The Cenozoic rift basins in eastern China show a clear temporal and spatial zonation and episodic tectonic evolution, which control their episodic hydrocarbon generation and zonal accumulation. In this paper, based on the study of depositional architecture, hydrocarbon migration system and dynamic evolution in the rift basins, combinations of hydrocarbon accumulation elements were analyzed using sequence stratigraphy. Hydrocarbon distribution in system tracts with different sequence orders was further studied. And we summarized stacking patterns and horizontal combination relationships for different types of reservoirs, such as lithological, tectonic‐lithological, tectonic and stratigraphical reservoirs which can be observed from depression center to basin margin. The result reveals that various scales of pools exhibit significant distribution and evolution orderliness in different pool‐forming units, i.e., depositional systems, plays and depressions. The regular distribution of various scales of pools is closely related to tectonic evolution and depositional filling in the rift basins. The result can be applied to the fine petroleum exploration in rift basins in eastern China. It will promote the scientific prediction and evaluation of reservoir types and their spatial distribution, lead to the active shifts of exploration targets in different zones, and thus support the stable progress of fine exploration in mature exploration areas.


See Fig. 1 for an emergency management summary.

Open in a separate window

Figure 1

Pituitary apoplexy emergency management summary.


The education in affection among family members has been a hot issue in recent years.In the new situation of the 21st century,the education on college students is faced with new challenges.Currently,it is an important aspect for college education to analyze the original meaning of the education from diversified perspectives,point out the problems existing in the education in an objective way,and put forward feassible optimization of strategies based on practice.


Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) is an integral part of Data Warehousing (DW) implementation. The commercial tools that are used for this purpose captures lot of execution trace in form of various log files with plethora of information. However there has been hardly any initiative where any proactive analyses have been done on the ETL logs to improve their efficiency. In this paper we utilize outlier detection technique to find the processes varying most from the group in terms of execution trace. As our experiment was carried on actual production processes, any outlier we would consider as a signal rather than a noise. To identify the input parameters for the outlier detection algorithm we employ a survey among developer community with varied mix of experience & expertise. We use simple text parsing to extract these features from the logs, as shortlisted from the survey. Subsequently we applied outlier detection technique (Clustering based) on the logs. By this process we reduced our domain of detailed analysis from 500 logs to 44 logs (8 Percentage). Among the 5 outlier cluster, 2 of them are genuine concern, while the other 3 figure out because of the huge number of rows involved.


A stationary weakly isotropic random field on a ^-lattice (rf-dimensional square lattice) is defined as a (weakly) stationary random field whose covariance function is invariant with respect to all the symmetries of the (/-lattice. Under assumption of bounded range interactions the covariance function of such a field is expressed as a finite linear combination of product covariance functions. Analogous decomposition of the spectral density follows from that of the covariance function. A solution of an extrapolation problem of certain type is derived as a corollary of this result.


Purpose – In this paper, analysis is presented to investigate the Falkner-Skan flow of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) Oldroyd-B fluid. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – In this paper, the authors used two methods: homotopy analysis method and numerical Keller-box method. Findings – It is observed that skin friction coefficient in Oldroyd-B fluid is larger when compared with viscous fluid. Further, the relaxation and retardation times have opposite effects on the velocity components. Practical implications – A comparative study between the series and numerical solutions for the skin friction is shown in the paper. The results indicated that both solutions are in well agreement. Originality/value – This model is investigated for the first time, as the authors know.


Mass transfer in a capillary-porous body-liquid extraction, on condition that an activated and unactivated extractant is used, has been experimentally investigated. The mechanism of the extraction process for extracting the desired components from mulberry leaves has been found. Experimental results are generalized on the base of a mathematical model that allows the process to be predicted when implementing it in practice.


In this chapter, using a combination of long-run and sign restrictions to identify aggregate monetary and productivity factors, I find that the monetary factor is responsible for long swings in nominal variables but has little effect on fluctuations in output, real wage, or labor input growth. The productivity factor in addition to increasing output growth and real wage growth in the short and long run, also results in increases in labor input and decreases in prices, but the quantitative effect of the productivity factor on labor input is relatively small. These results are robust to the number of factors included in the model and to alternative priors about the short-run effects of the monetary factor, and to the inclusion of oil prices. Oil prices, in fact, appear to be largely driven by the other aggregate factors.


To promote the deployment of the solar photovoltaic (PV) system from the long‐term perspective, the solar PV industry in many countries still needs the financial support from the government despite its remarkable growth and price reductions in the last decade. Many countries with this financial burden on their government budget, however, are planning to reduce or to expire the financial support step by step. To bring the solar PV market to its full maturity, it is crucial to improve the solar policies and to sustain the financial support with acceptable and reasonable prices, which can maximize the benefits for the investors while minimizing the incentive budget for the government. Towards this end, this study aimed to develop an integrated multi‐objective optimization (iMOO) model for determining the optimal solar incentive design from the perspectives of the investor and the government. A Microsoft Excel‐based iMOO model was developed using life cycle cost analysis, genetic algorithm, and Pareto optimal solutions. The developed Microsoft Excel‐based iMOO model was applied to six target regions to verify its effectiveness in determining the optimal solar incentive design. As a result, it was shown that depending on the various characteristics (e.g., solar radiation, electricity price, and installation cost) of a region, the optimal solar incentive design can be differently determined with a reasonable and acceptable level using the developed iMOO model. Among the six target regions, Newark required the lowest incentive budget of $US10,648.41 whereas Oklahoma City required the highest incentive budget of $US20,648.73 to offer their optimal solar incentives. The model developed in this study can help both the investor and the government in a decision‐making process and provide some solutions and insights for planning solar policies and strategies. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Sir EDWARD MELLANBY, G.B.E., K.C.B., M.D. F.R.C.P., F.R.S. We record with regret the sudden death on January 30 of Sir Edward Mellanby at the age of 70 years. He was secretary of the Medical Research Council from 1934 to 1949, and held this highly responsible administrative post in the years of stress before, during, and after the second world war; yet he managed to continue to carry out important research himself, chiefly in his own field of nutrition. From Mellanby's early days at Cambridge each distinction gained and each office held was a steppingstone in the upward climb of a man marked out from the beginning for high achievement. He devoted himself to science, submitting gladly to its disciplines-and understanding by science not only the acquisition but, as Herbert Spencer said, the organiza-


To evaluate continence and complication rates of bulbar single‐cuff (SC) and distal bulbar double‐cuff (DC) insertion in male patients with severe stress urinary incontinence (SUI) according to whether the men were considered low or high risk for unfavourable artificial urinary sphincter (AUS) outcomes.


A new technique that uses a DSM signal in a common technique for digitally synthesizing an arbitrary waveform, which is generally known as direct-digital synthesis (DDS), is described in this paper. In this way, the DDS frequency resolution is not restricted to the phase resolution in DDS and requires no phase truncation technique. As a simulation result, a low-pass filtered output waveform is smooth at a lower frequency with respect to the clock frequency. At lower frequencies, this technique leads to a higher spurious-free-dynamic-range than that of an ideal linear interpolator output with the same phase resolution. Therefore, the proposed combination of DSM signal and basic DDS is able to realize high frequency resolution and high spectral-purity at a lower frequency band using a small circuit.


Parameter extraction of a solar cell is essential in the simulation and design calculation of photovoltaic (PV) systems. The mathematical model of the PV module is a non-linear I
–
 V characteristic including several unknown parameters as the PV manufacturers' data are not sufficient. This study presents a method for estimating the parameters of the single- and double-diode PV models of a PV module based on a nature-inspired meta-heuristic optimisation algorithm known as the whale optimisation algorithm (WOA). The validity of the proposed WOA-based PV model is verified by comparing its simulation results with the experimental results for the PV modules under different environmental conditions.


An accurate assessment of the property value is very important to make a deal, property tax, and mortgage for loan. The mass appraisal system has been developed in some foreign countries, especially in American for a long time. In Taiwan, we still have few experiences in using computer-assisted mass appraisal system, especially using artificial neural network (ANN). This article has two objectives: (1) to illustrate application of ANN to the Kaohsiung property market by the method of back-propagation. The study is based on the properties data of sales price, we also use multiple regressions in the same data; (2) to evaluate the performance of two models by using the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and hit ratio (HR). This paper finds that using artificial neural network (ANN) is able to overcome multiple regressions' methodological problems and also get better performance than multiple regression model (MRA). These results are useful in helping local government to assess their assessment value.


Compact polarimetric (CP) data exploitation is currently of growing interest considering the new generation of such Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) systems. These systems offer target detection and classification capabilities comparable to those of polarimetric SARs (PolSAR) with less stringent requirements. A good example is the RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM). In this paper, some characteristic CP products are described and effects of CP mode deviation from ideal circular polarization transmit on classifications are modeled. The latter is important for operation of typical CP modes (e.g., RCM). The developed model can be used to estimate the ellipticity variation from CP measured data, and hence, calibrate the classification products.


We discuss the computation by neural networks of semantic operators TP determined by propositional logic programs P. We revisit and clarify the foundations of the relevant notions employed in approximating both TP and its fixed points when P is a first-order program.


This article argues that the Argentine philosopher, Rodolfo Kusch (1912-1979), was one of the first Latin American thinkers in the middle of the twentieth century to begin to propose a situated epistemology in order to think about the peculiarities of the Latin American condition. This revisionist position, argue the authors, is a contestatory voice which questions the centrality of a so-called Western epistemology which has permeated Latin American thinking. This paper is ground-breaking and original because it vindicates the importance of Kusch to thought on the Latin American postcolonial condition.


