In this issue of Antiviral Therapy, Oldenbuettel et al. [1] report the results of a retrospective study conducted at a single centre in Munich in which 31 HIV-infected patients whose viral loads were suppressed on standard antiretroviral therapy (ART) were switched to monotherapy with the integrase inhibitor, dolutegravir. At 24 weeks, efficacy was 94% by intention-to-treat analysis. One patient chose to discontinue monotherapy despite virological suppression; another experienced virological failure with emergence of two integrase mutations (Q148H and G140S). Before discussing the potential clinical implications of the findings, it is important to address the ethical issues associated with the study as reported. The authors state that patients were switched to dolutegravir monotherapy based on the 'clinical judgement of the treating physician' and that ethics committee approval and informed consent were obtained only for the purpose of the retrospective analysis. However, since dolutegravir monotherapy is a virtually untested treatment approach not recommended in current European or US ART guidelines, it is surprising that 31 patients could be identified at a single centre who were treated in this way as part of standard clinical care. Reasons for switching are discussed, but none of them seem to require the use of dolutegravir monotherapy. For example, gastrointestinal side effects, nephrotoxicity and drug interactions are mentioned, but these are commonly encountered in clinical practice and can be addressed by switching to other standard multi-agent regimens. Similarly, lipodystrophy and anaemia are mentioned, but they are not recognized toxicities of any of the currently recommended antiretroviral agents. As such, the clinical rationale for making a switch to monotherapy is unclear. What motivated these decisions? How were the potential benefits and risks to individual patients balanced? Were specific medication changes discussed with colleagues who had HIV expertise? How were patients engaged in making a decision to be treated with an unproven and non-standard single drug regimen? Were they made aware of the risks? Was there explicit informed consent for this clinical choice? The answers to these important questions are not found in the paper. Although the study is described as retrospective, the authors refer to the '24-week study period' and Table 1 presents data collected at weeks 4, 12 and 24. Laboratory testing included gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT), CD8 count and CD4/CD8 ratio, and lipid panels, tests that would not necessarily be ordered in routine clinical practice in all patients within a 24-week period, at least in most US clinics. The unusual regimen and the precision of laboratory monitoring raise the question of whether this study was what might be called a 'pre-planned retrospective analysis', in which patients were switched to an investigational regimen presumably as part of standard medical care but with plans for analysing the data retrospectively. Obtaining ethics approval and consent after the fact for the purpose of analysing and reporting previously collected data certainly simplifies the ethics approval process, which would otherwise include prospective evaluation of the risks and benefits of the proposed intervention and the requirement for a formal informed consent process. However, avoiding these protections for interventions that ought to be reviewed in advance is ethically problematic. While there can be confusion over what constitutes clinical practice versus research, using dolutegravir monotherapy and systematically evaluating it is clearly research. While physicians are generally free to prescribe drugs for off-label indications or to use non-recommended regimens in routine practice when it is deemed clinically appropriate, this is not the case for research, in which patients must be prospectively informed of the experimental nature of the therapy, of the risks and benefits of that therapy, and of the fact that the primary purpose of the proposed intervention Commentary


This article describes radiation doses and cancer risks of digital breast imaging technologies used for breast cancer detection. These include digital mammography (DM), digital breast tomosynthesis (DBT), and newer technologies such as contrast-enhanced digital or spectral mammography (CEM), whole-breast computed tomography, breast-specific gamma imaging (BSGI), molecular breast imaging (MBI), and positron emission mammography (PEM). This article describes the basis for radiation risk estimates, compares radiation doses and risks, and provides benefit-to-radiation-risk ratios for different breast imaging modalities that use ionizing radiation.
 Current x-ray–based screening modalities such as DM and DBT have small to negligible risks of causing radiation-induced cancers in women of normal screening age. Possible new screening modalities such as CEM have similar small cancer risks. Potential screening modalities that involve radionuclide injection such as BSGI, MBI, and PEM have significantly higher cancer risks unless efficient detection systems and reduced administered doses are used. Benefit-to-radiation-risk estimates are highly favorable for screening with DM and other modalities having comparable (or higher) cancer detection rates and comparably low radiation doses.


The 'rediscovery of poverty' prompted a wide-ranging debate over how the British government could best support low-income families. One radical response came from Edward Heath's Conservative government, which published plans to replace the whole system of personal tax allowances with refundable tax credits—the closest any British government has come to introducing a Universal Basic Income. This chapter examines the origins of the Tax Credit Scheme in 1971–2, which was devised by special adviser Arthur Cockfield in response to the rising cost of tax administration and the difficulty of establishing a selective Negative Income Tax in Britain. As the plans took shape, however, the cost of introducing the reforms on a no-losers basis became a source of growing concern within government. Indeed, Treasury officials were relieved when Labour's victory in the February 1974 election made it possible to jettison the scheme and focus on simplifying and computerizing the PAYE system.


