Southern Africa is facing chronic food insecurity mainly because of the multistressor context in which agriculture is practiced in this region. Climate-change-related constraints are fueling food shortages for marginalized rural communities. Climate-smart agriculture (CSA) has been recognized as a key strategy for mitigating the effects of climate change. However, there has been a minimal level of adoption of CSA among smallholder farmers in southern Africa. Factors contributing to the limited adoption of CSA include poor access to resources by smallholder farmers, poverty, poor infrastructure, and an inadequate level of farmer advisory and resource service provision. These are the same factors that have resulted in the increased vulnerability of smallholder farmers to climate shocks in southern Africa. Currently, there are a limited number of reviews that simultaneously address the impacts of climate change and CSA on southern Africa's smallholder agricultural sector. The current review synthesizes information on the contribution of smallholder agriculture to food security in southern Africa, highlighting the vulnerability of smallholder agriculture to climate shocks and the effect of CSA activities practiced in the region. To come up with this writeup, we reviewed information from reliable, published journal articles, institutional reports, and our knowledge of agricultural systems in southern Africa. The adoption of CSA agriculture can be enhanced by the advancement of favorable policies by national governments. This includes adequate participation from smallholders, particularly women, in governance via bottom-up policymaking.


The article analyses the environ mental factors affecting the plant layout and disscuses the distribution principle of the environmental factors in plant total plane design and advances a valuation method to the plan distribution effect with fuzzy judement


The relay subcommittee of the A.I.E.E. protective devices committee herewith submits its recommendations for the protection of electrical apparatus. These recommendations are based upon a questionnaire and the 37 replies thereto from specialists in this field. Answers were interpreted and codified by a group of 20 experienced engineers particularly interested in the protection of electrical apparatus and circuits. It is hoped that this concensus of present-day opinion will be the beginning of a series that will be augmented and improved with each periodic analysis and reissue.


The efficiency of a random search strategy in complex networks is measured with the mean first passage time. We formulate a problem of adding a set of k links between the two subsets of the vertex set that optimally reduce the mean first passage time between the sets. We propose two greedy algorithms that approximately solve the problem and we compare their performance against several standard link prediction algorithms.


As electronic system becomes more and more complex design and verification time of the FPGA device increase exponentially. The volatile characteristics of the FPGA can cause configuration loss due to electrical conditions such as electrostatic discharge or power failure. Our paper will present a new approach to decrease the design complexity and verification time while also reducing the time to market and create a redundant system in case of configuration loss. The Spartan3A board which include a SPI (Serial Peripheral Interface) FLASH, an ICAP (Internal Configuration Access Port), and an ISE 9.2. (Integrated Software Environment) Software tool from Xilinx will be used to achieve that goal.


Objective To investigate the evolution trend of limbic vascular endothelial growth factor(VEGF) and early intervention of Chinese medicinal with the actions of tonifying kidney and regulating qi in rats after stroke.Methods Male Wistar rats were chosen and randomly divided,after open-field ethology scoring,into normal group,sham-operation group,multi-cerebral infarction group(MCI group),Chinese medicinal group and Western medicinal group.The normal group was given routine feeding,sham-operation group was given injection normal saline(0.3 m L) and orally distilled water,and other groups were given injection of allogenic embolus(0.3 m L).The Chinese medicinal group and Western medicinal group were given respectively Chinese medicinal(6.2 g / kg) and nimodipine(9.45 mg / kg) for 4 w after modeling.The changes of limbic VEGF and intervention efficacy of Chinese medicinal were observed by using immunohistochemistry technique on the 1st w,2nd w and 4th w.Results The outcomes of immunohistochemistry technique showed that positive cells of VEGF increased significantly in MCI group.The expression of VEGF was significantly higher on the 1st w than in other time points in MCI group,and then decreased gradually.The positive cells of VEGF increased significantg in Chinese medicinal group compared with MCI group and normal group on the 2 nd w and 4th w.Conclusion There are changes of limbic VEGF in rats after cerebrovascular disease,and Yinao Jieyu Fang can improve vascular repair and regeneration.


Onion (Allium cepa L.) is one of the most important horticultural crops grown worldwide and typically used as a spicy ingredient of both vegetarian and nonvegetarian dishes. The therapeutic uses of onion add value to its importance. The total area under onion in the world was 5.04 million ha with a production of 96.8 million tonnes and productivity of 19.2 tonnes ha -1 , whereas in India the area under this crop was 1.31 million ha with a production of 22.1 million tonnes and productivity of 16.87 International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 9 Number 4 (2020) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com


Learning to talk about motion in a second language is very difficult because it involves restructuring deeply entrenched patterns from the first language. In this paper we argue that statistical learning can explain why L2 learners are only partially successful in restructuring their second language grammars. We explore to what extent L2 learners make use of two mechanisms of statistical learning, entrenchment and pre-emption to acquire target-like expressions of motion and retreat from overgeneralisation in this domain. Paying attention to the frequency of existing patterns in the input can help learners to adjust the frequency with which they use path and manner verbs in French but is insufficient to acquire the boundary crossing constraint and learn what not to say. We also look at the role of language proficiency and exposure to French in explaining the findings.


Infrared multispectral photodetectors with high performance show great potential in a broad range of applications. Here, sensitive and controllable dual-color photodetection at 10.6 and 15.7 μm is demonstrated by using a charge sensitive infrared phototransistor (CSIP) with dynamical optical gate. The CSIP device is fabricated in a GaAs/AlGaAs double quantum well (QW) crystal with both upper and lower QWs (7 and 11 nm thick, respectively) being photosensitive via intersubband absorption and, hence, each QW corresponding to one target wavelength ( 10.6 and 15.7 μm, respectively). Moreover, the upper QW serves as a photosensitive floating gate (FG), while the lower QW functions as the conducting channel of the phototransistor. By periodically lifting-up (lowering-down) the electrostatic potential of FG, the photoresponse at 10.6 ( 15.7 μm) associated with photoexcitation in upper (lower) QW can be achieved. This electrically controllable photoresponse together with intrinsically high photoconductive gain (∼102) provides a scheme to realize sensitive dual-color photodetection for infrared optoelectronic applications.


A model of the frequencyhopped multipleaccess communication system with MASKOFDM modulation is proposed.The hitting pattern and the performance of MAC signal are analized.The affection of hitting pattern to BER of the system is discussed.


Arguably, current trends in sensor research, development and commercialization can be classified in five broad categories (not necessarily in an order of significance or as they appear in the title). In this presentation, these trends will be briefly discussed using examples from the literature and from the authors' laboratory. Sensor-powering schemes (ranging from energy harvesting, to energy scavenging, to self-powering) and to power-management approaches will also be outlined. Applicability and potential socio-economic impact will be briefly discussed, with particular emphasis in the future of sensor-applications in IoT (Internet of Things), in Industry 4.0 (and in the emerging but not yet well defined Industry 5.0) and in Society 5.0. The motivation is to summarize current and emerging trends that may be of interest to a wide audience.


Objectives:The tympanic cavity contains 3 small immovable bones, the malleus, incus and stapes. Extensive studies havebeen carried out on the morphometry of the ossicles. According to some scientists, in human beings the auditory ossiclesreach there definitive size and shape in fetal periods and postnatal modifications are minimal, while there are certain studies which their contradict this claim. These contradictory claims prompted us to make an endeavor to find out the growthpattern of the ear ossicles and comparing the data with adults. Methods: Twenty-two fetal cadavers of either sex, ranging in gestational ages between 24-40 weeks, were collected fromlocal hospitals and 15 adult formalin-fixed cadavers in age groups of 20-30 years were taken. For the study, the fetuses werekept in 2 Groups of 24-28 weeks and 36-40 weeks. From the data obtained, the mean, standard deviation and percentagegain from one group to another in different dimensions of various parts of each ossicle was calculated. Results: The age periods between 40 weeks (full term fetuses) and adults, revealed spurt in the growth of diameter of headof malleus (3%), width of short process of incus (2.7%), width of footplate (5.2%) and height of stapes (13%). Thesechanges were insignificant in terms of acoustic transmission. Conclusion:It is concluded that by the end of gestation, the ear ossicles develop morphometric features comparable to adultswith no appreciable changes in the post natal period. Hence, they can be used as prosthesis in adults suffering from ossicularchain malformations and can be an easy and cheap method for treatment of this type of patients


In this paper we propose a new equivalent learning algorithm for independent component analysis when sensor signals are prewhitened. Since the search for demixing matrix is reduced to finding an orthogonal matrix instead of nonsingular matrix, optimization should be performed on the orthogonal group. We generalize the natural gradient approach to this case based on geodesics on the orthogonal group and the Stiefel manifold. Ordinary algorithms can be regarded as linear approximation of ours. The result of computer simulations demonstrates the effectiveness of our method.


Pepper berries classification has been performed manually by human vision. Hence the procedure consumes a lot of manpower and time. This research discusses an application of computer vision to classify the peppercorn samples. We propose the use of edge detection and template matching from the real time gray scale images taken from the peppercorn samples. Color images and color detection is applied in this research as they consume large volume of CPU memory and reduce the classification speed in real time (Reece et al. 1998, Zou et al. 2007). The paper discusses the background of peppercorn feature classifications, followed by the peppercorn recognition algorithm, evaluation and results of the recognition.


While shielding in {ital collisional}, strongly magnetized (one-dimensional) plasmas obeys the standard Debye result, shielding in {ital collisionless}, immobile ion plasmas is far more complex than commonly believed. In some circumstances, the plasma will {ital antishield} a positive test charge; i.e., the plasma becomes more {ital positive} in the neighborhood of a positive test charge. When shielding does occur, it results solely from electrons dynamically trapped in the neighborhood of the test charge. The new theory of dynamic shielding, developed herein, is in good agreement with experiments in pure electron plasmas.