BACKGROUND
To study the effect of parecoxib, a novel cyclooxygenase-2 selective inhibitor, on the radiation response of colorectal cancer (CRC) cells and its underlying mechanisms.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Both in vitro colony formation and apoptosis assays as well as in vivo mouse xenograft experiments were used to explore the radiosensitizing effects of parecoxib in human HCT116 and HT29 CRC cells.

RESULTS
Parecoxib sensitized CRC cells to radiation in vitro with a sensitivity enhancement ratio of 1.32 for HCT116 cells and 1.15 for HT29 cells at a surviving fraction of 0.37. This effect was partially attributable to enhanced apoptosis induction by parecoxib combined with radiation, as illustrated using an in vitro apoptosis assays. Parecoxib augmented the tumor response of HCT116 xenografts to radiation, achieving growth delay more than 20 days and an enhancement factor of 1.53. In accordance with the in vitro results, parecoxib combined with radiation resulted in less proliferation and more apoptosis in tumors than radiation alone. Radiation monotherapy decreased microvessel density (MVD) and microvessel intensity (MVI), but increased the hypoxia level in xenografts. Parecoxib did not affect MVD, but it increased MVI and attenuated hypoxia.

CONCLUSIONS
Parecoxib can effectively enhance radiation sensitivity in CRC cells through direct effects on tumor cells and indirect effects on tumor vasculature.


This paper discusses important aspects of development process of dedicated test vehicles designed for investigation on thin metal layers reliability by a novel Accelerated Thermo-Mechanical Ageing method (ATMA) [1] being developed now. It is an ongoing research report presenting current state of the R&D works, investigation on ATMA usefulness and its applicability to interconnect reliability evaluation.


In the progress of improving the safety of a vehicle while driving, multi-sensor environmental perception has many advantages compared with other approaches. This paper is devoted to proving that multi-sensor information fusion that is used on a vehicle can help identify and eliminate the spurious data, which is obtained from multi-sensors, based on Bayesian approach. And it is one of the most important but simple approaches in the information fusion field. The results of the simulation show that centralized sensor fusion scheme using Bayesian approach has higher efficiency compared with other methods.


This paper is an edited transcript of the opening keynote lecture at the European Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Petroleum, Exploration and Production, October 1991. This talk addresses the question : given so much effort has gone into developing expert systems and developing the technology, why are there so few applications? What are the reasons, and more importantly, what can we do about it? In this paper, I will give several examples of working expert systems my company has developed, and what we think we have done right in each situation. I will talk about one or two problems or failures that have occurred along the way. I'll mix examples of real systems with lessons and recommendations, things you must be very careful of if you want to build successful applications. This will include one of the largest real time expert systems in Britain, and probably one of the most widely used expert system applications in the Whole engineering field, which is one that my company has developed with over 450 users just now.


The clothing brand database is an important channel for designers to obtain fashion trends. The diversification of clothing types and artistic styles provides a variety of ideas for the classification of clothing brands. In the process of establishing a clothing brand database, we need to sum up a set of key phrases used to describe clothing brands in view of the single shortcomings of the existing clothing brand online classification query system. At the same time, we take the actual needs of the brand clothing industry development as the starting point, based on the SSI framework technology, to achieve a clothing customization information platform suitable for small batches and multiple brands, targeting user experience, and achieving rapid response. The test shows that the design of the brand clothing database construction platform meets the expected functional requirements. The design ideas and implementation methods of the system are effective and feasible. The design and implementation of the platform effectively opened the relevant information system modules of the clothing brand. This will have important reference value for promoting the intelligent manufacturing and business model transformation of clothing enterprises, and promoting the standardization and customization of clothing enterprises under the environment of industrialization 4.0.


Many authors noticed the actuality of fish hematological parameters usage as indices of anthropogenic influence. Blood system reflects the reaction of the body on the action of different ecological factors. The problem of heavy metals influence on hematological parameters of silver cap (Hypopthalmichtys molitrix) needs to be investigated. The aim of the work was studying of ecotoxical Plumbum and Cadmium influence on hematological indices of silver carp (Hypopthalmichtys molitrix) during the period exposition. The results of the investigations concerning the influence of Plumbum and Cadmium on some hematological indices of silver carp (Hypopthalmichtys molitrix) for 12 days exposition up to the action of these heavy metals are given in this article. Experimental part was realized at the Lviv research station of Institute of fisheries NAAS (Lviv oblast, Horodok region, Velykyi Lyubin). Experimental groups contained 10 two-years individuals each. Fish were adopted to laboratory conditions for 5 days under the temperature 19 ± 2oС, рН = 7.3 ± 0.2, oxygen content 7–8 mg/l. Blood parameters were measured on the sixth and twelfth days at the control group and groups which were under the influence on the level of 2 and 5 MPC of the appropriate metal. It was proved that the influence of Plumbum and Cadmium causes the lowering of erythrocytes number, hemoglobin and corpuscular volume: the effect becomes stronger when he concentration increases and in time. The effect from intoxication by Cadmium comes faster than by Plumbum.


We investigate the thermodynamic curvature resulting from a Riemannian geometry approach to thermodynamics for the Pauli paramagnetic gas which is a system of identical fermions each with spin 1/2. We observe that the absolute value of thermodynamic curvature can be interpreted as a measure of the stability of the considered system only in the classical and semiclassical regime. But in quantum regime some exceptions are observed.


The idea for this special issue emerged at the international conference 'Persistent Conflict in the 21 Century', convened in June 2011 at the London School of Economics and Political Science. In preparing the conference, our intention was to facilitate a broad conversation that cuts across quantitative/qualitative and disciplinary divides, and to involve both scholars and practitioners. In the course of the discussions, it became increasingly apparent that while the issue of conflict persistence has attracted growing attention, the ensuing proliferation of vocabularies, analytical lenses and policy agendas has left significant gaps in our knowledge and in some sense has engendered more confusion than clarity about the meaning and implications of persistent conflict. In military circles, the mainstreaming of the term is attributed to General George W. Casey Jr., former Chief of Staff of the US Army. In the 2008 Army Posture Statement, he argues that we are entering an 'era of persistent conflict': a new strategic environment marked by 'protracted confrontation among state, non-state, and individual actors who will use violence to achieve political, religious, and other ideological ends'. The imprint of the USled 'war on terror' and the experience in Afghanistan and Iraq is palpable in Casey's thesis, although it is grounded in a broader assessment of global economic, environmental, demographic and technological changes and trends. The argument has sparked debates about the intellectual foundations and practical implications of persistent conflict, and anxieties about its relationship to 'persistent combat'. Ongoing developments are propelling the issue on the agenda once again; as one observer put it, '[t]oday, in light of continued


This study undertook the mineralogical and chemical analysis of anglesite (PbSO4), cerussite (PbCO3), gypsum (CaSO4∙2H2O), langite (Cu4(SO4)(OH)6∙2H2O), malachite (Cu2CO3(OH)2), and posnjakite (Cu4(SO4)(OH)6·H2O) detected for the first time in the abandoned Mastricarro Barite Mine (Catanzaro, Calabria, southern Italy). Geological conditions make this one of the few well-preserved, partly accessible mines in the Calabria region. Numerous mineralogical species, some beautifully crystallized, have been discovered among the alteration products of the sulfides present within the barite veins. The newly identified crystals occur as secondary minerals in the oxidized portions of deposits originally containing lead and copper sulfides; they are widely distributed and are almost always detected as microcrystals. The anglesite, cerussite, gypsum, langite, malachite, and posnjakite crystals were identified and characterized using optical microscopy (OM), micro-Raman spectroscopy (µR), and scanning electron microscopy, combined with energy dispersive spectrometry (SEM/EDS). The new mineral occurrences can be useful for scientific and didactic purposes; further, for langite, malachite, and posnjakite crystals, new Raman bands, which have not been mentioned before in the literature, were identified.


Measurements of insertion loss and interior masking noise were conducted using a representative sampling of 23 1972–1973 automobiles. One‐third octave‐band insertion losses were determined for each car for different orientations with respect to the sound source. One‐third octave‐band interior masking noise levels were determined from tape recordings made during preselected portions of a test drive. An estimate of the sound level and frequency required of a warning device to be "heard" by the driver inside an automobile is given.


Synopsis The use of pressed notch drop weight tear test (PJY DWTT) for a highly ductile linepipe steel encounters an abnormal fracture appearance, and raises djfliculty in evaluating its crack arrestability of the steel. The lateral compression DWTT (LC-DWTT) has been developed to solve this problem and comparative studies with other D W T Ts were carried out. The abnormal fracture appearance can be reduced in LC-DWTT. The 85 % shear area transition temperature in LC-DWTT was a little higher than that in PN--DWTT but lower than that in precrack DWTT (PC-DWTT). The dynamic load-displacement characteristics of LCD WT+T revealed that the crack initiation energy was reduced and the total absorbed energy was almost equal to the propagation energy of PJVDWTT. On the other hand, PC-DWTT showed the lower absorbed energy because of the plastic deformation in a specimen ligament in introducing a precrack, as compared with other DWTTs.


Each natural language is constantly developing as long as it is used. But the development clearly shows that not everything from the language disappears completely. Many words cease to be independent and start existing as elements of compounds, as prefixes or suffixes without their independent meaning. The lost vocabulary, however, leaves traces in the language. Where can we find them? They can be found in compounds, proper nouns, names of professions, job, places etc. as well as fixed idioms.


