT involving HPA-5 antibodies, describing infants affected by severe thrombocytopenia with or without ICH. In their paper, Vos et al report results from a large, retrospective cohort study of suspected FNAIT cases with a focus on clinical outcomes in cases with maternal HPA-5b antibodies, in an effort to determine the clinical significance of HPA-5b antibodies in FNAIT. Data were collected over an 18-year period from 1,864 cases of suspected FNAIT that were submitted for laboratory evaluation to the reference laboratory Sanquin Diagnostic Laboratories, (Amsterdam, the Netherlands). HPA antibodies were detected in maternal sera from 262 (14%) cases: 161 (61%) HPA-1a antibodies and 60 (23%) HPA-5b antibodies. Complete clinical histories could be obtained for 129 HPA-1a and 40 HPA-5b cases. Severe bleeding, infant postnatal and nadir platelet counts, mortality and postnatal treatment were compared between the two groups. HPA-1a cases showed more bleeding than HPA-5b cases (76% vs. 31%, respectively), however, severe bleeding (mostly ICH) was similar (11% vs. 10%). The median platelet count after birth was lower for HPA-1a cases, but the nadir platelet counts were not significantly different between groups. There were six (5%) HPA-1a and one (3%) HPA-5b cases that resulted in perinatal death. Postnatal treatments consisting of platelet transfusions, IVIgG or both, were administered more frequently in HPA-1a cases (69%) compared to HPA-5b cases (22%). Antenatal IVIgG treatment was given in five HPA-1a and 11 HPA-5b cases. Interestingly, physicians were aware of a FNAIT diagnosis because of a previously affected infant in only one case in each group. All other cases were suspected when cerebral abnormalities were detected during routine ultrasound screens. Four of the treated HPA-1a pregnancies were either terminated or resulted in fetal death, and the infants' platelet counts for two of the antenatally detected cases were both <30 000/μl. However, infants in all 11 of the HPA-5b IVIgG-treated cases were born with platelets >120 000/μl. Overall, these findings confirm what previous studies have indicated, that HPA-1a FNAIT is associated with more severe clinical outcomes and that HPA-5b FNAIT is often, but not Correspondence: Brian R. Curtis, Blood Center of Wisconsin, Platelet & Neutrophil Immunology Lab, Versiti, Milwaukee, WI, USA. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com commentary


Innovative regional development depends on investments. Investment activity of companies has a significant influence on solving the problem of the country food production security.


This paper proposes an innovative exhaustive search method for the optimal placement of wind turbines (WTs) in electrical distribution systems taking into account wind speed and load demand uncertainty, and the variability of electrical energy prices within a distribution network operator (DNO) acquisition market environment. The method combines Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) and market-based optimal power flow (OPF) to maximize the net present value (NPV) related to the investment made by WTs' developers over a planning horizon. In particular, the MCS data feed the market-based OPF problem with inter-temporal constraints in order to find the most convenient WTs allocation and priority on the network, based on distribution-locational marginal prices (D-LMPs) in a competitive electricity market. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated with an 84-bus 11.4-kV radial distribution system.


Objective To evaluate the value and safety of intravenous anesthesia with propofol in cerebral angiographic procedures. Methods The propofol intravenous administration for anesthesia was applied in 81 patients underwent cerebral angiography and another 62 patients with routine local anesthesia were set as control group.The indexes were observed and recorded,included heart rate,blood pressure,arterial oxygen saturation (SaO2) and the patients feeling during procedure.The anxious scoring,pain index and re-visit ratio were evaluated after operation.Results The patients with intravenous anesthesia were under sleeping condition during the cerebral angiography and without complication occurred.Unlike the rising of heart rate and blood pressure in local anesthesia group at the beginning of operation,the physical indexes in intravenous anesthesia group decreased slightly.The indexes recovered 5~10 min after induction stage.The anxious scoring,pain index and re-visit rate in intravenous anesthesia group were better than that in control group in the following day (P0.05).Conclusion It demonstrated that the propofol intravenous administration was safe and effective in cerebral angiography procedure.


Most models of optimum energy partitioning predict variability in adult size, although not always explicitly. Increase in size is usually attributed to an increase in the growth rate or decline in mortality. The model presented shows that this may not always be the case. Even when mortality is kept constant in organisms with overlapping generations, a constraint on the maximum reproductive growth rate may lead, when the rate of overall growth increases, to either an increase or a decline in the optimum adult body size.


Objective:To explore the clinical significance of CD 4 expression in acute myelogenous leukemia.Methods:Immnophenotypic and cytogenetic features of blast cells in 82 acute myelogenous leukemia were analysed.Results:CD 4 was expressed in blasts from 40.2% of AML,incidence of CD 4 expression in each FAB subtype was also differet,CD 4 expression were signficantly more frequent in AML M 4、M 5(55%、92.9%,respectively).CD + 4 HLA DR high CD 38 high CD 33 high CD 15 high CD 14 high ,T、B cell markers were negative.AML cases with 11q23 and with inv(16),t(9,22) were frequently CD 4 positive.The clinical features of CD + 4AML and CD - 4AML were not significantly different.Conclusion:CD 4 expression in AML cells was associated with monocytic characteristics,CD 4 may be important to diagnose M 5.