Stemming is an operation on a word that simply extract the main part possibly close to the relative root, we define as a lexical entry rather than an exact morpheme, by eliminating the suffixes, as they mean, without doing a morphological analysis. Stemming is a widely used, however, a basic tool for a language processing in the area of Information Access (IA). Previous research on Bangla stemming has shown the capability of eliminating a single suffix on a 'longest match' basis from a word. Our proposed system has augmented the research through introducing a recursive process to eliminate multiple suffixes from a single word to retrieve more relevant relative root. Our proposed algorithm contains three approaches in recursive suffix stripping based stemming. We define them as conservative, aggressive, and rule-based approaches. In our proposed method, an inflectional word is stemmed in all possible ways by the recursive suffix stripping algorithm before identifying the final stem using the conservative, the aggressive and the rule-based approaches. Our experiments and evaluation on a relatively larger text corpora show the strength and efficiency of our proposed algorithm with 92% accuracy. Keywords—Bangla Stemmer, Natural Language Processing (NLP), Information Access, Information Processing


Parkinson's disease has affected over 6.3 million people across the globe. It is estimated that by 2030, the number would rise to 9 million. Almost twenty percent of the people still remain undiagnosed. Parkinson's is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's. It not only claims the lives of the patients suffering from it but also adversely impacts the lives of their loved ones. A lot of research is being conducted to find modern medical techniques to tackle the ill effects of the disease. Monitoring the progression of the disease plays a vital role in controlling its various symptoms. Non-conventional ways of monitoring PD (Parkinson's Disease) provide an edge over the existing techniques as it reduces the financial burden and also limits the number of clinical visits required for it. In this research paper, we aim to build a predictive model that accurately predicts the UPDRS (Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale) of patients using the data collected through noninvasive speech tests. The research hopes to propose a more efficient technique to monitor Parkinson's disease leading to beneficial treatment of the patients.


In practice, industrialization and development are closely linked. The growth driven by industrialization has a detrimental impact on human and environmental health. The sustainability of the development is still questionable. We will not be able to treat the next generation fairly if we cannot achieve sustainable development. In order to make development sustainable, the idea of sustainable development is currently being emphasized. The current study aims to understand the connection between industrialization and sustainable development and explore the approaches to sustainable development. It turns out that the function of information and communication technology (ICT) in sustainable development can be a starting point in this direction. It is also exploring how numerous sustainable development techniques can be brought together using ICT for this use of systems analysis approach. This paper also sheds light on the question of whether industrialization and sustainable development can go together. A model will be built to show the role of ICT in predicting the environmental changes influenced by industrialization. This model will help in reducing the time gap between awareness and actual environmental damage.


We describe a parallel benchmark procedure and numerical results for a three-dimensional binary stochastic medium particle transport benchmark problem. The binary stochastic medium is composed of optically thick spherical inclusions distributed in an optically thin background matrix material. We investigate three sphere mean chord lengths, three distributions for the sphere radii (constant, uniform, and exponential), and six sphere volume fractions ranging from 0.05 to 0.3. For each sampled independent material realization, we solve the associated transport problem using the Mercury Monte Carlo particle transport code. We compare the ensemble-averaged benchmark fiducial tallies of reflection from and transmission through the spatial domain as well as absorption in the spherical inclusion and background matrix materials. For the parameter values investigated, we find a significant dependence of the ensemble-averaged fiducial tallies on both sphere mean chord length and sphere volume fraction, with the most dramatic variation occurring for the transmission through the spatial domain. We find a weaker dependence of most benchmark tally quantities on the distribution describing the sphere radii, provided the sphere mean chord length used is the same in the different distributions. The exponential distribution produces larger differences from the constant distribution than the uniform distribution produces. The transmission throughmore » the spatial domain does exhibit a significant variation when an exponential radius distribution is used.« less


M.-J. Jolivet — The Construction of an Historical Memory in Martinique. In making Schoelcher the white liberating hero, embued with the power of cleansing the colonial power of its sin of slavery, officiai history responded to the neces-sities of the politics of assimilation. The construction of a particularly ' Creole' identity, i.e. rooted in the slave trade (but not merely the African slave trade), requires an entirely different representation of this history. Lacking a singular hero who could be seen as responsible for a founding epic, the people of Martinique reorganized their 'historical memory' around the collective hero constituted by the slaves in each of their revolts. But in privileging only the hitherto obscured bright moments of the past, this memory maintains contradictory relations with the collective memory which resulted from the daily experience of servile reality and the plantation System. The future of Martinique's identity no doubt rests largely on the evolution of these relations.


A new genus, Vindobonella gen. n. (Acerentomidae s. l.), and a new species, Vindobonella leopoldina sp. n., are described from Vienna. The new genus belongs to a group characterized by a reduced labial palp and a non-modified striate band on abdominal segment VIII.


Label bar style full transposition complex superconducting conductors, bundled portions conductors relates to a method for producing the (2 As a partial conductor (2 According to the present invention, complete dislocation HTS composite conductor having a partial conductor consisting of coated strip carrier also allows production. The present invention also relates to a composite conductor produced in this way.


Safeguarding of chemical production plant by means of control engineering. Control equipment is becoming increasingly important for safeguarding of plant. According to VDI/VDE 2180, sheet 3, control equipment is classified as operational equipment, as monitoring equipment, or as protective equipment. Operational and monitoring control equipment serves the proper operation of plant in its correct state or in a faulty but still acceptable state. Protective control equipment is intended to prevent occurrence of an unacceptable faulty state of the plant. It is helpful if the control equipment is classified at an early stage of planning. Preferably the protective control equipment should be considered separately from the other control equipment. It is then possible to design it in such a way that its behaviour in the event of faults can be clearly defined. A distinction is made between active faults (or functiontriggering faults) and passive faults (or function-inhibiting or blocking faults). An active fault reduces the availability of chemical plant for production by inadvertent shut-down. Passive faults of protective equipment prevent triggering of the protective function, even though the conditions for triggering are fulfilled. They adversely affect the safety of the plant. Passive faults of control equipment must therefore by prevented or kept under control. A selection of appropriate measures for achieving this is presented.


Mangrove crabs (Scylla tranquebarica) are one of the fisheries commodities with high economic value. However, there are several obstacles in the process of developing crab culture, such as parasitic infections. The presence of parasites can reduce production in crab culture, one of which is the parasite Octolasmis sp. The purpose of this study was to identify Octolasmis parasites that infect mangrove crabs and knowing the prevalence rate of the parasite Octolasmis sp. on mangrove crabs in Lubuk Kertang, Langkat. This research used exploratory method, while the sampling technique used in sampling was the random sampling method. Crab identified as many as 15 crabs. The results showed that the type Octolasmis sp. identified to attack mangrove crabs in Lubuk Kertang, Langkat are Octolasmis cor and Octolasmis angulata. The prevalence rate of the Octolasmis parasite was based on the number of parasites found, the Octolasmis cor parasite is 93.3% and the number of O. angulata is 53.3%. Based on the prevalence and intensity of octolasmis found more octolasmis cor than octolasmis angulata.


Summary Report of the 4th International Congress of Person Centered Medicine, Person Centered Medical Education and the Goals of Health Care, Madrid, 7-9 November 2016


Part I. After a brief statement of the present unsatisfactory position regarding the life history of Polystomella crispa, an account is given of experiments with various fixatives on P. crispa, collected near Drake's Island, Plymouth. A method is described for the cultivation of Polystomella in diatom cultures, especially with Navicula mutica var., with which a flagellate (Bodo sp.) was constantly present. The identification of individual Foraminifera, and determination of growth, were often possible by some irregularity in the shell, or by noting the attachment of one or more stalked egg cocoons of an unknown turbellarian worm. The feeding of Polystomella on diatoms seized by the pseudopodia outside the shell is described; the structures previously taken for ingested algal cells inside the shell are shown to be foraminal plugs ('bouchons' of le Calvez) which are discarded from time to time and thrown out of the shell along with the excretory granules (xanthosomes), mostly via the canal system. Part II. Notes are given on the microspheric form and its reproduction, through the spring and summer, by schizogony. The rearing of two broods in laboratory cultures is described, with an account of the formation of a new chamber to the shell. It is concluded that a complete life cycle consisting of one microspheric and one megalospheric phase occupies a period of about two years. Part III. Sporulation of the megalospheric form is described as seen during life; and various factors are discussed which might affect the process. The relatively small size of the reproducing Polystomella with which Lister worked is ascribed to their having lived under less favourable conditions. From a study of stained preparations, certain details are added concerning the opening up of the shell, presumably to facilitate the eventual escape of the flagellate swarm spores; also concerning the accompanying cytoplasmic and nuclear changes. Some account is given of the form and structure of the swarm spores, both alive and in permanent preparations. Experiments are described which constitute an attempt to carry the life cycle beyond the stage of sporulation. They are so far unsuccessful, with one possible exception, under all the various experimental conditions which are briefly discussed in their turn.


Single-phase flow through a fibrous porous medium is numerically simulated. The simulation is based on the numerical solution of incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in irregular domains, where the irregular boundary is represented by its level-set function. This numerical method is used to search the Reynolds number below which the fluid flow in porous medium obeys linear Darcy's law for different kinds of porous medium. Also, the calculation results, which obtained using a simple and snap meshes, are compared with analytical solution. The results show that the simple mesh is effective enough and can be used instead of snap mesh in OpenFOAM.