YbI2(THF)2 reacts with two equivalents of K[C5Me4CH2CH2CH=CH2] yielding unsolvated (C5Me4CH2CH2CH=CH2)2Yb (1). The molecular structure shows both tethered olefins orientated toward the Yb center.


Abstract Aim: Given the ubiquitous nature of hangover experience among drinkers, this study aimed to profile hangover experience in terms of the number and patterns of past year symptoms. Methods: Current drinkers in Canada (n = 565) recruited through zoompanel were asked about 13 past year hangover symptoms. These were explored through correlation with alcohol consumption, problems, treatment and other factors. Findings: Increased number of symptoms were associated with higher Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) problem score, perceived harm from drinking, younger age and flushing/blushing when drinking (Mean = 3.3 symptoms). Four patterns were found from latent class analysis; class 4 (43%) no symptoms; class 3 (13%) thirst, tiredness, headache, nausea and vomiting; class 2 (22%) thirst, tiredness and headache; and class 1 (21%) wide range. Class 1 was characterised by blushing when drinking, higher perceived harm and attempts to reduce drinking due to hangovers. Classes 1–3 were associated with heavier consumption; only class 3 compared with class 4 had lower drinking refusal self-efficacy. Conclusions: higher alcohol consumption and lower drinking refusal self-efficacy relate to more symptoms; however, a group with variable alcohol consumption did not experience hangovers. The link between problems, treatment and hangover was not clear from patterns of symptoms; symptom severity may be worth further investigation.


In this paper, bond graphs are employed to develop a novel mathematical model of conventional switched-mode DC-DC converters valid for both continuous and discontinuous conduction modes. A unique causality bond graph model of hybrid models is suggested with the operation of the switch and the diode to be represented by a modulated transformer with a binary input and a resistor with fixed conductance causality. The operation of the diode is controlled using an if-then function within the model. The extracted hybrid model is implemented on a boost and buck converter with their operations to change from CCM to DCM and to return to CCM. The vector fields of the models show validity in a wide operational area and comparison with the simulation of the converters using PSPICE reveals high accuracy of the proposed model, with the normalised root means square error and the maximum absolute error remaining adequately low. The model is also experimentally tested on a buck topology.


Computation of Mutual Information (MI) helps understand the amount of information shared between a pair of random variables. Automated feature selection techniques based on MI ranking are regularly used to extract information from sensitive datasets exceeding petabytes in size, over millions of features and classes. Series of one-vs-all MI computations can be cascaded to produce n-fold MI results, rapidly pinpointing informative relationships. This ability to quickly pinpoint the most informative relationships from datasets of billions of users creates privacy concerns. In this paper, we present Distributed Differentially Private Mutual Information (DDP-MI), a privacy-safe fast batch MI, across various scenarios such as feature selection, segmentation, ranking, and query expansion. This distributed implementation is protected with global model differential privacy to provide strong assurances against a wide range of privacy attacks. We also show that our DDP-MI can substantially improve the efficiency of MI calculations compared to standard implementations on a large-scale public dataset.


I Heard My Country Calling A Memoir James Webb, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2014, 400 pagesI Heard My Country Calling: A Memoir is James Webb's deeply moving recount of his life as a "military brat" and as a Naval Academy midshipman, from the immediate post-World War II period through the height of the Vietnam era. It was during this time that an insecure America, entrenched in a deepening ideological cold war with the Soviet Union, adopted and maintained a large standing peacetime military. Webb shares experiences from his childhood and early adult years on growing up in a military environment. The real purpose of his book, however, is less about storytelling-although the stories he tells are mesmerizing-and more about sharing what it truly means to grow up and serve in the military.The book, as seen through the eyes of a young , innocent child who matured well beyond his age, is about the emergence of a whole new societal sector- the American military family. As Webb points out, that new permanent sector now encompasses a part of the all-volunteer fighting force, complete with family members, a unique basing and housing infrastructure system, robust family support programs and entitlements and, most noteworthy, the development of a new American subculture. His book could not come at a more appropriate time as the military enters into another budgetary drawdown phase.Having lived the part of a military brat, the author remained in the insular military environment after being accepted to, and attending, the United States Naval Academy. Webb-a combat veteran, noted author, former U.S. Senator, and Navy Secretary-is expertly qualified to speak about life as a military brat, which is actually a term of endearment for those of us who have lived that life.Although the brats can be easily overlooked, they are an absolutely essential part of the Nation's all-volunteer force. His message is loud and clear-as the government squabbles on how to downsize its military force, it would be an abhorrent shame to make military families the bill payers through the dismantling of the hard-fought support programs and entitlements that took so long to develop. These are programs and entitlements military families not only deserve but also have truly earned. And, they serve as important retention tools geared toward retaining our more experienced military members.Although some may consider it to be extravagant, Webb asserts the military support apparatus should not be disassembled. The truth of the matter is, the all-volunteer force does not serve "voluntarily." The nation's service men and women, many of whom are married, work extremely hard and deserve their benefits. Those who serve knowingly sacrifice certain personal freedoms; they serve at the discretion and the needs of the service; and they cannot simply quit their jobs. In fact, some enter into contracts lasting a minimum of eight years. Service members must serve where told-including at various locations throughout the globe-and serve to fight our Nation's wars. Ultimately, for those with families, family members can either be a willing part of the experience, or their disagreeing actions can lead to warriors leaving the service.In his memoirs, Webb recounts a stressful time when, as a child in St. Joseph, Missouri, he, his mom, and his siblings were separated from his father, who was serving overseas during the Berlin Airlift, and again, later, when his dad served an unaccompanied tour in Texas at a base that had no family housing. The challenge was further exasperated by the fact that although St. Joseph was his father's home of record, the family had limited ties to the area. The reader can grasp an inkling of what the author went through, especially those who were brats during this era when military families were often left to fend for themselves while the Soldier went away on deployment.He details a time of his father's return following a lengthy deployment and the excitement little James felt knowing that his father would soon be home-and the sudden induction of fear as he realized his dad could be leaving again. …


Objective To investigate the clinical efficacy and safety of meropenem in older nosocomial infection patients Methods Seventy-three older nosocomial infection patients and ninety-six times using meropenem were observed to analy-ses the clinical efficacy and the bacterial eradication and the clinical adverse effect,et al.Results Clinical total effective rates were 76.04%(73 / 96),the bacterial eradication rates were 71.70%(76 / 106),the clinical adverse effect were 3.77%.There was a great safety in the use of 11 chronic renal failure.Conclusions There were well clinical efficacy and safety in using meropenem in older nosocomial infection patients.


Low levels of vitamin D may play a role in the pathogenesis of psoriasis and is related to increased risk of osteoporosis. There are a few studies showing increased rate of osteoporosis in patients with psoriasis; however, none of them investigated impact of vitamin D levels and gender status together. We aimed to evaluate relationship between vitamin D and osteoporosis in psoriasis patients with an emphasis on gender difference.


Cu–Cr alloyed layers with different Cu and Cr contents on pure titanium were obtained by means of plasma surface alloying technology. The microstructure, chemical composition and phase composition of Cu–Cr alloyed layers were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), respectively. The experimental results demonstrate that the alloyed layers are bonded strongly to pure titanium substrate and consist of unbound Ti, CuTi, Cu3Ti, CuTi3 and Cr2Ti. The thickness of Cu5Cr5 and Cu7Cr3 alloyed layer are about 18 μm and 28 μm, respectively. The antibacterial properties against gram-negative Escherichia coli (E.coli, ATCC10536) and gram-positive Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus, ATCC6538) of untreated pure titanium and Cu–Cr alloyed specimen were investigated by live/dead fluorescence staining method. The study shows that Cu–Cr alloyed layers exhibit excellent antibacterial activities against both E.coli and S.aureus within 24 h, which may be attributed to the formation of Cu-containing phases.


We investigated the effect of 17 soil properties on hydrolysis of seven linear oligophosphates ranging from P2 to P65 and a cyclic polyphosphate (trimetaphosphate). Each of 29 Iowa surface soils was treated with 500 μg of polyphosphate P/g of soil and incubated under aerobic conditions at 25°C for 7 d, and the amount of orthophosphate (Pi) produced was determined. Results showed that polyphosphate hydrolysis varied with the oligophosphates and soils used. Statistical analysis of paired relationships showed that, with the exception of P2, the amounts of Pi produced from the individual polyphosphates were significantly correlated with soil pH and negatively correlated with dithionite-extractable Al3+ and Fe3+. The amounts of Pi produced from certain polyphosphates, but not the others, were significantly correlated with water-soluble Ca2+, but negatively correlated with pyrophosphatase activity (buffered and nonbuffered systems). Multiple-regression analyses showed that polyphosphate hydrolysis is affected by pH, water-soluble Ca2+ and nonbuffered pyrophosphatase activity, all of which had significant positive partial-regression coefficients. Soil properties that showed significant negative partial-regression coefficients were percentage of clay (all P compounds studied), water-soluble Mg2+ (P2, P3, TMP, P5, P15, and P25), and dithionite-extractable Al3+ (P2, P5, P15, P25, P35, and P65). The R2 values of these regression equations ranged from 0.66*** to 0.88***.


The major energy-saving links of the AC servo and pump hydraulic press have been analyzed in the text including the volume control and standby stop.Taking a plate drawing process as an example,energy consumption of an ordinary hydraulic press and a servo-hydraulic press has been compared and analyzed. The new servo-hydraulic press has a remarkable energy-saving effect,which can save 21.6% more energy comparing with ordinary hydraulic press.