Based on an ethnographic research on Rom childhood and parenthood in Italy, conducted « at home » but with a social minority, this paper questions the ethnographer's emotional and bodily engagement to discuss the importance of reflexivity and reflectivity (Csordas, 1999) from theoretical, methodological and epistemological points of view. In the first part I examine postmodernism critics and alternatives. Arguing that ethnographic knowledge results from embodied experience within the ethnographic encounters and relations, I propose reflectivity as an analytical tool complementary to reflexivity. In the second part, I analyse the emotions emerging from such an encounter and I describe its objective and subjective dimensions (my social characteristics and those of my interlocutors as well as my emotions and the interactional experience of my interlocutors). I finally show that while objective data allows to examine the ethnographic relationship as social sex, age and status bonds, the focus on (inter)subjectivity contributes to objectivizing these bonds within interactions.


On-line accurate identification of permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) parameters is the basis for achieving high-performance motor control, and it also provides a basis for system fault diagnosis. In order to improve the identification accuracy of the least squares method, speed up the convergence speed of identification, and enhance the robustness of the system, this paper proposes a multi-innovation least squares (MILS) method with forgetting factor. This method expands the single innovation scalar in the identification process to multiple innovation vectors to suppress the influence of interfering data on the identification results, and then introduces a forgetting factor to solve the data saturation problem. The simulation verified that the multiple innovation least squares method with forgetting factor has strong antidisturbance ability and better tracking performance.


As the important part of mathematic ability,mathematic creativity plays the core role in the stucture of ability.The study indicates that male and female students' mathematic creativity have distinct difference,and the males students' mathematic creativity is higher than female students'.The male students behave better in every factor,but all are in low level in general.The influence of various factors on male and female students' mathematic creativity also have distinct difference.


Purpose – A stall model to predict the performance of a blade row operating under rotating stall conditions, is proposed.Design/methodology/approach – The experiments were carried out on an isolated rotor row of an axial flow compressor of a radius ratio of 0.66 hub/tip. Wall static pressure tappings were used for measurement of blade row pressure rise. The mass flow rate through the machine was determined from the pressure drop at the intake. Detailed flow measurements were made using a hot wire "V" probe and transducers. An online data acquisition system was used in which data sampling was phase‐locked with respect to stall cell trailing edge.Findings – Measurements indicate that a pressure depression occurs in the stalled region. The assumption of uniform static pressure at the exit of a stalled blade row is not supported by the present work. The assumption of uniform static pressure at the exit of a stalled row together with the assumption that flow in unstalled regions operates at fixed point on the ...


In this paper, we use the analytic method and properties of the Gauss sums to study one kind of mean value computational problem involving the Dedekind sums and the quadratic Gauss sums, and give an exact computational formula and asymptotic formula for it.


Asthma is the most common chronic respiratory disease of childhood, a leading cause of emergency department visits, and 1 of the top 3 indications for hospitalization in children. Despite advances in the management of pediatric asthma, significant disparities in care and outcomes persist. To bridge these gaps, we must embrace the concept of asthma care across the continuum and extend our reach beyond the immediate patient-provider visit.


Course-focused and comprehensive, the Textbook on Land Law provides an accessible overview of one key area on the law curriculum. This chapter discusses how leasehold covenants are enforced. It considers the effect covenants have on: the original parties to the lease; their successors in title (those who acquire the lease or the reversion from the original tenant or landlord); and subtenants (those who hold a sub-lease granted by the original tenant or his successor in title). The chapter also looks at breach of covenant before assignment and applies the enforcement of covenants to Trant Way tenancies.


The invention relates to a comprehensive defense and safeguard system for web application security. The comprehensive defense and safeguard system mainly comprises a gateway protection module and a host core monitoring module. The gateway protection module is arranged in a web security gateway device which is positioned at the front end of a network switch. The host core monitoring module is arranged on a corresponding web release platform which is arranged at the back end of the network switch. A virtual system technology is adopted between the web security gateway device and the web release platform for introducing measures such as a host-based access protection and tampering detection, key data isolation, tempering recovery and the like. Therefore, the comprehensive defense and safeguard system establishes multilayer comprehensive defenses including network security protection specific to network protocols, application protocols and data contents and host file data access protection with the special advantage. Single-point failure does not exist in the system.