Objective to Investigate the method of prevent leakage of radioactive medicine after intravenous injection. Methods To compare the situation of medicine leakage after intravenous injection after the nurses and patients press together (experimental group) with the patients press 5-10 min after the nurses press for a moment(contrast group 1 )or the nurses press 1 min (contrast group 2) respectively, to observe the relationship between the different oppression methods and drug leakage. Results When the operating time were the same, the experimental group reduced the vascular leakage of drug compared with the contrast group 1 (χ2 = 32.264, P 0. 05). Conclusions The method of nurses and patients press together don' t increase operating time and can reduce medicine leakage from vascular. It is acceptable by patient.

Key words:
Radioactive medicine;  Intravenous injection;  Oppression;  Leakage


This article describes the five types of dial-a-ride services of the Riverside Transit Agency (RTA) in California. The first and major dial-a-ride service is provided to the general public with no restriction for age or handicap. It is provided in an open form and a zonal form. The second dial-a-ride service is provided by a subsidized taxi program referred to as "user-side subsidy". The third type of dial-a-ride is provided by a fixed route deviation. The fourth type is the only service operated exclusively for elderly and handicapped in a very low-density area. The fifth type is a non-profit company which provides specialized transportation of the physically and mentally handicapped for workshops, as well as trips for senior citizens to meal programs, medical appointments and senior activities. In addition to dial-a-ride, the RTA also operates three buspools to Orange County and ten rural vanpools from the Riverside Area to places of employment.


Abstract The search space for new thermoelectric oxides has been limited to the alloys of a few known systems, such as ZnO, SrTiO3, and CaMnO3. Notwithstanding the high power factor, their high thermal conductivity is a roadblock in achieving higher efficiency. In this paper, we apply machine learning (ML) models for discovering novel transition metal oxides with low lattice thermal conductivity ( $ {k}_L $ ). A two-step process is proposed to address the problem of small datasets frequently encountered in material informatics. First, a gradient-boosted tree classifier is learnt to categorize unknown compounds into three categories of $ {k}_L $ : low, medium, and high. In the second step, we fit regression models on the targeted class (i.e., low $ {k}_L $ ) to estimate $ {k}_L $ with an $ {R}^2>0.9 $ . Gradient boosted tree model was also used to identify key material properties influencing classification of $ {k}_L $ , namely lattice energy per atom, atom density, band gap, mass density, and ratio of oxygen by transition metal atoms. Only fundamental materials properties describing the crystal symmetry, compound chemistry, and interatomic bonding were used in the classification process, which can be readily used in the initial phases of materials design. The proposed two-step process addresses the problem of small datasets and improves the predictive accuracy. The ML approach adopted in the present work is generic in nature and can be combined with high-throughput computing for the rapid discovery of new materials for specific applications. Impact Statement Discovery of new materials is a complex and challenging task. Sequential nature of experimental route of investigating new materials makes it tedious and resource expensive. Application of data centric methods have shown a lot of promise in the recent past in the rapid discovery of new materials. Machine learning (ML) algorithms do not only predict the properties of interest, but also provide insight into the complex correlations between properties of materials. But the availability of large materials database is a challenge, which are usually required for these methods to attain high levels of predictive accuracy. In this work, a two-step ML process has been proposed to overcome the aforementioned challenge. The proposed method has been demonstrated using a dataset of transition metal oxides to predict their lattice thermal conductivity. Low thermal conductivity transition metal oxides are specially attractive for high temperature thermoelectric application because they exhibit excellent high temperature stability and have tunable electrical properties. The proposed method was able to provide most influencing fundamental materials properties, which can be readily used as design parameters in the early stages of materials selection. The method can be combined with high throughput computations to discover novel materials for specific applications.


Two low cost full band GSM combline duplexers have been developed for 1RU 19" rack mounting. They achieve a typical insertion loss of <0.3 dB, with isolation of >40 dB and >50 dB respectively. The duplexer is implemented with round resonators in rectangular slabline with no internal walls to reduce costs. Coupling to the common and Tx/Rx ports is implemented with interdigitally oriented rod transformers, for best physical orientation and low intermodulation products. The Tx and Rx filters each use an extracted pole resonator (to achieve the isolation), which is easier to assemble and tune than the more usual cross-coupled resonator approach.


Insurance companies using risk modelling mainly focus on the mastery of Genelized linear models. Nevertheless, such models hinder constraints on the structure of risk and the interactions between the risk explanatory variables. Then, these limits can lead to a biased estimation of the insurance premium in certain populations of policyholders. The traditional insurers have to face these existential challenges. Indeed, they need a focus on data strategy and implementation of statistical learning to achieve better pricing. In the last decades, computer performance has been continuously increasing, which has allowed a widespread application of the so-called statistical learning theory (Machine Learning) in many field. Non-life insurance pricing occupies as paradoxical place in actuarial science, hence the need for the application of different algorithms to evaluate the risks that insurance companies must face. Indeed, actuaries put forward the classical methods, linear algorithms mainly generalized linear model (GLM). Unfortunately, restrictions linked to this type of model, which can bias in the estimation of the insurance premium, have pushed actuaries to opt for efficient algorithms, referred to as statistical learning models. To do this, it is essential to look at the principals of classical GLM method, to identify their limitations and then to discuss the contributions of certain statistical learning methods in non-life insurance.


The main effect of a Commonwealth victory in WorkChoices would be to render Australia's federal balance vastly more flexible. In a great many contexts, the question from the Commonwealth's point of view no longer would be whether it had legislative power to approach a particular object, but rather whether it chose to exercise the enormously elastic competence conferred upon it by the corporations power.


Software development is similar to building bridges. Technical expertise is applied to build something that may be confidently used where expertise is lacking. A person crosses a bridge without measuring the beams and repeating the stress analysis arithmetic. A person uses a compiler without verifying the symbol table algorithm. It is this application of expertise that causes the fields of both bridge building and software development to be areas where engineering principles are applicable. It is the cost of failure that makes these principles required. However, software is different from concrete and steel. The obvious differences are shape and strength. Concerning shape, software is like a cartoon. As an animated drawing can assume unrealistic shapes, software supporting animation can produce these shapes. Concerning strength, software does not suffer from fatigue or vibration. If there is sufficient time and memory, an algorithm in software can function correctly far beyond where it can function well. For example, imagine the bridge-loading analogue of a linear search through the O.E.D. with a Turing machine. Therefore, producing software is an engineering endeavor at the level of responsibility and ethics. But it is not an endeavor that can make use of the traditional engineering tools—slide rules and tables of yield strength.


Part 1 Abstract Part 2 Acknowledgements Chapter 3 Introduction Chapter 4 The Islamic Law of Nations: Siyar Chapter 5 Muslim-Dhimm>-i and Muslim-Musta'min Relations Chapter 6 International Treaties Mu'h-ahad-at Chapter 7 Selected Treaties Part 8 Appendix Part 9 Glossary Part 10 Bibliography Part 11 Bibliographical Note


AIM:To evaluate the postoperative pain level and treatment effect after 1 year by using nickel-titanium rotary systems(ProTaper and Hero642)in one-visit root canal therapy for infected root canals. METHODS: One hundred and twelve infected teeth were included in one-visit root canal therapy group and 95 infected teeth were in two-visit group. A comparison of the clinical results was done between the two groups. The observations included post operative pain, x-ray examination and treatment effect after 1 year. RESULTS: Teeth without pain or postoperative pain lasted for 24h accounted for 80.4% in one-visit group, and 81.1% in the two-visit group(P0.05). After 1 week there was also no significant difference between the two groups in moderate and severe pain. After 1 year, the success rate of one-visit group was 90.6%, and the other was 92.5% (P0.05). CONCLUSIONS:One-visit endodontic treatment for infected root canals has the same clinical efficacy as two-visit in regard to postoperative pain and 1-year success rate.


Using the 1991 Nepal Fertility Family Planning and Health Survey data this paper examines the factors associated with the use of contraceptives among the currently married women in the country. Results of the multivariate analysis show spousal communication on family planning spousal communication on family size preference child loss place of residence and womens involvement in income-earning activities are the significant predictors of contraceptives use. These findings suggest the need for better health-care services and employment opportunities for women. An understanding of the conditions that facilitate spousal communication is equally important for increasing the rate of contraceptive use in the country. (authors)


Editor's note: the following article was written as a class assignment for Dr. Greg Welbaum's Vegetable Production course at Virginia Tech. Emily provides some good history and information on the CSA marketing option for specialty crop growers."


The thinking and methods for the design of the Intrinsically Safe Explosion-Proof Temperature Supervisory and Control Arrangement, the design on monitor circuit for the Intrinsically Safe Circuits of Explosion-Proof Temperature, the design of audible-visual alarm circuit and the treatment of the explosion-proof technology are discussed. After long time use, this arrangement is good in property for explosion-proof, and in addition stable and easy to operate.


FIELD: recycling and disposal of waste. SUBSTANCE: invention relates to the processing of germanium-containing waste optical fiber. Waste germanium-containing optical fiber is co-fired with germanium-containing coal. Resulting slag co-firing coal and optical fiber wastes is processed into germanium concentrate. Co-firing of coal and germanium-containing optical fiber waste is conducted with the maintenance of the amount of optical fiber waste not more than 10 % by weight. EFFECT: increase in the yield of germanium in concentrate due to the involvement in the processing of a new promising type of raw materials – waste optical fiber. 1 cl, 4 tbl, 2 ex


A new method for the GPS repeater based indoor positioning is proposed and its feasibility is verified by experiments in previous paper. But the problems how can identify switching GPS repeater`s ID and when switching will be occurred are remained. To solve the problem faced with, we propose the time synchronized switching GPS repeater and the methods of the detection of switching time and the estimation of TDOA. First, switching GPS repeater retransmits the signals synchronized on GPS time, sequentially. Always, first switching time is synchronized with 1 PPS. Second, we formulate the detection of switching time and the estimation of TDOA and propose the various methods. No method is existed absolutely superior to others in any conditions but the method is existed superior to others in specific condition. Finally, feasibility of indoor positioning using time-synchronized switching GPS repeater is evaluated through experiments in anechoic chamber and general environment with multipath.