Abstract Seven 20%Cr, 25%Ni austenitic stainless steels have been studied, in which the ratio of Ti : C varied between 1·2 and 22·1. Specimens were tested in the solution-treated condition, so that precipitation of carbides occurred during primary creep, and the changes in microstructure have been correlated with the primary creep characteristics.Specimens were crept in air at temperatures between 650 and 825° C, and the creep rates were consistent with the operation of a recovery mechanism, the form of the curves being well described by the Garofalo equation. A divergence from this form in the initial stages arises from an increase in the work-hardening coefficient and in the dislocation density.In contrast to observations on pre-precipitated alloys, the ratio of the initial creep rate to the steady-stage creep rate was not constant, but the behaviour was consistent with the expected influence of the precipitate, which nucleated and grew during the tests.


From the Publisher:
Discusses where JavaBeans fits into the big picture of component software, including ActiveX, OLE, and CORBA. Readers quickly learn to use components and integrate them with HTML and Netscape tools. Includes is example code that clarifies key conce Outlines the latest features in Java including the new Java API and Java's new delegation event model. Explains Netscape's support for JavaBeans & shows how Beans fits in with Netscape ONE. Provides integrated code examples that illustrate important JavaBeans & Java 1.1 API features and concepts. Includes the Java Development Kit JDK and BDK. Contains Netscape's Component Development Kit. Provides example source code from the book.


The article sets out a method for analytical modeling of the recoverability of anti-aircraft missile forces using the example of a self-propelled fire launcher (SOU) of the Buk anti-aircraft missile system. The main attention is paid to one of the properties of technical reliability, namely the reliability of weapons and military equipment. This is especially true of the IWT anti-aircraft missile forces, the failure to fulfill the tasks of which due to failures in operation can lead to serious consequences in operation or battle. The improved method of mathematical modeling of reliability allows taking into account the possibility of developing elements of aging and wear of MCS components in the process of expending the released resource at the operation stage, as well as taking into account the conditions of hostilities by using and developing a mathematical model in the form of a Weibull distribution in order to obtain more guaranteed indicators of reliability. It is advisable to select the final value of the mean hour of MTBF failure taking into account reaching the value of the ratio between the number of MTBF disabled due to only limited technical reliability and the amount of equipment that failed due to enemy fire action. This will increase the efficiency of the system for updating damaged MDS during hostilities, and improve the planning of production activities of repair bodies. It will also be possible to increase the overall combat effectiveness of the anti-aircraft missile regiment in the process of repelling a raid of air attack vehicles. When setting the specified ratio value, the required MTBF value can be calculated (before failure).
The improved method of mathematical modeling adequately reflects the failure-free operation of the combat vehicles of the Buk anti-aircraft missile system, taking into account the conditions of hostilities.
Keywords: probability of failure-free operation, failure-free simulation, continuous operation time, distribution parameters, time between failures, limited technical reliability.


Detailed analysis of 365 patients accounting for a total of 5518 months of IUD use, revealed 11 pregnancies, 29 expulsions, and 24 medical removals. There was also a not negligible number of removals for personal reasons, but of 151 patients who completed the treatment, 115 asked for reinsertion of a new IUD. (Author's modified)


A growing body of literature analysing Asia-Pacific security in the twenty first century regards the ascendancy of regional powers a threat to the stability of the current regional security environment. However, a shift toward multipolarity in the region need not necessarily be viewed as a threat. The view that a relative decline of US primacy threatens regional stability is based on an assumption that maintaining stability is the same as maintaining the status quo. This assumption mistakes the process of US security assurance for the objective of stability in the region. Alternatively, Asian ascendancy may be viewed as an opportunity to create a regional security community. A concept of regional stability that emphasises adaptation to Asia's new political and security realities will be used frame regional engagement as an opportunity rather than a threat. This paper will then substantiate the importance of a regional stability concept by examining the elements of Asian emergence that are construed as threats to regional stability and discussing how rising regional powers might be engaged as partners instead of potential rivals. Perceptions of threat and partnership within the Asia-Pacific may have a significant bearing on regional engagement, cooperation and stability in the future. Australia sends mixed messages to Asia in its defence and foreign policies. The track


168 Background: Androgens and estrogens have been shown to play an important role in normal prostate development and function as well as carcinogenesis and development of the castration resistant phenotype of disease. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of a simultaneous administration of an androgen receptor antagonist (bicalutamide) and a selective estrogen receptor modulator (raloxifene) on both androgen sensitive and androgen insensitive prostate cancer cell lines.

METHODS
Experiments were performed on LNCaP, PC3 and DU145 cell lines. Western blot was utilized for the identification of androgen and estrogen receptors (a andb) in the cell lines. Drug concentrations required to achieve IC 50 were obtained using the MTT assay; such concentrations were identified for the drugs individually and when used in combination. The effect of the drugs on apoptosis was assessed using flow cytometry.

RESULTS
Results of the IC 50 for the drugs alone and in combination by each cell line are shown in the table. An enhanced effect was observed when the drugs were used in combination in all the cell lines. It was evident that the combination of the drugs decreased the total drug required to achieve the IC50 decreases considerably. Apoptosis rates were also affected by the simultaneous administration of bicalutamide and raloxifene. The synergistic effect of the combination was reflected in the increase of the apoptosis rate in all cell lines.

CONCLUSIONS
The simultaneous administration of bicalutamide and raloxifene has a synergistic effect on cell death and apoptosis of DU145, PC3 and LNCaP cell lines. The pathway(s) responsible for this observation may be independent of the androgen receptor as both AR negative cell lines were still affected by the combination over the SERM alone. [Table: see text] No significant financial relationships to disclose.


We have developed TGMETalpha in order to determine T_{eff}, log g, [Fe/H] and [alpha /Fe] for large samples of FGK stars observed at various spectral resolutions. Tests on several hundred echelle spectra of reference stars degraded to low resolution (R=1.000) indicate typical rms precisions of sigma (T_{eff})˜150 K, sigma (logg)˜0.44, sigma ([Fe/H])˜0.15 and sigma ([alpha /Fe])˜0.06. We have used TGMETalpha to determine atmospheric parameters and alpha -abundances from ˜15000 SDSS stellar spectra. Thanks to this very large sample we have investigated the vertical, radial and rotational properties as well as the abundance ratio of alpha elements to iron, [alpha /Fe], of samples representative of the thick disk and the halo. Results presented in the poster, provide new constraints on galactic thick disk formation models. We find evidence for a strong negative radial gradient in [alpha /Fe] with a lack or small one in [Fe/H] in the thick disk. Moreover, there is a lack of vertical gradient in both [Fe/H] and [alpha /Fe]. These features have to be reconciled with the timescale of the thick disk formation as well as with the SFR, IMF, infall of gas or accreted satellite debris.


One problem encountered in the use of air-quality instrumentation on aircraft is the variation of instrument sensitivity with pressure as the result of altitude changes of the aircraft. Many instruments experience sensitivity changes as much as a factor of 2 at altitudes of 6 km. Discussed are recent modifications to a chemiluminescent (ethylene) ozone detector that allow the instrument to automatically compensate for pressure/sensitivity effects. The modification provides automated mass flow rate control for both the sample and ethylene gas flows. The flow control systems maintain flow rate to within 15% for a 100-torr instantaneous pressure change, and flow rates are returned to the desired set points within 10 s after the pressure change. During simulated altitude changes (300 m/min from mean sea level to 3-km altitude), flow rates were controlled to within 3% of the set point.Laboratory data are summarized verifying the operation of the instrument for a pressure range of 760 torr (sea level) to 350 torr (approx. =20,000 ft) and an ozone concentration range of 20-approx.700 ppb.


Novel 4/spl times/4 Hard-Polymer-Clad-Fiber (HPCF) splitter was fabricated with a low loss and uniform power splitting ratio. 1/spl times/4 PON transmission of 1.25/2.5 Gbps at 850 nm over 50 m of HPCF was successfully demonstrated.


This paper provides an overview for the assessment of credit risk specific to the banks. In finance, risk is a term to reflect the potential of financial loss. The risk of default on loan may increase when a company does not make a payment on that loan when the time comes. Hence, this framework analyses the KMV-Merton model to estimate the probabilities of default for Malaysian listed companies. In this way, banks can verify the ability of companies to meet their loan commitments in order to overcome bad investments and financial losses. This model has been applied to all Malaysian listed companies in Bursa Malaysia for estimating the credit default probabilities of companies and compare with the rating given by the rating agency, which is RAM Holdings Berhad to conform to reality. Then, the significance of this study is a credit risk grade is proposed by using the KMV-Merton model for the Malaysian listed companies.


How good are the new projects, plannings, and the persons who are involved in them? In the zeal of reform, the question is posed in all urgency, as analysts are developing new theories and methods; especially in the United States. The Chancellor of the University of Dusseldorf addresses the question head on: What will the evaluation wave do for German institutions of higher learning?


National surveys from Public Agenda, supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, examine public perceptions of quality in diabetes care, joint replacement and maternity care.


PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS PART A: THE DEFINITION OF STANDARDS 1. INTRODUCTION: THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY AND ITS PRODUCTS 2. SOURCES OF STANDARDS FOR BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY 3. SOURCES OF STANDARDS SPECIFIC TO THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY PART B: ACCEPTANCE AND IMPLEMENTATION OF STANDARDS 4. THE INDUSTRY AS A DEVELOPER, MANUFACTURER AND SUPPLIER 5. THE INDUSTRY AS A SOURCE OF INFORMATION, PERSUASION AND EDUCATION 6. PHARMACEUTICAL PRICING AND PROFITS 7. THE INDUSTRY AS INNOVATOR 8. THE INDUSTRY AND THE DEVELOPING WORLD 9. SPECIAL SITUATIONS 10. THE DUTIES OF THE GENERIC MANUFACTURER 11. THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY AND SOCIAL CONTROVERSY 12. POSTSCRIPT: THE WAY AHEAD SELECTED REFERENCES


This papershowsan alternative forsupplying wireless sensors withenergy: Electrical power isgenerated from Thegeneric electromagnetic vibration powergenerator anambient mechanical vibration byuseofavibration power consists of: generator. Asthegenerator isexcited byambient mechanical * Resonance mechanism istuned uptofrequency vibration, itsconstruction produces a relative movementofa ofexcited vibration anditprovides relative magnetic circuit. Thismovementinduces a current intoan movement ofamagnetic circuit against thecoil. electrical coil duetoFaraday's law.Foraeronautical applications * Magnetic circuit provides magnetic fluxthrough likee.g.helicopters, thegenerated powerofaround5mW


At present,there exist some problems in the reform of practical teaching of Economic Law in ethnic universities such as unsystematic application of teaching method,casual selection of teaching cases,and out of date practical materials.Systematic construction of practical teaching of Economic Law should be enhanced so as to make it a long term goal with distinct ethnic characteristics.


Increasing level of inflammation and oxidative stress could lead to memory impairment. The purpose of this study was to determine the neuroprotective effects of walnut peptides against memory deficits induced by lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in mice and further to explore the underlying anti-inflammatory mechanisms against LPS-elicited inflammation in BV-2 cells. Results showed that walnut protein hydrolysate (WPH) and its low molecular weight fraction WPHL could ameliorate the memory deficits induced by LPS via normalizing the inflammatory response and oxidative stress in brain, especially for WPHL. Furthermore, 18 peptides with anti-inflammatory activities on LPS-activated BV-2 cells were identified from WPHL and it was found that Trp, Gly and Leu residues in peptides might contribute to the anti-inflammation. Meanwhile, the strong anti-inflammatory effects of LPF, GVYY and APTLW might be related to their hydrophobic and aromatic amino acids residues as well. LPF, GVYY and APTLW could reduce the content of pro-inflammatory mediators and cytokines by down-regulating related enzyme expression and mRNA expression, respectively. Additionally, ROS and mitochondria homeostasis might also contribute to their anti-inflammatory effects.


Moving object segmentation techniques are fundamental and crucial for video surveillance. In this paper, we abandoned the traditional background differential model approach which ignores the foreground modeling, and address this problem under the Bayesian framework. Our major contribution can be summarized as, modeling the background and foreground competitively to augment the segmentation accuracy, implementing the prior information to enforce spatial-temporal consistency, and introducing the Monte Carlo importance sampling techniques which effectively reduces the computation complexity while guarantees the expected veracity. Promising results demonstrate the potentials of the proposed framework.


Wastewater treatment plants receive influent wastewater that is contaminated with bacterial pathogens which may be released into the environment if the plant effluent is inadequately treated. In this study, next-generation sequencing was used to perform a 16S rDNA-based survey of bacterial populations in the influent and effluent from a treatment facility in the North-West Province (SA). In total, 3638 and 3872 effective DNA reads were obtained for the influent and effluent, respectively. Sequence analysis revealed the detection of a diverse bacterial constituency in both the influent and effluent samples. The phyla: Proteobacteria (49.82% and 52.04%), Firmicutes (14.06% and 13.14%) and Actinobacteria (5.00% and 9.99%) were found to be taxonomically abundant in the influent and effluent, respectively. This translated to the detection of biological treatment-, fecal coliform-, and disease-associated bacterial groups that are classified under the following genera: Escherichia spp., Serratia spp., Aeromonas spp., Legionella spp., Pseudomonas spp., Mycobacterium spp., Clostridium spp., Staphylococcus spp. and Streptococcus spp., Comamonas spp., Nitrosomonas spp., Acinetobacter spp., Rhodobacter spp., Paracoccus spp., Hyphomicrobium spp., and Desulfovibrio spp.


Chronic high‐level spinal cord injury (SCI) impairs cardiac function and cardiomyocyte morphology. However, the temporal progression of these changes post‐SCI remain undetermined as do the contributing pathways.


The focusing system of traveling wave tube is used to control the electron beam to ensure good pass ability during the whole interaction process. Based on MTSS-MFS, $a$ special simulation permanent magnet focusing system software developed by UESTC, a method for calculating coil magnetic field is studied in this paper. The maximum error of the calculated results is less than 3% and the average error is less than 1% compared with the result calculated by Maxwell, the mainstream industrial software.


Introduction Nathan O'Rourke's first thought after hanging up the phone was, "Can I get fired for this?" As a representative for the government, he was supposed to make sure the agency's new laboratory administration contract was performed without incident and according to regulation. The contractor had successfully kept the labs operating, but had done so by working outside the scope of the contract. Why did the contractor assume they could work outside of the contractual agreement and why is he just learning about this now? How had this simple service contract gone off track after only a few months? He had to decide what to do. Now! Background The U.S. Government conducted a wide range of science and technology research across many agencies, including the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the National Institutes of Health. Scientific Research Agency conducted basic and applied research for the national defense community and operated several facilities around the country. While most federal agencies received their funding directly from Congress, Scientific Research Agency received its funding from the organizations it serviced. Management of Scientific Research Agency's operations were especially challenging because it supported many programs, and the agency's third-party accreditation required extensive documentation. The national defense community had experienced many changes over the past 15 years. After the attacks of September 11, 2001 a flood of government civilians and contractor personnel were employed to support the global war on terrorism. Following several years of active U.S. military engagement in the Middle East and elsewhere, the U.S. began to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the requirement for civilian support staff went down dramatically. The government's decision to use contractor personnel to meet surge requirements made it easier to "right-size" organizations after the mission shrunk because it was simpler to terminate contracts than to fire government employees. As part of the defense community, Scientific Research Agency had to adapt quickly to mission changes, funding cycles, and other influences. In some cases, Scientific Research Agency decided it could increase its flexibility by outsourcing certain functions that were not inherently governmental in nature. Eva Crosby, a contracting officer, oversaw Scientific Research Agency's acquisition of goods and services. Only contracting officers were legally authorized to bind the government to a contractor via written contract. Nathan O'Rourke was a contracting officer's representative who performed specific technical and administrative functions on Crosby's behalf in accordance with Defense Procurement and Acquisition Policy (Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, 2014). The contracting officer's representative acted as the eyes and ears for the contracting officer and monitored the contractor's execution of the contract on a daily basis. The Dilemma At the start of the fiscal year, Scientific Research Agency identified the need for a support contract to handle some routine administrative functions associated with operating the agency's research laboratories. These functions included management of unique software tools, management of test results, quality assurance analysis, and management of consumable supplies. Three months into the fiscal year Crosby, the contracting officer, awarded Engineering Associates, Inc. a Cost Plus Fixed Fee (CPFF) contract that authorized payment of actual expenses plus a set amount of profit. This new laboratory administration contract required the contractor to provide monthly progress reports to the contracting officer's representative and to the contracting officer. Funding limitations forced the two-year contract to be broken into several smaller time intervals that could be funded incrementally. …


Understanding packing and interactions inside solids is important knowledge for crystal engineering aiming to build new desired compounds with specific physical and chemical properties [1], as well as for understanding properties such as luminescence [2]. Two important interactions in organic, organometallic or protein structures are highlighted: hydrogen bonding [3] and interactions ( -anion, -cation and -stacking) [4]. Both types of interaction are characterised by specific distances and angles, which can be easily determined and visualized using graphic software such as Diamond[5] or Mercury[6] for 3D structures. However, in case of modulated structure (3+1)D, this visualisation and interpretation is not so straightforward. In this contribution, we describe new tools developed for Jana2006/Jana2020 software in order to find and visualize -stacking in (3+1)D modulated structures. The improvement of the stacking vizualisation allowed us to understand the difference between two new polymorphs, and -Mn(dmp)Cl2, which we use as a case study.


Objective To explore nursing care of electronic bronchoscopic cryotherapy in the treatment of bronchial stenosis secondary to endobronchial tuberculosis.Methods The nursing experience on electronic bronchoscopic cryotherapy for bronchial stenosis secondary to endobronchial tuberculosis was summarized.Mental nursing and respiratory care were strengthened,preoperative preparation was done well,respiratory nursing was carefully performed to improve patient compliance,intraoperative and postoperative adverse reactions were carefully observed,and complications were effectively prevented.Results All the patients received treatment.8 patients developed postoperative blood stained sputum and were finally cured without special treatment.A minority of 28 participants had feeling of scare and accepted treatment after counseling.Correct nursing care improved patient compliance and the success rate of surgery.Conclusions Electronic bronchoscopic cryotherapy for bronchial stenosis secondary to endobronchial tuberculosis improve clinical symptoms and promote lung reexpansion.Effective perioperative nursing can improve patient compliance and success rate of surgery and reduce postoperative complications.

Key words:
Bronchial tuberculosis;  Electronic bronchoscopy;  Cryotherapy;  Nursing care


Plasmas are a typical example of functional fluids under the magnetic field. In the area of fluids engineering the behavior of plasma flow under the strong magnetic field is an attractive subject because of their characteristics of the high enthalpy flow and the luminosity. To realize the development of new plasma technology, it is important to study the effect of strong magnetic field on plasma jet. From this point of view, an experimental study was conducted to examine the effect of strong field induced by superconducting magnet on argon plasma jet. The jet images were taken by a digital camera through the viewing windows. The images of radial distribution of number density were also drawn by using the image processing based on the Abel-inversion. It is confirmed from the comparison with numerical results that these images are utilized for understanding the plasma jet characteristics.