This fascinating and important book uses a wealth of contemporary sources to reconstruct the mental world of medieval farmers and, by doing so, argues that these key figures in the Middle Ages have been unfairly stereotyped. David Stone overturns the traditional view of medieval countrymen as economically backward and instead reveals that agricultural decision-making was as rational in the fouteenth century as in modern times. Investigating agricultural mentalities first at a local level and then for England as a whole, Dr Stone argues that human action shaped the course of the rural economy to a much greater extent than has hitherto been appreciated, and challenges the commonly held view that the medieval period was dominated by ecological and economic crises. Focusing in particular on responses to commercial forces and the adoption of agricultural technology, this book has significant implications for our understanding of agricultural development throughout the last thousand years.


The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of competition Brachiaria brizantha cv. Marandu with coffee inoculated with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. We used the DBC, arranged in a factorial 4 x 2, with factor A coffee seedlings inoculated with Glomus clarum, Glomus etunicatum and Scutellospora heterogama and not inoculated factor B, plants with and without competition, with four replications. We used coffee seeds (Catuaí IAC 99) sown on a sand to produce seedlings. When they reached the phase of "matchstick", were transplanted into polyethylene bags. At the time of transplanting, the seedlings were inoculated 3/4, where they were placed 100 spores per plant. When the plants reached six to seven sets of two leaves, the seedlings were planted in pots of 20 liters. At 10 days after planting the coffee seedlings were transplanted two changes of B. brizantha cv. Marandu in half of the pots and after 90 days of living together, we evaluated the height, shoot mass, stem diameter, number of leaves and number of branches plagiotropic the coffee, besides the root density and shoot dry mass brachiaria. There was a significant effect for plants in competition, for most variables of coffee, where competition has affected its development, except for the number of reproductive branches, stem diameter and number of leaves. When we analyzed the effect of coffee inoculation, it can be observed that this led to an increase in almost all variables in relationship to witness. As for the variables of brachiaria plant if watch that cultivated plants inoculated with the coffee had a lower value of the variables. Coffee plants inoculated with mycorrhizal fungi are more tolerant of this competition.


For superconducting magnets working in superfluid helium, a thermal and pressure barrier between liquid helium baths at different temperatures, so called "lambda plate", is required. Bus bars connected to current leads of magnets to be powered, pass through current feedthroughs. These feedthroughs have to stand high pressure, thermal shock, high voltage, and mechanical stresses, must be leak tight and introduce minimum heat inleak. This article describes a possible solution. Three prototypes were built and measured. Design of this feedthrough and preliminary results are presented.


LI Zhengfeng's monograph,on the production mode of scientific knowledge and its historical change,claim a conceptual framework of theory of practice constructing and starting from which to explicate the production mode of scientific knowledge systematically,and resulting a series of lightening results.


INTRODUCTION: The ability to assess plant problems in the field or greenhouse is a major task for growers and plant inspectors. For the novice diagnostician, the task can be intimidating in the absence of a systematic plan for discovering the causes of plant injury. For the more accomplished diagnostician, use of a systematic approach can help avoid the bias of looking only for the familiar syndrome and stopping the investigative process prematurely.


Critical infrastructures are interdependent systems that are continuously evolving. Their evolution is, oftentimes, in a way that tightens, or creates new, interdependences. As urban areas continue to develop, the philosophy of officials and policy makers to meet growth in the energy demand tends to prioritize sustainable planning by deferring infrastructural upgrades and relying instead on the smart operation. Relying on information and communication technology (ICT) network is a prerequisite to achieving smart operation. With the anticipated high penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs) and electric vehicles (EVs), increased reliance on real-time monitoring and control is a must for the power grid to handle such unprecedented levels of load/generation uncertainties. This paper sheds light on how the power grid, the ICT network, and the transportation network are interrelated and interdependent. This paper also presents a benchmark problem for this type of research and a case study. Initial results of the case study show that the impact of these rising interdependences may be significant and must be fully understood and taken into consideration.


A simple technique for fixing and staining peritrich ciliates involving fixation in phosphate buffered formalin and staining with Semichon's Acetic-Carmine is presented. This procedure appears to be superior to conventional methods for achieving relaxation of zooids and for differentiation of the macronucleus.