Plan: To evaluate the Pharmacognostic properties including physicochemical characters and HPTLC profile of seeds of Strychnos potatorum L. Methodology: Micro and macroscopic characters of fresh and dried seed samples were analyzed. Physicochemical studies, fluorescent behavior of seeds and estimation of Quercetin by HPTLC were performing by using standard procedure. Outcome: Microscopic studies revealed that testa comprises two different region: the outer region consists shrunken parenchyma and inner is trichome zone with dense trichomes occur very close to each other. Calcium oxalate prismatic crystals are frequently seen. Physicochemical parameters such as foreign matters, moisture content, extractive values, ash content, and fluorescent behavior of seed powder were also determined. This report on the pharmacognostic studies of S. potatorum may help investigators, in the characterization of the crude drug and to screen pharmacological activities of this species.


Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been recognized as tools applied to remote inspection of opened areas, equipments and industrial facilities, but they are still underestimated although their huge potential. This solution represents the best cost benefit for in-service flares inspection, and there are some service providers in Europe and USA performing this kind of service for Oil Companies: the inspection consists of visual and thermographic flare analysis. However, it has not find any evidence of this procedure applied to oil rigs' flares. The Brazilian Energy Company, PETROBRAS, has many installations offshore and decided to provide the remote inspection solution at the national market through training Brazilian service providers already specialized in aerial photography with UAVs. These providers were submitted to evaluation tests and adapted their systems to use for onshore and offshore sites. This article aims to present a brief review about PETROBRAS' flares as well to show the results of the first offshore inspection of each service provider. The test was a real challenger performed at the Company's biggest flare system installed in an oil rig. Three Brazilian service providers were considered approved: Helicamera, Brendler Modelismo e Aerial Inspect.


The article discuss the status aquo of surface water environment in Henan province,and analyzes the main factors of water pollution control,and the protect ways was brought forward.Take the water environment protection as the main means of adjusting economy structure to develop the water treatment technology and industry and water resources management system adapting to market economic system


Pt- gate field effect transistors (MFMISFETs) have been fabricated and the SBN thin films are rapid thermal annealed in oxygen plasma. The grain size of the SBN becomes 4 times much larger than that of furnace annealed SBN films even at the same annealing temperature of , remnant polarization value of Pt-SBN-Pt is improved by 2 times. Using the rapid grain growth of SBN for the MFM-ISFET, memory window and programming characteristics of on/off states are fairly well improved.


Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) is widely used in many industries. With increasing concern and interest in the security of these controllers and their impact to the industries, there is a growing trend to integrate security directly into them. It is not realistic or wise to have a one size fit all solution. This paper presents focus areas and requirements suited for various classes of PLCs in the market. It looks at the threats and vulnerabilities faced by them and current security solutions adopted. The paper then recommends how PLC vendors should have different but extensible security solutions applied across various classes of controllers in their product portfolio. © 2 01 7 T he SA NS In sti tut e, Au tho r R eta ins Fu ll R igh ts © 2017 The SANS Institute Author retains full rights. PLC Device Security – Tailoring needs 2 Wen Chinn Yew, email@example.com


This concluding chapter paints a much fuller portrait of Oliver Cromwell, retracing his rise from an obscure provincial into an enduring national figure. Here, the chapter reveals the complexity of his nature. He was indeed courageous, devout, resolute, principled, intelligent, eloquent, able, adaptable, and dedicated. But, as this chapter shows, he was also self-seeking, unscrupulous, dishonest, manipulative, vindictive, and bloodthirsty: definitely not somebody to be taken simply at his word. There was no internal contradiction in this bundle of qualities, the chapter argues, for they were all woven together, in a single seamless whole. And at the centre of this lay an acquired sense of a special relationship with God, which informed and justified all.


With the emergence and development of BIM (Building Information Modeling), traditional architectural design pattern have had great changes. By analyzing the trend and technical content of BIM and taking the Step Vision for example, this paper presents the application of BIM as a new concept in the design and further discusses the advantages and disadvantages in architecture design.


This paper compares the goals of an ESP course to students' beliefs about the nature of EFL reading comprehension. Results indicate that a) there is a mismatch between the goals of the course and students' conceptions; b) students do not mention the formative effect that EFL reading may have.


The regime of the nuclear burning wave in a fast reactor is described using the non-stationary diffusion equation for neutron transport and equations of the fuel component burn-up and of nuclear kinetics for precursor nuclei of delayed neutrons. A critical two-zone fast reactor of cylindrical form with metal fuel of the U-Pu cycle with Pb-Bi coolant is considered. The neutron leakage in transverse direction was taken into account using the concept of radial buckling. The calculation results of the space-time evolution of neutron flux in this system using the effective multi- group approximation are presented. PACS: 28.41 T, 28.52 N group diffusion approaches. The mathematical formula- tion of the problem included the solution of the non- stationary diffusion equation for neutron transport to- gether with the burn-up equations for fuel components and the equations of nuclear kinetics for precursor nu- clei of delayed neutrons. The questions of stability of the NBW regime relative to distortions of the neutron flux and of the mechanism of reactivity feedback were investigated. The calculations performed in (11, 12) showed that the allowance for the space-time alteration of the neutron spectrum during burn-up process is very important for the numerical simulation of the regime of the propagating NBW. In (13) the approach (11, 12) was further developed for simulating the initiation and propagation of the NBW in a cylindrical FR with U-Pu fuel and Na coolant taking into account the neutron leakage in the transversal direction by using the concept of radial buckling. This made it possible to study the influence of finite transversal size of FR upon rise and evolution of the NBW regime and to find certain vari- ants of parameters of the FR under consideration in which the nuclear burning rate, the energy production intensity and the neutron flux in NBW take values ac- ceptable from the practical point of view. Since the commonly used in fast neutrons reactors Na coolant seems to lead to rather strong safety con- straints on the construction and operation of the reac- tors, in this work we present the results of calculations in which the Pb-Bi eutectic has been considered as coolant. These investigation is the next step of devel- opment of the deterministic approach (13) for descrip- tion of the space-time evolution of the burn-up process in cylindrical FR with taking into account of the trans- versal neutron leakage using the radial buckling con- cept.


Results are presented from a comprehensive study of the variation with conversion, temperature and pressure of the initiator efficiency of 2,2′-azoisobutyronitrile in styrene bulk polymerizations. These efficiencies were measured using a new method involving the use of infra-red spectroscopy to monitor directly the concentrations of various nitrile-group containing species. Our results are shown to be satisfactorily fitted by a simple model based on the idea that initiation follows as a result of primary radical fragments diffusing away from each other. Closer microscopic inspection of the variations with temperature and pressure of the entire range of our initiator efficiencies implies the possibility that capture by monomer may also contribute as a mechanism of out-of-cage escape of primary radicals. Taking a wider view, the experimental method of this paper is shown to be of use for simultaneous determination of other important kinetic parameters: it yields rate coefficients of initiator decomposition, and also, when initiator decomposition is stimulated by pulse-laser irradiation, the method is capable of delivering individual values of the rate coefficients for termination and propagation.


In this paper, we explore the contribution of introducing a flexible form for household consumption in a macro-micro modelling context for poverty and income distribution analysis. The almost ideal demand system exhibits interesting features allowing for the introduction of inter-household heterogeneity in a rigorous fashion. In order to illustrate the contribution of the AIDS system in the macro-micro modelling context, we perform a comparative analysis with an equivalent model using a LES demand system and a CGE with representative households including an AIDS. Results show the strong contribution of using an almost ideal demand system in a microsimulation context and its value added versus a linear expenditure system to analyse poverty and income distribution changes following a policy simulation. Keyworkds: Computable General Equilibrium Models, Estimation, Personal Income and Wealth Distribution, Measurement and Analysis of Poverty JEL Classification: I32, D31, C13, C68


A 56-year-old previously healthy man was hospitalized due to a 10-day history of neck pain and an elevated C-reactive protein level. Gram-negative spiral bacilli were isolated from his blood, and Helicobacter cinaedi was confirmed using 16S rRNA sequencing. The infectious focus was not identified by initial cervical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); however, repeated MRI demonstrated prominent high signal intensity in the entire region of the C6-C7 vertebrae and C6/C7 disc space. Furthermore, fluorodeoxyglucose-positron emission tomography/computed tomography showed no significant uptake, other than in the C6-C7 region. The patient was successfully treated with ceftriaxone for six weeks without sequelae.


Abstract A cascade synthesis of 1,2,4-triazin-3(2H)-ones is reported from readily accessible α-amino ketones and phenyl carbazate as a masked N-isocyanate precursor. The mild protocol provides a simple route to products with substitution patterns which are difficult to form directly. This also presents the first N-isocyanate cascade requiring the use of acidic conditions, which accelerates formation of the hydrazone intermediate and the cyclization step. This cascade further highlights that high control can be achieved in reactions forming highly reactive N-isocyanate intermediates.


Abstract. In Tourette syndrome, premonitory urges preceding tics play a prominent role, e. g., as an urge to perform a certain action, but also as a cold or warm feeling, the feeling of a mounting ...


A Reference Energy System is a useful tool for providing a baseline for energy technology and policy analysis. The technique of developing a Reference Energy System is described, and its use in various analyses is outlined.


NaCl and (NH4)2SO4 were selected as typical inorganic salts (10 wt% addition) in order to analyze their effects on the hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) of sewage sludge (SS). Results indicated that both salts could be adsorbed on the surface of hydrochar, resulting in amounts of hydrochar increasing and potentially serious nitrogen and chlorine issues upon employing SS hydrochar as solid fuel. NaCl and (NH4)2SO4 could act as catalyst to promote hydrolysis and carbonization of SS, with (NH4)2SO4 participating in the carbonization of SS. During combustion, Cl decreased the thermal decomposition temperature of hydrochar. The reported results can provide information to optimize the use of chloride salts and NH4+ concentration for increasingly efficient HTC processes.