This paper presents the first synthesizable network-on-chip (NoC) based on a mesh topology, which supports adaptive and deadlock-free tree-based multicast routing without virtual channels. The deadlock-free routing algorithms for unicast and multicast packets are the same. Therefore, the routing function gate-level implementation is very efficient. Multicast packets are injected to the network by sending multiple packet headers beforehand. The packet headers contain destination addresses to set up multicast trees connecting a source with multiple destination nodes. An additional locally uniform identification (ID) field is packetized together with flits belonging to the same packet. Therefore, flits of different unicast or multicast packets can be interleaved in the same queue because of the local ID-tags, which are updated and mapped dynamically to support bandwidth scalability of interconnection links. Deadlocks in tree-based multicast routing are handled using a flit-by-flit round arbitration and a fair hold-release tagging mechanism. The effectiveness of the novel mechanism has been experimented under multiple multicast conflicts scenarios, where the experimental results show that all traffic is accepted in-order and lossless in their destination nodes even if adaptive routing functions are used and the sizes of the multicast messages are very long.


A novel hybrid mesh generation algorithm for the three-dimensional viscous flow computations is proposed firstly. The initial surface mesh is generated by the advancing front triangulator. Then the boundary layer is configured with the anisotropic prismatic elements by an advancing layer mesher. For the robustness enhancement and the improvement of the boundary layer elements quality, a series of procedures are adopted at the following several aspects: the computation and smoothing of the marching directions, adaptive adjustment the marching step size, multi-marching directions, and correct the invalid grid elements. In addition, an auto-receding method allows the generation of non-overlapping prismatic mesh even in complex geometries that contain narrow gaps and cavities. Then the mesh generation process is finalized with the far field filled with the isotropic tetrahedral elements generated by the Delaunay-type mesher and the updating of surface mesh on the symmetry plane. Finally, mesh examples and simulation results for several models are presented to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.


The characteristics of quality and the essential factors of geographical indications products of Liupao Tea were analyzed,including social environment,climatic characters and ecological geographical environment,production process.According to the analysis,some proposals have been recommended which included studying the quality and flavor of Liupao Tea deeply,further studying the relationship between the quality of Liupao Tea and original regions,formulating national standard for the protection of geographical indications,setting up a national demonstration area of the protection of geographical indications products and so on.


The Philippine chicken industry has been dominated by backyard farmers. This study was conducted to determine the market trend and forecast the price of fully dressed chicken in Davao City. A monthly time series of secondary data was used in the study obtained from the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) from January 1990 to January 2021, analyzed using an ARMA/ARIMA model to forecast the price and analyze the trend. The result revealed that the best-fit model was ARIMA (3, 1, 1), which indicated high price volatility throughout the analysis (p-value = 0.000) and the model indicates that the forecasted price from 2021-2024 is consistent.

JEL: Q10; Q12; Q13

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The aim of this study was to evaluate the toxicity of rifampicin in the liver of albino rat. The hepatotoxicity of rifampicin was determined by measuring the marker enzymes such as alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase (ALP) and total protein in the liver. The study was designed to evaluate the toxicity of rifampicin in albino rats. Liver toxicity was induced by oral administration of rifampicin at a dose of 10 mg/kg of body weight (21 consecutive days) the rifampicin treated rats showed a significant decrease in the Protein and marked increase in the marker enzymes such as AST, ALT and ALP. The results of the present study suggest that rifampicin showed hepatotoxic effects.


Goal recognition is the task of recognizing the objective of agents based on online observations of their behavior. Goal recognition design (GRD), the focus of this survey, facilitates goal recognition by the analysis and redesign of goal recognition models. In a nutshell, given a model of a domain and a set of possible goals, a solution to a GRD problem determines: (1) to what extent do actions performed by an agent reveal the agent's objective? and (2) what is the best way to modify the model so that the objective of an agent can be detected as early as possible? GRD answers these questions by offering a solution for assessing and minimizing the maximal progress of any agent before recognition is guaranteed. This approach is relevant to any domain in which efficient goal recognition is essential and in which the model can be redesigned. Applications include intrusion detection, assisted cognition, computer games, and human-robot collaboration. This survey presents the solutions developed for evaluation and optimization in the GRD context, a discussion on the use of GRD in a variety of real-world applications, and suggestions of possible future avenues of GRD research.


Semantic Web Services (SWS), a new generation WWW technology, will facilitate the automation of Web service tasks, including automated Web service discovery, execution, composition and mediation by using XML based metadata and ontology. There have been several efforts to build knowledge representation languages for Web Services. However, only few attempts have so far been made to develop applications based on SWS. Especially, front-end agent systems for users are one of the urgent research areas. The purpose of this paper is to introduce our new integrated front-end agent system for ontology management and SWS management.


Ecological disturbances at Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) sites are often the result of extreme meteorological events. Among the events of significance are tropical storms, including hurricanes, and extratropical cyclones. Extratropical storms are low-pressure systems of the middle and high latitudes with their attendant cold and warm fronts. These fronts are associated with strong, horizontal thermal gradients in surface temperatures, strong winds, and a vigorous jet stream aloft. These storms and their attendant fronts generate most of the annual precipitation in the continental United States and provide the lifting mechanisms for thunderstorms that, on occasion, spawn tornadoes. Off the United States West and East Coasts, extratropical storms generate winds, wind waves, wind tides, and long-shore currents that rework coastal sediments, alter landscape morphology, and change the regional patterns of coastal erosion and accretion (Dolan et al. 1988). Although extratropical storms do not match hurricanes in either precipitation intensity or in the strength of the winds generated, they are much larger in size and have a more extensive geographic impact. On occasion, extratropical storms will intensify at an extraordinary rate of 1 millibar (mb) per hour for 24 hours or more. Such storms are classed as "bomb" and are comparable to hurricanes. Extratropical storms occur in all months of the year but are most frequent and more intense in whiter when the north-south temperature contrast is large and dynamic support for storm intensification from the stronger jet stream aloft is great In this chapter, we will explore the history of Storminess for those LTER sites hi the continental United States at which more than a century of data on storms and their storm tracks are readily available. Specifically, we will look at the record of changes in Storminess at both the regional and national scales. During the 1990s, significant storms along the U.S. West Coast and droughts


With IEEE std802.16 been proposed, to provide QoS for the different requirements of wireless metropolitan area network has become a very important and challenging issue. Although IEEE std802.16 MAC (Medium Access Control) layer protocol proposed QoS to a variety of different applications, there is no schedule how to achieve the QoS requirements of standardization. That enables a distinction between equipment manufacturers' products to ensure interoperability while use their best solutions. Based on four priorities of the MAC layer protocol in IEEE std802.16, a relatively simple bandwidth allocation model is this thesis designed and simulated. Simulation indicated that the structure of the model ensured high priority service in an acceptable range, while ensuring low-priority real-time communication. The conclusion of the simulation covered the common issues.


A 19-year-old man presented with a 5-year history of back pain radiating to the lower extremities and paresthesis of the toes during the last year. Plain X-ray revealed a large cauliflower shaped exophytic mass at the level of T8, T9 and T10 vertebrae. Computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) showed an abnormal bony mass arising from the posterior arch of T9 with protrusion to the spinal canal and marked cord compression. The cortex and medulla of the lesion had continuity with those of the T9 vertebra. Surgical en bloc resection was performed and the patient's symptoms resolved. The histopathologic diagnosis was osteochondroma. In patients with symptoms of myelopathy, in addition to more common etiologies, one should also be aware of rare entities such as osteochondroma.


Background and Objectives Deproteinization is an indispensable process for the elimination of antigenicity in xenograft bones. However, the hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) deproteinized xenograft, which is commonly used to repair bone defect, exhibits limited osteoinduction activity. The present study was designed to develop a new method for deproteinization and compare the osteogenic capacities of new pepsin deproteinized xenograft bones with those of conventional H2O2 deproteinized ones. Methods Bones were deproteinized in H2O2 or pepsin for 8 hours. The morphologies were compared by HE staining. The content of protein and collagen I were measured by the Kjeldahl method and HPLC-MS, respectively. The physical properties were evaluated by SEM and mechanical tests. For in vivo study, X-ray, micro-CT and HE staining were employed to monitor the healing processes of radius defects in rabbit models transplanted with different graft materials. Results Compared with H2O2 deproteinized bones, no distinct morphological and physical changes were observed. However, pepsin deproteinized bones showed a lower protein content, and a higher collagen content were preserved. In vivo studies showed that pepsin deproteinized bones exhibited better osteogenic performance than H2O2 deproteinized bones, moreover, the quantity and quality of the newly formed bones were improved as indicated by micro-CT analysis. From the results of histological examination, the newly formed bones in the pepsin group were mature bones. Conclusions Pepsin deproteinized xenograft bones show advantages over conventional H2O2 deproteinized bones with respect to osteogenic capacity; this new method may hold potential clinical value in the development of new biomaterials for bone grafting.


Steganography and steganalysis are main parts of information countermeasure on the Internet,which are very important to information security.A lot of steganalysis algorithms are proposed,but it is difficult to choose a proper one for actual applications.A fuzzy comprehensive evaluation algorithm is proposed to evaluate and compare different steganalysis algorithms.The algorithm can be applied to choose the best steganalysis algorithm,or to evaluate a new steganalysis algorithm.