This paper designes a Wireless sensor system to monitor home safety using the acceleration in vibration measurement doors and Windows.It analysisthe overall demand for system,designes the system's overall framework,according to the actual situation of the hardware and software development completed environment selection,complete the sensor node and aggregate node of the realization of hardware and software.


Let Hn be the n × n symmetric Hankel-type matrix whose (i, j)th element on the kth anti-diagonal (where k = 0 denotes the main anti-diagonal) is defined as : Hk,n(i, j) = gk ( i−[ n+k+1 2 ] n ) if i + j = n + 1 + k and 0 otherwise. Under suitable symmetry and summability conditions on {gk}, we show that as n → ∞, the limiting spectral distribution of {Hn} exists and is given by ∑∞ k=−∞ gk(U)ak where U is uniformly distributed on [−1/2, 1/2] and is tensor independent of the non-commutating variables {ak} which are certain symmetric pair-wise free but not completely free Bernoulli variables.


I noticed that Joe Segal had added a huge picture of Dizzy to the walls of the Jazz Showcase in the old Blackstone Hotel, a giant Gap ad. It was jarring in a way. A black and white poster of Coltrane dominated one wall near the new Diz. It was a portrait I often fell into while staring at it; Coltrane in sweet Sufi ecstasy, in serene pain at the soprano. On stage now were Clark Terry and Louie Bellson, Red Holloway. Bellson had a beatific grin and Terry was sitting on a stool, slapping the inside of his thigh, yelling, "Yeah, do it," and "Play you horn, baby," to the saxman' s sassy lines. Then Terry started singing the bass player's solo's notes back to him-eye to eye, both of them grinning-till the bassist strummed a thumb-thick chord and Terry fell back on his stool, laughing. Later, he quoted "Salt Peanuts" in the thick of "Green Dolphin Street." Segal had greeted Brad Goode and me at the door with an odd little dance, purely happy. The place was packed with that same happiness. It was the music that made the room giddy. At the end of the last set, Clark Terry was thanking everyone and said he thought he might even be back again before winter was over. Everyone applauded. "At least, I think I'll be back this season," he added, "'cause I overheard Joe saying out in the lobby, 'It'll be a cold day before he plays here again."' Joe took the mike with his smoky chortle and launched a trademark closing monologue. Thanked the gents for playing through various flu bugs and the holidays. Said he'd love to have them back, of course, but "they're all off for the far corners of the world to play for others and it's a good thing too, because others love them like we do, and besides,


As part of a general Smarter Maintenance policy, the Royal Netherlands Navy has implemented the so-called Cyclic Life Control concept for the engines of its Westland Lynx helicopters. The aim is to have an autonomous, cost-effective and simple way to decrease costs on hard time maintenance. Cyclic Life Control allows the Royal Netherlands Navy to benefit from helicopter engine usage severity that is considerably lighter than is being assumed by the engine manufacturer, i.e. assumed exchange rates turn out to be conservative by a factor of up to 2. This paper shortly addresses some major topics within the current Royal Netherlands Navy maintenance policy and describes the newly adopted Cyclic Life Control concept in more detail. The paper focuses on the operator's view on system implementation and cost benefit analysis, and illustrates how a relatively small operator greatly benefits from an individual maintenance policy. Paper presented at the American Helicopter Society 52nd Annual Forum, Washington, D.C., June 4-6, 1996.


: The thermo-visual fusion based tracking has been deployed for overcoming the shortcomings of alone vision-based object tracking. The assistance from both domains should be wisely merged so that it should result in a useful practice for object tracking. Several techniques had been developed recently to implement a brilliant fusion


Tractor is the major machine used in agriculture aspects for various purposes. The operator wants more comfort while operating at various situations. Generally due to sudden shocks and vibrations it effects in various parts of an operator. A large number of studies have been conducted and researchers have suggested several criteria for evaluating discomfort and the suitability of a tractor seat in a given working condition. The studies have led to various parameters, viz. the body pressure distributed under and supporting both the buttocks, thighs and the back of an operator, control of posture in static or dynamic condition, ride vibration, exposure time on task and other factors. But in the absence of a more definitive and the most logical criteria particularly from biomechanical viewpoint, the researchers will continue to design conditions and procedures to understand the seat dynamics and evaluate the seating discomfort. By introducing sliding mechanism in a curved frame by using roller bearings the sudden shocks and vibrations are absorbed by this mechanism and it enhance the feeling of comfort, safety, convenience, and results in higher work output from the operator. Therefore, this paper reviews the research and development information available in this regard and attempts to set the most appropriate procedure for assessment of seating discomfort during tractor driving.


A hybrid design approach for low vibration systems is studied. Active trailing edge flap design is integrated with blade structural optimization. The finite element method is used to model the rotor undergoing elastic deflections in flap, lag and torsion. Aerodynamic loads generated by the trailing edge flap are calculated using classical incompressible theory. For a given set of blade structural properties and active flap control, a coupled propulsive trim is implemented to simultaneously determine the blade nonlinear response, vehicle orientation and helicopter control settings. An integrated optimal control/optimization process is developed to simultaneously determine the active control efforts and optimal passive blade structural parameters. The objective of the optimization is to simultaneously minimize the hub vibratory loads and active flap control angles by selecting the optimum passive design parameters. The study shows that retrofitting an active flap to a baseline blade or to an optimal passive blade configuration might not provide us with the best result. It is shown that the activepassive hybrid method can outperform these configurations and achieve more vibration reduction with less control efforts.