Abstract. For the retrieval of atomic oxygen via ozone observations in the extended mesopause region under sunlight conditions, two assumptions are used: first, the photochemical equilibrium of ozone and, second, that the ozone losses are dominated by ozone's dissociation from solar UV radiation, silently ignoring the O3 destruction by atomic hydrogen. We verify both by 3-D modeling. We found that ozone approaches photochemical equilibrium at 75–100 km for daytime conditions. Hence, the first assumption is valid. However, the reaction of ozone with atomic hydrogen was found to be an important loss process and should not be omitted in retrieving atomic oxygen.


The last part says that no matter what state i the chain starts in, the probability that it will be in state j after a sufficiently large number n of transition is just πj . Does that mean that the long-run fraction of time the chain spends in state j is also πj . An ergodic theorem tells you when the answer is yes. Before proceeding, I want to go back and refine the notion of recurrence. Recall that Ti = inf{t : Xt = i} is called the first passage time to state i, and Pi(E) = P ( E ∣∣X0 = i). Theorem 15.13.4 says that: For a Markov chain, either 1. Pi (Ti < ∞) = 1, in which case i is recurrent and ∑∞ n=1 p (n) ii = ∞, or else


The present work is devoted to investigation of stable and transient color centers that are induced by radiation and temperature in pure and Cu‐doped LiNbO3 single crystals. The transient changes of absorption of the crystals induced by pulsed electron beam (E=0.25 MeV) are studied in 0‐5000 ns time range, as well as stable changes of absorption induced by reducing annealing and irradiation with γ‐quanta, high energy electrons or fast reactor neutrons.


Temperature data sensors were placed in the abdominal cavity, on the neck and outside the den of 5 black bears ( Ursus american us) during early winter and removed at the end of winter prior to the bear's leaving their den. Abdominal temperature remained around 35°-36°C and did not appear to exhibit circadian rhythmicity. Neck surface temperature of bears, however, demonstrated elevated spikes from 2° to 30°C about 4 times each day. We suggest that bears engage in bouts of muscular activity during the winter denning period to retain muscle strength and may vasodilate the skin to dissipate the heat rather than elevate their core body temperature and arouse from torpor.


Wetlands are defined as areas of soil saturated with standing water. These areas are rich in biodiversity, containing numerous plants, animals and microorganisms. Wetlands act as natural filtering systems for runoff and can improve the water quality in an area. To demonstrate the importance of wetlands to a non-science major introductory environmental science class, we designed a small freshwater wetland filter. This filter is able to reduce the amount of ammonia present in water entering the system. Sequencing the bacteria present in the soil of the filter identified bacteria capable of performing anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox). In this paper, we describe how to construct the filter and use it during class. It is our goal that this filter gives students a better appreciation of the role wetland ecosystems play in maintaining water quality.


The effect of weak multiplicative colored noise on the dynamics of a Hamiltonian system is studied by means of asymptotic methods, in the vicinity of homoclinic or heteroclinic trajectories. A general expression for the probability of noise-induced separatrix crossing is obtained, and is illustrated by means of a two-well Duffing oscillator. It shows how weak noise can significantly affect the dynamics near separatrices. In addition, the influence of the degree of non-linearity of the noise amplitude is discussed.


The plateau of northwestern Yunnan is the most typical distribution region of plateau swamp developed on Karst landform in China.The Lake Bita coastal swamp listed as Wetlands of International Importance under the Ramsar Agreement is a typical representative in the region.Vegetation succession and its driving forces of coastal swamp are the key scientific issues related to theoretical research on swamp in the distinctive region.In the present study,two transects across coastal swamp were set up and sampled in narrow valley and broad valley in the coastal zone of Lake Bita respectively.The environment characteristics and species composition of swamp vegetation were surveyed.Pearson correlation test and Detrended Correspondence Analysis(DCA) were applied to analyze the relationship between species composition and surface water level,the distribution and succession and associated driving forces of swamp vegetation.Some important findings were revealed.Twenty-one families,35 genera,and 43 plant species were recorded along the two sampling transects.The highest number of species in family was observed in Cyperaceae and Ranunculaceae,each family contained six species and occupied 3.95% in total species of the vegetation community respectively,followed by Gentianaceae,which contained five species and hold sum total 11.63%.The highest number of species in genera were observed in Carex,Gentiana and Potamogeon,each genera contained three species,the second was Polygonum,it contained two species.At the transect scale,16 families,25 genera,and 28 species were recorded in the narrow valley transect,and 20 families,31 genera,and 37 species were recorded in the broad valley transect.L-shaped and U-shaped patterns of frequency distribution based on plant species were presented in the narrow valley transect and broad valley transect respectively.The swamp community also comprised some rare species(only occurred in one or two quadrats) in the two transects.Among them,11 and 10 rare species were observed in the narrow valley transect and broad valley transect separately,which accounted for 39.29% and 27.07%,respectively.The number of species occurred in two,three,five and fourteen quadrats in the broad valley transect was higher than that in the narrow valley transect.Species richness per quadrate and the total number of species showed similar patterns along the two transects and both showed significant correlation with surface water level,but Whittaker′s index did not.Along the two sampling transects the distribution of plant community mainly presented in the following ecological series of emerged hydrophytic communit→ swamp community→ swampy meadow community under the impact of surface water level and supplemented with community complexity under the impact of local microtopography.The distribution patterns of plant community in two transects depended on the lakeshore types and valley topography.In the narrow valley with steep shore,the plant community presented discontinuous distribution,whereas in the broad valley with gradual shore,the plant community showed continuous distribution.The distribution patterns and species composition represented by Lake Bita swamp community were dominated by multiple environmental factors characterized by surface water level and microtopography in the plateau region of Northwestern Yunnan.Correspondingly,there existed continuous succession mode and saltatory succession mode in the process of plant community succession,but the two modes were identical in succession direction.


Abstract:AbstractThat Praxagora and other female characters in the Assemblywomen continue to address the audience or reveal any awareness of the audience after their rise to power marks them out as different from other Aristophanic characters, among whom the propensity to disrupt dramatic pretense is inversely proportional to their social status in the world of the play. Such a departure from usual Aristophanic practice suggests that the playwright is granting them extra opportunities to ingratiate themselves with the audience, perhaps to encourage serious thought about women as political actors, or about some of the policies which Praxagora proposes.


Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to consider the problem of thermal destratification facing engineers and scientists during the motion of fluids which consist of rigid and randomly oriented particles suspended in a viscous medium under the influence of Lorentz force. This paper provides an insight into the non-linear transfer of thermal radiation within the boundary layer.

Design/methodology/approach
Similarity transformation and parameterization of the non-linear partial differential equation are carried out. The approximate analytical solution of the governing equation which models the free convective flow of strong and weak concentration of micro-elements in a micropolar fluid over a vertical surface is presented.

Findings
It is observed that the velocity and temperature distribution are decreasing properties of thermal stratification parameter St. Maximum local skin friction coefficients are ascertained at an epilimnion level (St=0) when the magnitude of thermal radiation is small. Thermal stratification parameter has no significant effect on the temperature distribution in the flow near a free stream.

Originality/value
The relationship between stratification of temperature and the transfer of thermal energy during the problem of thermal destratification facing engineers and scientist during the motion of fluids which consist of rigid and randomly oriented particles suspended in a viscous medium under the influence of Lorentz force is unravelled in this paper.


To deal with the blocking artifacts in compressed face images, a facial adaptive BM3D (Block Matching and 3D filtering) is proposed in this paper. BM3D is one of the typical image denoising methods, which is also efficient to image deblocking. However, the specific parameters are closely related to its performance. On the observation that faces are featured with the symmetric and similar geometry structures, the BM3D can be further improved for face images deblocking. We extend the searching region of patches according to the facial symmetry. The parameter sigma of the filter is also adaptively adjusted according to the location of eyes, nose, mouth and the compressed quality. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve better results in both the subjective and objective performance.


Cayley differential unitary space-time modulation (CDUSTM) is a good solution for high data rate communication in noncoherent multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel as it can greatly increase the data rate without channel state information (CSI). However, at low to medium signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), the bit error rate (BER) is too high to accept. In this paper, we propose a combination scheme of turbo coding with CDUSTM and present the corresponding iterative decoding algorithm. We analyze the convergence behavior of iterative decoding by extrinsic information transfer (EXIT) chart. Simulation results show that it can greatly improve the system performance compared to the uncoded systems for various transmit and receive antennas.


The present article is concerned about the knowledge of the different tools of Business Intelligence used to generate bases for Knowledge Management Systems that allow doing a better decisions making with less risk at any level of the organization. Tests will be made using a relational database management system and performing results in a common business application.


Miniaturized periodic stepped-impedance ring filter with patterned ground plane is proposed. The size of a ring filter can be significantly reduced, along with an extended upper stopband by introducing the periodic stepped-impedance structure and patterned ground plane. Based on the even- and odd-mode networks, the mode splitting characteristics and impact of the patterned ground plane on the electrical performances of the filter are investigated. Experimental results validate the theoretical analysis and design procedures with good agreement.