A NY UNDERSTANDING of contemporary Brazil pivots on the 1930 revolution, which resulted in a new political and social course of development. The final form of this development is yet to be seen, for it is still in a state of redefinition. The role of the army in Brazilian political affairs has always been subtle but crucial. The military brought about the collapse of the Empire of Dom Pedro II in 1889, and it remained behind the scenes when civilians took over the chief executive's office in 1894. Civilian presidents usually could depend on the support and assistance of the professional army corps throughout the period 1894-1930. Younger elements in the army, notably lieutenants, organized unsuccessful revolts throughout the period but the majority of higher ranking officers did not join nor sympathize with these rebels. The older professional army officers generally closed ranks against these extralegal attempts to bring about political change. A key to understanding why the 1930 revolution succeeded is found in the basically conservative nature of the military leaders of the revolt. Those in command of the 1930 revolution were not the lieutenants of 1922 and 1924. The commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the 1930 revolution was Lieutenant Colonel G6oes Monteiro. The famous "tenentes" took their orders from him and coordinated their plans under his direction. G6es Monteiro was an extremely shrewd political opportunist rather than a revolutionary. He had served the government of President Washington Luis (1926-1930) loyally and faithfully and was partially responsible for the defeat and final retreat of the Prestes Column. The lieutenants were used in coordinating certain phases of the 1930 military operations, but they did not make policy. The most prominent of the revolutionary lieutenants of the 1920's, Luis Carlos Prestes, did not participate in the 1930 revolution, and he condemned it as a bourgeois revolt. The lieutenants were more important in


In the context of classifying cyberbullying comments, we introduce a k-nearest neighbor/support vector machine hybrid model. A crucial insight into the training of support vector machines is that the training and the resulting model only depend on a few select points of the training data the support vectors that represent constraints on the implicit decision surfaces of the models. As part of our hybrid model we propose to identify support vector candidates in the training data using a modified k-nearest neighbor algorithm. The reduced training data is then used to train the support vector machine.


This resource was developed to assist agencies in implementing a street sweeping best practice. The Technical Advisory Panel decided these best practices are most useful for application in the State of Minnesota. These information sheets are designed to provide technical staff, policy and decision makers with guidance on a number of topics including: Best Practices Overview, Types of Sweepers, Reasons for Sweeping and Sweeping and Roadway Function. This series of information sheets were put together for agencies to develop criteria to enhance the street sweeping process. The four information sheets are intended to be used as a group, highlighting the different components that should be considered when implementing/enhancing a street sweeping program.


The utility model relates to a domestic electric energy monitoring and managing device. The input terminal of a microprocessor of the device is connected with multiple circuits of electric quantity acquisition circuits, an RF (radio frequency) wireless receiving and sending module, a clock circuit, and keys; the output port of the microprocessor is connected with a plurality of relays; and the communication port of the microprocessor is connected with a power line carrier communication module, an Ethernet module, an LCD (liquid crystal display), and a memory; a power source is connected with the microprocessor and each unit circuit. The utility model provides a monitoring and managing device of household electric energy, divides household electricity into four loops, namely air conditioner electricity, kitchen electricity, lighting electricity, and home appliance electricity (or divides based on the circuits of a resident distribution box), and realizes the monitoring and management of electricity consumption of every loop.


Variational principles are derived in order to facilitate the investigation of the vibrations and stability of single and double-walled carbon nanotubes conveying a fluid, from a linear time-dependent partial differential equation governing their displacements. The nonlocal elastic theory of Euler-Bernoulli beams takes small-scale effects into account. Hamilton's principle is obtained for double-walled nano-tubes conveying a fluid. The natural and geometric boundary conditions identified are seen to be coupled and time-dependent due to nonlocal effects.


Usually lifeline systems, such as water distribution network and gas supply network, cover large areas. For these systems, network topology design based on seismic reliability provides a good way to design new systems and update old ones. In this paper, a topology optimization model for lifeline networks is established. The aim of the model is to find the least-cost network topology while its seismic reliability between the sources and the terminals satisfies prescribed constraints. As above optimal problem is a typical combinatorial optimization problem, simulated annealing algorithm is presented to solve this problem. Simulated annealing algorithm takes network topology as its solution, and tries to find the optimal solution by perturbing and updating the current solution. In order to verify the efficiency and capacity of the proposed algorithm, an example network is investigated in detail. The results indicate simulated annealing algorithm is an efficient algorithm to optimize lifeline networks topology.


Background : This study set out to investigate the aerobic and facultative anaerobic microbial profile of wound infections in the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital. Methods : A total of 202 wound swabs samples were randomly collected from both in and out-patients presenting at the facility. One hundred and thirteen(55.9%) of the samples were collected from males while 89(44.6%) were from females. The age of the patients ranged from 32 days to 80 years. Samples were processed following standard operating protocols in the microbiology laboratory. Results : Of the 202 samples examined, 164(81.2%) had microbial isolates while 38(18.8%) yielded no growth. Among the 164 samples with positive microbial growth, 124(75.6%) had single isolates while 40(24.4%) had polymicrobial growth. Of the 113 males studied, 90(79.7%) had microbial growth while 23(20.4%) had no growth. Similarly, of the 89 females studied, 74(83.2%) had microbial growth while 15(16.9%) had no growth. Furthermore, the total microbial isolates from the study was 206. Gram-negative bacterial organisms accounted for 124(60.1%) as against 82(39.9%) from the Gram-positive's (p Pseudomonads 28(23.3%) and Klebsiella spp 25(12.1). Organisms were more frequently isolated from patients within the age bracket 21-30 years, 93(45.2%) and least within age bracket 71 – 80 years, (0.5%). Antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of the bacterial isolates revealed that ceftazidime was the most effective with 143(70.1%) of the isolates being susceptible. Cotrimoxazole 23(11.3%) and tetracycline 17(8.3%) were less effective against the isolates. Conclusions : Constant bacteriological monitoring of the pathogens isolated in special disease conditions, and their antimicrobial susceptibility pattern are necessary for best practices in wound management.


SUMMARY Factors regulating the citric acid cycle have been investigated in rat heart mitochondria oxidizing pyruvate plus malate or acetylcarnitine plus malate as substrates. Effects caused by changing the NAD oxidation-reduction state, the intramitochondrial ATP:ADP ratio, and the respiratory rate were studied in five different metabolic states produced by additions of ADP, oligomycin, or uncouplers. The accumulations of cycle intermediates and the mitochondrial content of CoA derivatives and pyridine nucleotides were measured in extracts prepared from the whole incubation medium or after rapid separation of the mitochondria from the medium. These data, together with measurements of substrate utilization, were used to calculate flux through the individual steps of the citric acid cycle. Pyruvate dehydrogenase was found not to be rate limiting for citric acid cycle activity. citrate approximately the (100 nmoles per per whether


This paper will present a study of vibration frequency characteristics under impact conditions for a typical friction type draft gears used on railroad freight cars, a comparison of typical instrumentation records showing force-closure clutch action of typical and representative electronic equipment used to measure these vibration forces.


It is well known that the use of proton pump inhibitor (PPI) is widespread in patients with liver cirrhosis. PPI counteracts H2 receptor inhibitor (H2RA) with its strong acid suppression effect. However, there is always a concern that PPI use may increase spontaneous bacteria peritonitis (SBP) development in cirrhotic patients. We aimed to investigate the association between acid suppression therapy (i.e. PPI or H2RA) and SBP through meta‐analysis.


The implementation process of European Union′s unified power market and united regional market were presented in this paper.Taking the trilateral market coupling among France,Belgium,and Netherlands as an example,the development,market mechanism and market coupling process of the trilateral market were deeply analyzed in this paper.On this basis,the development of the regional electricity market of Central West European was described and the exploitation together with basic content of the five counties power market coupling project were introduced in this paper.


The traditional method of deploying virtual machines depends on the single performance indicators to select the target host and ignores the difference of business features revealed by virtual machines.Owing to lack of rational allocation of resources,the phenomenon of excessive migration of virtual machines is often brought.This paper presents a model that automatically deploys virtual machine with personalized indicators in cloud.Personalized load features and load forecasting are used in the mechanism.Experimental results show the effectiveness of the mechanism.


Strengthening energy security, mitigating global warming and being competitive in global markets are among reasons Thailand is developing nuclear power program. Based on the current Thailand Power Development Plan there will be 5 units of a 1,000 MWe nuclear power plant commercialized from 2020 to 2028. Nuclear power will contribute no greater than 10% of Thailand electricity generation. Currently, Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), government owned utility, is conducting nuclear power plant feasibility study. Major tasks include reactor technology and supplier selection, site survey and selection, and human resources development planning. Since this is Thailand's first nuclear power plant, infrastructure assessment and establishment planning, e.g. nuclear law and regulatory body, and public education and participation, are also crucial to the success of the program. All these will be in the readiness report to submit to the Thai Cabinet for approval next year. According to the Nuclear Power Infrastructure Establishment Plan, a roadmap for launching nuclear power program in Thailand, nuclear power project will be implemented during 2011–2013, construction will start in 2014, and Thailand's first nuclear power plant will be complete for commercial operation in 2020.


Objective To explore the correlative factors affecting the satisfaction degree among nurses in Longgang District of Shenzhen so as to improve the satisfaction degree of nurses,enhance nursing quality and better nursing personnel management.Methods A general questionnaire,MSQ,OCQ and turnover intention questionnaire were used to make the investigation among 445 nurses in the hospitals of Shenzhen Longgang District.Multiple stepwise regression analysis was performed,with the total scores from job satisfaction,organizational commitment,turnover intentions as dependent variables and the total scores from age,education,marriage,title,duty,labor relation,service as independent variables.Results The satisfaction degree was positively related with organizational commitment and age,negatively with labor relations and turnover intentions(P0.001).Conclusion The job satisfaction is closely related with the factors such as organizational commitment,age,labor relations and turnover intentions.Pertinent interventions can be taken to improve the job satisfaction of nurses.