This year the Journal of Applied Gerontology celebrates its tenth anniversary as a journal and its fifth year as a quarterly. This has been an exciting period of growth. Each new volume brings new authors, new topics, and new disciplines to the applied gerontology effort. We hope the next 10 years will prove to be equally fruitful. In the past year, two special issues were completed. The first, edited by Nancy Osgood, focused on &dquo;Creative Arts for the Older Adult,&dquo; and the second, edited by William Haas III, examined &dquo;Retirement Migration: Boon


The invention discloses a timing method and device which are used for solving the tedious process problem in the regular reminding process. The method comprises the steps that at least one preset timing scheme is displayed, wherein each timing scheme in the at least one timing scheme comprises the identification and the timing period; a selected timing scheme in the at least one timing scheme is determined, and timing operation is carried out according to the selected timing scheme. The timing method and device are used for realizing timing.


Nano refrigerant and nano refrigeration oil were prepared using nano Cu and nano CuO as additive,then were used in real refrigerator and freezer.Performance test was conducted for refrigerator and freezer.The test results indicate that there is about 2% of energy conservation in direct cool refrigerator,there is 3.5%-13.2% of energy conservation in freezers tested.


Liver mitochondrial superoxide dismutase was purified from normally aging BIO and prematurely aging B1O.F mice. The specific activity of the enzyme was found to be lower in the prematurely aging strain. Further purification is necessary to be certain the difference in specific activities shown between the two strains of mice is valid. The congenic BIO and B1O.F strains may prove to be an ideal model for aging research.


A MP2/6-311+ +G(d,p) study of NCX (X = F, Cl, Br) has shown that it is possible to attach an electrophile (H+, Be2+) to the positive halogen X surface of NCX. The stability and properties of model halogen-bonded and π-hole carbon-bonded NCX/H2O complexes were found to be significantly affected by H+ or Be2+ cationic attachment at the N atom. The halogen-bonded complexes are destabilised by binding at the N, while an attached proton enhances the binding in the π-hole bonded dimers. For the attached Be2+, an unusual complex was obtained with the NCF subunit, whereas the complexes containing Cl and Br were destabilised by the interaction.


Provided are a conjugate of poly(oxyethylene) and beta-cyclodextrin which is free from biological toxicity and is excellent in biocompatibility, binding affinity and encapsulating power, and a method for preparing the conjugate of poly(oxyethylene) and beta-cyclodextrin. The conjugate comprises poly(oxyethylene) and beta-cyclodextrin. Preferably one poly(oxyethylene) is combined with two beta-cyclodextrin molecules; and the poly(oxyethylene) has a molecular weight of 88-2,200. The method comprises the steps of reacting poly(ethylene glycol) bis(carboxymethyl)ether and thionyl chloride or oxaryl chloride to prepare poly(oxyethylene) bis(acid chloride); and reacting the poly(oxyethylene) bis(acid chloride) with beta-cyclodextrin in the presence of an organic solvent selected from the group consisting of N,N-dimethylformamide, pyridine, acetonitrile and ethyl ether.


The invention provides a regenerative apparatus, a dehydrating agent regenerative method, a dehydrating system and a dehydrating method. The regenerative apparatus comprises a heater (F), a sprayer (C) and a recovery tower (D). The dehydrating agent regenerative method comprises the following steps heating liquid flows to be regenerated in the heater (F), introuding the heated liquid flows into the sprayer (C) to be atomized and dehydrated through a liquid inlet of the sprayer (C), and introducing a mist-hold gas from the sprayer (C) into the recovery tower (D) for gas-liquid separation. The adopted dehydrating agent regenerative method can be used for effectively regenerating dehydrating agents at low temperature, not only effectively prevents decomposition deterioration caused by overheating during regeneration of the dehydrating agents, but also reduces the energy consumption; besides, the dehydrating method can be used for effectively dehydrating gases and regenerating the dehydrating agent.


There are a variety of reasons why a government supervisor might wish to search a government employee's workplace. For example, a supervisor might wish to conduct a search to locate a needed file or document; a supervisor might wish to search an employee's workplace to discover whether the employee is misusing government property, such as a government-owned computer; or a supervisor might seek to search an employee's workplace because he has information that the employee is committing a crime, such as using the Internet to download child pornography. In situations where a public employer wants to search an employee's office or desk, a number of questions typically arise and must be addressed, including: can government employees have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their offices, desks, computers, and filing cabinets? If such an expectation of privacy does exist, what standards must a supervisor follow to lawfully conduct a warrantless search of those areas? Must a supervisor have probable cause to search a government employee's workplace? Or is a search permitted on some lesser standard of suspicion? While the Supreme Court addressed some of these questions in O'Connor v. Ortega, 1 it has fallen to lower courts to address many others. The purpose of this article is to provide a framework within which the principles outlined in O'Connor for "workplace" searches by government supervisors can be understood and applied. In sum, when a government supervisor is considering the search of a government employee's workspace, a two-part analysis can be utilized to simplify the process. First, determine whether the employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the area to be searched.2 If a reasonable expectation of privacy


AbstractThe account of hydrostatic levelling operations in the Netherlands published by A. Waalewijn [1] in 1965 aroused considerable interest in the Ordnance Survey which at that time was considering the use of hydrostatic levelling in connection with the possible construction of a barrage across the Thames estuary. This project entailed a detailed investigation of tidal movements in the estuary from tide gauges to be installed on offshore forts. The datums of the gauges were to be connected to the geodetic levelling network. The water gaps involved were too great for optical levelling whether by conventional methods or by the trigonometric method of transfer described by J. W. Williams [2], and it appeared that hydrostatic levelling might be the answer to the problem.


UCP 600 will now come into effect on 1 July 2007, giving practitioners more than six months to prepare for the change. The vote on the UCP was also a favourable vote on eUCP Version 1.1 which was amended to bring it into conformity with the new rules. ICC Banking commission unanimeusly approved the revised UCP 600 on 26 October 2006 in paris convention. The most important revision of UCP600 have altered the technical and difficult to understand wording of UCP500 into plain simple precise and concise language, The singuler achievement of UCP600 is its elimination of phrase like "reasonable care" "reasonable time" and "an it's face" from the rule. The introduction of separate articles 2 and 3 on "Definitions" and "Interpretation" which contain the concept of "honour" along with the inclusion of certain ISBP wording in UCP, should bring about far greater clarity and precision than in many of the contentions articles in UCP500. The definition of negotiation should help lay to rest the controversies surrounding the terms of negotiation. The removal of reasonable time and the replacement by five banking days should speed the process and make L/Cs more attractive in the market, nevertheless UCP600 have many problems in appling it in practical field. For example the definition of credit, negotiation and purchase it's accepted or undertaken payment draft by accepting bank or deferred payment bank, the second advising bark's position etc. so, I will introduce in this thesis the important revised articles of UCP600 and investigate the problems in applying it in practicle field with reference to the specialist's opinion of the practical field and ICC opinions of drafting Group.


Some results of economic evaluation of new potato varieties are given. The variety Daryonka of the selection of Penza Research Institute of Agriculture is taken as an example. The cost of original seeds was calculated; profits due to competitive quality, profitability of original seed trading, market price of the new variety were determined


Multiple Samples Correlation Power Analysis (MSCPA) is proposed to attack the chaos-based block cipher which is based on Feistel structure. This is the first time to analyze the security of Feistel-based chaotic block cipher from hardware prospective. Firstly, attack points of the cipher are comprehensively analyzed by the proposed MSCPA. The outputs of Cubic map and addition operation generate relatively small correlation coefficients for incorrect keys, therefore they are selected as the attack points. Then correlation coefficients between the keys and power samples are calculated and analysed to find interesting points of power traces. These interesting points are combined together to obtain the correct key by the MSCPA. The encryption algorithm based on Feistel structure is implemented on an Atmel XMEGA microcontroller. Results show that although the Feistel-based chaotic block cipher has a good performance under conventional statistical analyses, it still can be attacked by MSCPA. Moreover compared to CPA, MSCPA has a better performance in accurate key differentiating level.


ABSTRACT For undergraduate students to achieve science literacy, they must first develop information literacy skils. These skills align with Information Literacy Standards and include determining appropriate databases, distinguishing among resource types, and citing resources ethically. To effectively improve information literacy and science literacy, we must identify how students interact with authentic scientific texts. In this case study, we addressed this aim by embedding a science librarian into a science writing course, where students wrote a literature review on a research topic of their choice. Library instruction was further integrated through the use of an online guide and outside assistance. To evaluate the evolution of information literacy in our students and provide evidence of student practices, we used task-scaffolded writing assessments, a reflection, and surveys. We found that students improved their ability and confidence in finding research articles using discipline-specific databases as well as their ability to distinguish primary from secondary research articles. We also identified ways students improperly used and cited resources in their writing assignments. While our results reveal a better understanding of how students find and approach scientific research articles, additional research is needed to develop effective strategies to improve long-term information literacy in the sciences.


Prediction of leakage reactance in multi-winding transformer is not simple due to unconventional reluctance model. Need of predicting actual leakage reactance beforehand, accurately, arises due to its effect on transformer's performance, output and characteristic behaviour. Incorrect methodology of leakage reactance estimation gives large error in value of windings which are adjacent. Moreover, leakage reactance between winding is also not equal, causing flow of leakage current. This produces loss beyond committed value. Incapability to provide committed leakage reactance value to customer, burdens company in form of penalty. Apart from loss, controlled or semi-controlled switches may misfire. Thus, this paper deals with accurate prediction of leakage reactance between individual winding of multi-winding transformers along with a model which is industrially feasible and possessing equal leakage reactance between individual winding using finite element analysis.


Abbey, Ruth. 1999. Back to the future: Marriage as friendship in the thought Addendum to "Rape as a weapon of war." 1997. Claudia Card. Comment. 12 Against marriage and motherhood. 1996. Claudia Card. 11 (3) : 1-23. Ahmed, Sara. 1996. Beyond humanism and postmodernism: Theorizing a Alcoff, Linda Martin. 1998. What should white people do? 13 (3): 6-26. ___ . 2000. Introduction: Symposium on Maria Pia Lara's Moral textures: Alfonso, Rita, and Jo Trigilio. 1997. Surfing the third wave: A dialogue between Allen, Amy. 1998. Rethinking power. 13 (1): 21-40. Allen, Anita LaFrance. 1997. Reproducing norms: Recent (mainly) white Analyzing ethical conflict in the transracial adoption debate: Three conflicts Another look: Relearning to laugh. 2000. Isabelle Stengers. 15 (4): 41-54. Anti-anti-identity politics: Feminism, democracy, and the complexities of citiAnti-essentialism in practice: Carol Gilligan and feminist philosophy. 1997. Antigone's ghost: Undoing Hegel's Phenomenology of spirit. 1996. Kelly Oliver. Antonia Soulez: Introduction. 2000. Melissa McMahon. 15 (4): 121-26. Are lesbians women? 1996. Jacob Hale. 11 (2): 94-121. Armour, Ellen T. 1997. Questions of proximity: "Woman's place" in Derrida Arp, Kristana. 1999. Sirnone de Beauvoir: A'critical reader, ed. Elizabeth Fallaize. Art, understanding, and political change. 2000. Amy Mullin. 15 (2): 113-39. Autonomy, relationality, and feminist ethics. 1997. Jean Keller. 12 (2): 152-64. Back to the future: Marriage as friendship in the thought of Mary WollstoneBaehr, Amy R. 1996. Toward a new feminist liberalism: Okin, Rawls, and of Mary Wollstonecraft. 14 (3): 78-95. (2): 216-18.


Summary Some aspects of the alteration of kidney transamidinase activities by rapidly growing tumors have been investigated. Transamidinase activities, in vitro , were determined in kidneys from normal and tumor-bearing animals fed diets supplemented individually with arginine, glycine, creatine, and protein. These dietary constituents were chosen because each had been previously reported to have a great effect on the amount of transamidinase activity in the kidney. Kidneys from tumor-bearing mice and rats fed normal diets had lower activities than those from the tumor-free animals fed the same diet. The activities of kidneys from both normal and tumor-bearing mice fed a creatine-enriched diet were lower than the activities of kidneys from comparable animals fed a normal diet. Both tumor-bearing and tumor-free mice fed a creatine-plus glycine-enriched diet had greater kidney transamidinase activities than did comparable mice fed a creatine-enriched diet. Kidneys from tumor-bearing animals fed diets supplemented individually with protein, glycine, or arginine had activities similar to those of kidneys from tumor-bearing animals fed a normal diet. The data are interpreted to indicate that creatine, reported to be present in large amounts in the blood and urine of tumor-bearing animals, was not responsible for the low kidney transamidinase activities of tumor-bearing animals.


There are so many great quotes about memory that it is very hard to choose just one to illustrate its place in the human condition. But it seems poignant to begin with Marquez, who, although now suffering from advanced dementia and with little memory left of his own life, has so much to say about memory in his wonderful books (Jacobs, 2012). Given our enduring fascination with memory, it is not surprising that amnesia has had a lead role in neuropsychology. Both of the books under review deal with loss, or distortion, of memory but from very different viewpoints. Suzanne Corkin's book on the amnesic patient H.M., Permanent present tense (Corkin, 2013), and Alison Winter's book, Memory: Fragments of a modern history (Winter, 2012), are both excellent. But they are chalk and cheese. Extending this analogy, Suzanne Corkin's book could be seen as an in-depth study of the science of cheese-making focusing on English cheddar, whereas Alison Winter's is the equivalent of the history, sociology and psychology of cheese-making across the ages. Yet despite radically different perspectives, there are overlapping themes and commonalities. One of these is the impact of trends in science. Another is the way in which scientists have used metaphors based on technology of the age to explain the workings of memory. Henry Molaison, 'HM', underwent neurosurgical removal of the medial part of his temporal lobes at a time when psychosurgery was still in vogue and was yet to suffer its fall from grace. One of the most fascinating sections in Suzanne Corkin's book describes the events leading up to HM's 'frankly experimental operation' on Tuesday, 25 August 1953. No doubt I am not alone in believing that HM underwent surgery by an experienced neurosurgeon, who had already carried out a number of unilateral procedures for the relief of epilepsy, but then, unwisely, extended this to bilateral resection. This myth is debunked by Suzanne Corkin who places HM's surgery in the context of experimental limbic ablation for the treatment of psychosis. Henry Scoville, HM's surgeon, developed medial temporal lobectomy as a treatment for psychosis discovering, by serendipity, that it cured epilepsy in two women with psychosis and epilepsy. Against this backdrop he offered the procedure to HM who was struggling with intractable seizures. As we all know, the surgery was both a success and a disaster. His seizures were controlled, but HM was rendered profoundly amnesic. Indeed the severity of memory loss became a yardstick against which other cases were compared 'as amnesic as HM'. Yet, Henry might never have come to our attention if Scoville had not attended an American Neurological Association meeting in 1954 when he heard the neurosurgical guru of the age, Wilder Penfield, describe two similar cases rendered amnesic by left temporal lobectomy. As a result of this encounter, HM was referred to the Montreal Neurological Institute where he also met Brenda Milner. Milner was able to document the extent of his amnesia and Scoville wrote one of the most important papers in MEMORY: FRAGMENTS OF A MODERN HISTORY By Alison Winter 2012. Chicago: University of Chicago Press ISBN: 9780226902586 Price: £21.00


Objective The purpose of this study is to observe the property of guided bone regeneration by collagen membrane and investigate the mechanism of guided bone regeneration. Methods 10mm defect of radius was created bilaterally in adult New Zealand rabbits. The experimental group was transplanted by collagen membrane with surface decalcified bone allograft,and the control group was transplanted by surfaced decalcified bone allograft alone.Radiological and histological and immunohistochemical examinations were taken postoperatively. Results In the transplantation area of experimental group,distinctive periosteal reaction and new bone growth occurred remarkably,bone remodeling progressed successfully,and defects healed completely.But in the transplantation area of the control group,new bone growth and mature bone replacement were delay due to occupation of fibrous connective tissue. Conclusions Collagen membrance has an ability to block and guide.In addition,membrane tube can keep endogenic BMP with exogenic BMP greatly concentrating and effectively distributing. The distributive characteristic of BMP exerts an influence on cellular resources and pattern of bone healing.


Sir, Among Streptococcus pyogenes, cross-resistance to macrolides, lincosamides and streptogramin B (MLSB) antimicrobials is encoded by two rRNA methylase genes [erm(B) and erm(A)]. In contrast, macrolide efflux, which is mediated by a membrane protein encoded by the mef(A) gene, produces resistance to 14and 15-membered macrolides only. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of erythromycin and tetracycline resistance genes among resistant isolates and their clonal relationships, and to evaluate the in vitro activity of the new ketolide telithromycin against erythromycin-resistant and -susceptible strains. Seventy erythromycin-susceptible and 55 erythromycinresistant S. pyogenes isolates consecutively collected from different patients in the Hospital Clínico San Carlos were tested. The sources of isolates and sites of infection were the upper respiratory tract (92), skin and soft tissues (16), blood (10), vagina (6) and urine (1). Erythromycin resistance phenotypes were determined by the double disc test. The presence of erythromycin resistance genes in the 55 resistant isolates was determined by PCR.1 Dot blot hybridization was used to confirm some results. The 26 tetracycline-resistant isolates were tested for the presence of tet(K), tet(L), tet(M) and tet(O) tetracycline resistance determinants by PCR. Randomly amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis was carried out to determine the clonal characteristics of the erythromycin-resistant isolates, as described previously by Seppälä et al.,2 with two different primers (M13 and H2), and the same criteria were used to interpret and compare the patterns. The MICs of erythromycin, roxithromycin, azithromycin, miocamycin, clindamycin, tetracycline and telithromycin were determined by the agar dilution method in accordance with the NCCLS guidelines.3 According to the double disc test, three (5.5%) of the 55 erythromycin-resistant isolates showed the constitutive MLSB (cMLSB) resistance phenotype, five (9%) the inducible MLSB (iMLSB) phenotype, and the 47 (85.5%) remaining strains showed the M phenotype. Distribution of phenotypes and genotypes of erythromycin and tetracycline resistance are shown in Table 1. The most prevalent gene was mef(A) (in 85.4% of isolates) followed by erm(A) (32.7%). All 47 M phenotype isolates harboured the mef(A) gene, and 12 of them also had the erm(A) gene, the presence of which was confirmed by dot blot hybridization. The five iMLSB isolates harboured the erm(A) gene although three also contained erm(B). Other studies, such as that of Bemer-Melchior et al.,4 did not find iMLSB isolates possessing both erm(A) and erm(B) genes. Our results show that the tet(M) gene was the most prevalent (73.1%) in the tetracycline-resistant S. pyogenes isolates tested. Although tetracycline and erythromycin


The juxtaposition of medical models and illustrations against classic and contemporary, Japanese and Western artworks suggests new links among cultures and disciplines. The juxtaposition of medical models and illustrations against classic and contemporary, Japanese and Western artworks suggests new links among cultures and disciplines.


Berk, Marc L. Interviewing Physicians: The Effect of Improved Response Rate. American J. of Public Health 75:1338-40, November 1985. Callahan, Daniel and Lynn, Joanne. Hard Choices: Who Lives, How, and Who Decides? Health-Matrix 3:17-25, Fall 1985. Caro, Carla M. and Wicks, Anne B. Quantitative Research on Poverty Issues: A Review of National Social Science and Law Center Analytic Casework. Clearinghouse Review 19:970-81, January 1986. Crawshaw, Ralph et al. Oregon Health Decisions: An Experiment with Informed


This study reports the relationships between self-regulation (SR), math self-efficacy, math interest, and three types of pupils' mathematics achievement. The sample included 14–16-year-old students in the 9th grade (out of 11) educated in seven standard and enhanced curricula schools in Russia (N = 318). Significant correlations were found between the studied constructs and various types of pupils' mathematics achievement. SR proved to be a significant predictor for higher indicators in both year math grade and for solving specific mathematical tasks. Whereas the constructs math self-efficacy and math interest are relevant to different kinds of mathematics achievements, math self-efficacy is a significant predictor for successful solving specific mathematical tasks, math interest is for the year math grade. In addition, the general level of SR acts as a mediator of the links between math interest and year math grade.