This study presents high-resolution airborne geophysical estimates of the distribution of 137Cs across three areas of northern Britain and Ireland. The radiometric spectra were acquired as part of a program of modern resource and environmental surveying. The largest survey area considered covers the whole of Northern Ireland. All three data sets display some clustering on high ground together with regional scale banding features. The two main banding directions are approximately NNW-SSE and NW-SE. Our interpretation of the regional scale features is in relation to existing knowledge of the wet deposition model of the Chernobyl release of 1986. The airborne estimates, obtained at 200 m flight line intervals, add significant detail in relation to the meteorological and atmospheric interactions involved in the fallout from the Chernobyl plume over Western Europe.


We demonstrate the fabrication of green and blue conjugated-polymer light-emitting diodes with aluminium as the cathode electrode. In addition, we examine the characteristics of the devices using a numerical model. The model considers the localized nature of carriers in light-emitting polymers and also the hopping of carriers from the metal electrodes into the localized electronic states of the organic solid. We use the model to simulate the current-voltage-brightness characteristics of the two devices. We show this theoretical approach yields reasonable results even for our devices with high barrier contacts. Also, we investigate the carrier distribution and recombination profile within the emissive layer.


This paper describes the process the state of Washington is pursuing to meaningfully involve citizens in the transportation decisions of the next two decades. The goal of the Washington State Department of Transportation's (WSDOT) Public Involvement Program is to achieve the agency's mission through soliciting the public's involvement using both qualitative and quantitative techniques that meet both the department and public's needs. Also, the program is geared to meet federally mandated requirements, such as the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act. Information is provided for other states regarding principles and strategies to involve the public in transportation planning and decision making.


This paper studies the information-theoretic limits of a cognitive radio (CR) network under spectrum sharing with an existing primary radio (PR) network for wireless communications. In particular, the fading cognitive multiple-access channel (C-MAC) is studied, where multiple CR users transmit to the base station (BS) of the CR network under both individual transmit power constraints and a set of interference-power constraints each applied at one of the PR receivers. For the fading PR and CR channels, we consider the long-term (LT) or the short-term (ST) transmit-power constraint over the fading states at each CR transmitter, combined with the LT interference-power constraint at each PR receiver. In each case, we characterize the ergodic sum capacity of the corresponding fading C-MAC, which is defined as the maximum sum-rate of CR users averaged over all the fading sates. Furthermore, we derive in each case the conditions for the optimality of the time-division-multiple-access (TDMA) in the CR network, i.e., when it is optimal to schedule at most one CR user for transmission at each time to achieve the ergodic sum capacity of the fading C-MAC.


The joint National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission will provide considerably more observations over complex and dynamically changing land backgrounds. A physically based precipitation retrieval using GPM's satellite constellation of passive microwave (PMW) observations has to accommodate the spatially and temporally varying radiometric signature of the land surface to constrain the set of candidate rainfall solutions. The challenge for retrieval algorithms is to identify and isolate precipitation profiles whose simulated observations agree with the satellite observations and are also representative of the surface conditions. Microwave emissivity modeling results are presented from a physically based land algorithm that retrieves soil moisture, vegetation water content, and surface temperature, along with the emissivity using polarized 10, 18, and 37 GHz channel measurements from the WindSat sensor onboard the Coriolis satellite, and results from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) Microwave Imager (TMI). The emissivity mean, coefficient of variation, covariance, and correlation slope are examined for the range of clear-scene surface properties observed by WindSat and TRMM between 2003-2012 and 2002-2011, respectively, under a range of seasons, time of day, rain events, etc. These joint data provide a means to examine the extent to which the surface geophysical properties control the microwave land surface emissivity covariability, to better utilize these lower frequency observations in overland PMW-based precipitation retrievals.


The current study was conducted on the Effectiveness of Motivational Incentives on Employee Performance. The main purpose of this study was to determine the level of incentives and to evaluate the impact of these incentives on employee performance. Research has developed a variety of ways in which employees are motivated including incentives based on financial and non financial recognition. Research suggests that financial incentives alone were not enough. Capacity building programs should be implemented for employees that will not only make their job challenging but also increase their commitment to their organizations. The information from this study can be used effectively by companies to review their staff policies and other researchers for future studies.


The search for new instruments to promote an appropriate cervical preparation has led to the development of new rotary instruments such as TripleGates. However, to the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no study evaluating TripleGates effect on the "risk zone" of mandibular molars. Objectives : The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of a crown-down sequence of Gates-Glidden and TripleGates burs on the remaining cervical dentin thickness and the total amount of dentin removed from the root canals during the instrumentation by using cone beam computed tomography. The number of separated instruments was also evaluated. Material and Methods : Mesial roots of 40 mandibular first molars were divided into 2 equal groups: crown-down sequence of Gates-Glidden (#3, #2, #1) and TripleGates burs. Cervical dentin thickness and canal area were measured before and after instrumentation by using cone beam computed tomography and image analysis software. Student's t-test was used to determine significant differences at p<0.05. Results : No significant differences (p>0.05) were observed between the instruments, regarding the root canal area and dentin wall thickness. Conclusion : Both tested instruments used for cervical preparation were safe to be used in the mesial root canal of mandibular molars.


This paper presents an investigation of the effects of heating rocket propellants before they enter the thrust chamber, by regenerative heat transfer, by exhaust heat recovery, and from an external source. Calculations were based on simplified assumptions (pure-gas laws and onedimensional flow dynamics) to determine the effects of heat transfer on the over-all specific impulse.


This article works with Connolly's (2004) concept of "emergent causality" to counter the insistence on linear expressions of cause and effect in dominant strands of drug prevention evaluation. I elaborate this concept with reference to recent controversies concerning the policing of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. The use of sniffer dogs to furnish the reasonable suspicion required to authorize police "stop and search" procedures has been a key part of this controversy. Substantiated in terms of its universal applicability, high visibility and purported deterrent effect, this practice actually forms part of the complex and evolving environment in which new and more dangerous forms of sex-related drug consumption have emerged. Emergent causality makes it possible to see how any element in a given assemblage can acquire contingent agentic capacities. Grasping these developments as events, or processes of eventuation, sets out an active, engaged and agonistic role for research practice.


Three experiments examined very long-term verbatim memory (from 4 months to 28 years) for lengthy, complex material. Experiments 1 and 2 found that recall (12 and 20 months after the material was last accessed) was at or near ceiling for many participants, and was significantly higher than free-choice recognition, with recognition failure for recallable words (RF) being observed. The magnitude of the effect corresponded to that predicted by the Tulving–Wiseman (1975) function. Experiment 3 found that recall was at or near ceiling for 3 years, then declined dramatically as the retention interval increased. However, given equal amounts of context as retrieval cues, forced-choice recognition remained relatively strong for as long as 28 years. These findings provide evidence of long-term memory for exact details of complex discourse far in excess of previous demonstrations, and, under certain circumstances, extend the RF phenomenon to lengthy, well-learned texts over long retention intervals. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Researchers at The University of Iowa have encountered the need for an efficient 1-wire communication protocol for use in embedded systems and distributed wired sensors. One possible solution for this problem is the use of a Wired Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA). Although this approach has been investigated before, a key simplification can made with the use of a binary wired-OR channel. This paper develops the theory for such a protocol, including a mathematical formulation of the Bit Error Rate, and describes experiments that are being conducted to determine the validity of this approach, including a software simulation to calculate expected Bit Error Rate and prototype hardware to verify the practicality of this design.


Infection with high risk human papilloma viruses (HPVs) is directly associated with the occurrence and development of cervical cancer, however, currently there is no specific anti-HPV drug available for cancer treatment. Arsenic trioxide (ATO) has been shown to induce apoptosis in HPV-infected cervical cancer cells in vitro but its wider clinical applications have been compromised by its toxicity and poor pharmacokinetics. This research explores an optimized drug delivery system for ATO using liposomal nanotechnology with the aim of enhancing its potential as a cervical cancer treatment. The size and surface charge of liposomes were optimised and 100nm neutral liposomes demonstrated maximum stability, least intrinsic toxicity and highest loading efficiency among all the tested formulations. Furthermore, both free and chosen liposomal-ATO were exposed to two cervical cancer cell lines (HeLa and HT-3, with and without HPV) and control cells. Liposomal-ATO was most effective in inducing toxic response in HPV+ ve HeLa cells, followed by HT-3 and control cells. These cells were then screened for different surface markers in order to identify the best ligand for selectively targeting HPV positive cells. Folate receptor (FR) was found as the most abundantly expressed receptor on HeLa cells, therefore, folic acid (FA) was chosen as the targeting ligand. FA-liposomal-ATO were synthesised by linking liposomal-ATO to FA using 5000kDa PEG spacer, which was shown to be most efficient and specific in enhancing the cellular uptake of ATO in FR positive cells. Finally, FA-liposomal-ATO were examined for their effectiveness in reducing HPV oncogenes and the possible mechanisms. Results showed that FA-liposomal-ATO induced higher cell death in HPV cells than free ATO per unit arsenic and also demonstrated higher selectivity and efficiency in inducing cell apoptosis, downregulating oncogenes and upregulating the tumour suppressors in HPV positive cells. These findings provide a promising therapeutic strategy in managing HPV-associated cancers.