Expressions are derived for the low-frequency noise (1/f noise, shot noise, Nyquist noise) in bipolar transistors. Particular attention has been paid to the influence of the internal base and emitter series resistance. The expressions have been compared with experimental results from submicrometer silicon bipolar transistors. It is found at low forward currents that the 1/f noise is dominated by 1/f noise in the base current. At high-forward currents the 1/f noise probably stems from the 1/f noise in the internal base series resistance. How to locate the low-frequency noise sources is demonstrated theoretically by analyzing the results for the common-emitter and the common-collector configurations both at low and high currents and at different values of the external resistances. >


Who were the Neanderthals? This brief question has been at the heart of paleoanthropology since the unearthing of the first Neanderthals almost a century and a half ago. First found at sites in western Europe, such as the Neander "thal" or valley in Germany, Gibraltar, Spy in Belgium, or La Chapelle-auxSaints in France, these peculiar remains continue to be an enigma (1, 2). Were they mere variants of living human populations, somewhat different so as to indicate a distinct "race,"~ or were they imbued with sufficient uniquely derived characters (autapomorphies) so as to warrant their own species, Homo neanderthalensis? Although it is generally agreed that Neanderthals existed for about 200,000 years before their disappearance some 30,000 years ago and that they inhabited a range including much of Europe, western Asia, and the Levant, much disagreement remains as to what their phylogenetic affinities were. For example, did Neanderthals and living humans both arise from an early group of Homo sapiens some 300,000-400,000 years ago or did Neanderthals arise separately from some pre-sapiens group much earlier in the Pleistocene? And, of course, what happened to them? Although questions abound, definitive answers are few. A confounding problem in the search to understand the Neanderthals, as with hominid ancestors in general, is that important aspects of their functional morphology and underlying behaviors have gone largely underinvestigated. This, in part, is because paleoanthropologists have had to focus upon the scant bony remains available to them, remains which often do not reflect some major biological systems. For example, although aspects of the dentition or postcranial skeleton have been reconstructed meticulously, others, such as features of the respiratory, digestive, or nervous systems have, more often than not, either been ignored or relegated to a relatively minor role in discussions. The recent observations by Schwartz and Tattersall (3), in this issue of the Proceedings, on Neanderthal nasal apomorphies shed new light on the relationship of Neanderthals to other hominids and add important new data for our understanding of the functional morphology of a major physiologic system, the upper respiratory tract. The authors' primary interest is, of course, how these newly described features will affect the interpretation of Neanderthal phylogeny. To be fair, the position of Schwartz and Tattersall on this issue is well known among anthropologists, with both recognized as "splitters" who see Neanderthals as comprising a distinct species from either living or archaic Homo sapiens (1, 4, 5). Their prior views notwithstanding, the evidence they present is of value in its own right and will henceforth have to be factored into any discussion of Neanderthal relationships. The findings by Schwartz and Tattersall regard specializations of internal nasal morphology. This aspect of the nose has gone largely unexplored in our fossil ancestors. This is because fragile internal nasal structures are often not preserved in fossil hominids and because many aspects of the functional morphology underlying the mammalian nose and associated paranasal sinuses remain poorly understood. Although accounts of internal nasal morphology have been cursory, there have been studies on external nasal dimensions of both extant and fossil hominids (6-9). Indeed, the large size of Neanderthal external nasal dimensions, and the significant differences they exhibit from those of extant humans, has been commented upon and documented for some time (10-12). Schwartz and Tattersall now bring to the discussion three internal nasal features which have been previously unrecognized and which they feel are autapomorphic to Neanderthals: (i) an "internal nasal margin," a medially projecting rim of bone just within the anterior edge of the anterior nasal (piriform) aperture; (ii) a pronounced medial swelling of the lateral nasal wall; and (iii) a lack of an ossified roof over the lacrimal groove. Should the features observed by Schwartz and Tattersall indeed prove to be true apomorphies, they would provide strong evidence to support the contention that Neanderthals are different from extant or fossil Homo sapiens in seminal ways. But in what ways? And what do distinctions in their nasal region reflect? While focusing upon questions of Neanderthal systematics, Schwartz and Tattersall have led us to ponder pivotal questions about how the Neanderthals may have differed from us in aspects of their respiratory tract and constituent behaviors. The acquisition and processing of oxygen and its byproducts is the primary mission of any air-breathing vertebrate. Chewing, walking, reproducing, thinking are all fine, but first one has to breathe. Anthropologists sometimes seem to forget this; evolution never does. Although most of anthropology has focused upon the more direct evidence of our past, some workers have attempted to reconstruct the evolutionary aspects of our more elusive respiratory behaviors. This work has focused largely on reconstructing the upper respiratory, or aerodigestive, tract and has been principally concerned with establishing what the overall positioning of structures such as the larynx, tongue, and pharynx may have been like in hominid ancestors. Our own studies (13-16) among others (17-19) have shown that aspects of the external contour of the skull base are intimately related to the topographic arrangement of aerodigestive tract structures and can, in turn, serve as a guide to help reconstruct the anatomy of the region in our ancestors. In essence, we have learned that the basicranium is the "roof" of the upper respiratory tract and that it can serve as a blueprint from which the "house" below can be re-created. By coupling these data on how upper respiratory tract structures can be reconstructed with our growing knowledge of the comparative and functional anatomy of this region in extant mammals (20, 21), we have begun to gain insight into what the upper respiratory tract may have been like in ancestors as far back as Plio-Pleistocene australopithecines (22). The configuration of this region in Neanderthals has been the subject of thought beginning, at least, with the great anatomist Sir Arthur Keith (23). The focus, however, has usually not been on respiratory requirements and related behaviors but, rather, on the "vocal tract" component. Although few studies wrestle with the key issues of upper respiratory change, it seems as if almost everyone has a word to say on what a Neanderthal's vocal tract may have been like.


Contribution of system technology applied to energy system is expected to realize environmental conscious social infrastructure. To design sophisticated and efficient energy system, a unified evaluation metric for energy efficiency is required. In this paper a unified metric 'Total energy efficiency' for general energy system is proposed. Then a design and evaluation case study is shown, applied to a smart building based on the high performance energy equipments, called net zero energy building (ZEB). The simulation example evaluated the total energy efficiency for various types of smart building with photovoltaic (PV) system, LED lighting, high performance HVAC system, battery and heat storage, etc. The case study shows the effectiveness of the proposed metric 'total energy efficiency' for designing various types of energy systems.


Bracket bonding has become routine procedure in fixed orthodontics over the past couple of decades. The choice whether to receive ceramic or polycarbonate brackets is mainly the patient's but the issues related to bonding them are part of the practitioner's responsibility. Recurrent bracket debonding can unduly prolong treatment or even lead to compromised results. Therefore, we collected human extracted premolars and bonded them with aesthetic brackets and investigated them by a new, non-invasive method - optical coherence tomography (OCT) in order to assess the quality of the bracket-tooth interface. The OCT investigation revealed a series of gaps within the adhesive at the bracket-tooth interface.


Title IV of the JOBS Act, which is entitled "Small Company Capital Formation," requires the Securities and Exchange Commission to adopt new rules regarding offerings under Regulation A. The Commission has now adopted its final regulations implementing Title IV and providing a new regulatory regime for exempt offerings under Section 3(b) of the Securities Act of 1933. The new regime is generally referred to as Regulation A-Plus.Unfortunately, history and empirical data regarding the use of Regulation A and Regulation D strongly suggest that the final Regulation A-Plus rules are unlikely to provide any material relief for small businesses in their difficult search for efficient sources of external capital. Instead, the exemption provided by Regulation A-Plus will likely be attractive only to larger businesses that are not currently reporting companies under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.To a significant extent, this outcome is the result of an effective campaign mounted by state securities regulators, prosecuted through their trade association, the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA), and enabled by the Securities and Exchange Commission (Commission). Once again, NASAA – aided and abetted by the Commission – effectively blocked small businesses from a fair and efficient path to external capital, destroying an important component of the JOBS Act that was specifically designed to facilitate small business capital formation.In the vernacular of the day, small businesses were – again – thrown under the bus.


We question the originality or the practically evidenced theoretical utility of the paper by Sturm et al.1 Could the authors be requested to explain their lack of rigour in referencing the existing literature? The sensitivity of 'real' prospective biliary brush cytology for carcinoma is evidenced to be as high as single endoscopic brush or biopsy work from any other epithelial surface,2 contrary to the authors' assertions. The specificity of brush cytology is near absolute, with two exceptions reported in the early English literature.3,4 Lastly, a prospective clinical study of the use of one approach to K-ras gene mutation analysis in bile samples is already in print5 and the sensitivity and specificity of this marker are not high.


We use individual and aggregate data to ask how the Internet is changing the ideological segregation of the American electorate. Focusing on online news consumption, offline news consumption, and face-to-face social interactions, we define ideological segregation in each domain using standard indices from the literatureonracial segregation. Wefindthat ideological segregationofonlinenews consumption is low in absolute terms, higher than the segregation of most offline news consumption, and significantly lower than the segregation of face-to-face interactions with neighbors, co-workers, or family members. We find no evidence that the Internet is becoming more segregated over time. JEL Codes: D83, L86.