Background: GERD is a common condition worldwide. It is also frequently seen during pregnancy due to hormonal changes and increasing intra-abdominal pressure. Treatment is usually focused on resolving symptoms. In this regard life style modification and pharmacological interventions are done. But prescribing during pregnancy is a risk benefit condition. Irrational prescribing is a routine practice nowadays. Prescribing during pregnancy needs more care. To avoid hazards associated with irrational prescribing WHO has developed five indicators. Aim and objective: This study was designed to find out prescription mistakes during pregnancy using WHO core drug use indicators. To provide clinicians with prescribing guidlines in order to avoid future discrepancies while prescribing. Method: It was a cross sectional study. Data was obtained from outpatient obstetric departments and analyzed. Result: Antacids, PPIs, Ranitidine and metoclopramide were frequently used drugs. All drug classes are present in essential drug list of Pakistan 2021.Only 8% of the total drugs were prescribed by generic name. Number of drugs per encounter was minimum 5%.Number of injections per encounter was also within standard range 23%. About 20% of prescription were expensive which is a high cost for an under developing country like Pakistan. Practical implication: Good prescribing puts positive impact on patient's physical and mental health. Conclusion: There should be a shift of prescription from brand name to generic name. Control of prescription cost is another issue highlighted. WHO core drug use indicators are only limited to outpatient Departments. These are of limited value for in doors patients where drug prescriptions are more complex. Keywords: Drug use WHO Drug use, GRED, Pregnancy, Pakistani Women


This article is devoted to the negative impact of transport vibrations on the condition of historical and cultural monuments. The causes of the occurrence of transport fluctuations and the consequences of their impact were considered. The authors proposed a classification of the negative impact of transport on monuments, ways to reduce of the negative impact were given, as well as the regions of Russian Federation that are the most susceptible to such impact were analyzed.


The present study investigated age-related differences in remote pointing performance. Three age groups (i.e., the Young adult. Middle-aged, and Elderly) performed cursor positioning tasks by using a remote pointing device. The time taken to reposition the cursor was collected. The result showed that age groups had differences in movement time. Further analysis on the submovement duration times showed that movement time for the Young-adult group was mostly travel time, while the Elderly subjects spent most of their movement time on fine adjustment. This study supports the proposition that different age groups exhibit different kinds of movement patterns.


Paleodetectors are a proposed experimental technique in which one would search for traces of recoiling nuclei in ancient minerals. Natural minerals on Earth are as old as O(1) Gyr and, in many mine ...


Based on the latest literature on Environmental capacity and related theories (Bio-Capacity, Ecological footprint ), this paper examines the effect on Resettlement Environmental Capacity by taking into account factors from human society, economics, ecological environment, resources, policy and technology. On the basis of 'nature-social-economic compound system theory', the author built a conceptual model and a mathematical model for dynamically Evaluating Resettlement Environmental capacity. The model is then adjusted according to data simulation, quantitative analysis and perfected by an empirical research. The model allows us to dynamically monitor, analyze, early-alarm and assess the environmental capacity. Furthermore, it provides a basis for policy decision-making on resettlement planning and management, which is particularly important for regulatory policy and decision making.


Many students use ''mitosis'' and ''cell division'' interchangeably, apparently unaware that cell division includes mitosis as well as another, equally important process called cytokinesis. Mitosis separates duplicated chromosomes, whereas cytokinesis divides the parent cell (and duplicated chromosomes) into two daughter cells. Although these phenomena usually are linked temporally as well as spatially, mitosis can and does occur in the absence of cytokinesis (e.g., during the early development of Drosophila and other insects when many mitotic cycles occur before daughter nuclei become compartmentalized into separate cells; Alberts et al., 2002). Moreover, different mechanisms are responsible for each phenomenon. Thus, we give mitosis and cytokinesis different names, and it would be unfortunate (and especially confusing for students) if the definition of the former were expanded to include cytokinesis, as claimed in a recent review (Rieder and Khodjakov, 2003). Thinking about these phenomena, I realized I was much more familiar with mitosis than I was with cytokinesis. Not only had I read contemporary reviews of the subject (Rieder and Khodjakov, 2003 [including 10 videos]; Mitchison and Salmon, 2001) and of mitosis Web sites (Blystone, 2003), I recently had reviewed videos and research articles dealing with the phenomenon in past Video Views and Reviews (Watters, 2003, 2002). My knowledge of cytokinesis, by contrast, was much less current and informed, and I was delighted when I had the opportunity in July 2004 to attend a conference on cytokinesis sponsored by the American Society for Cell Biology. This Feature arises from my experience at the conference and a subsequent search on High Wire Press (http://highwire.stanford.edu) for current research articles and videos on cytokinesis. Interested readers also may want to consult an older, comprehensive review written by a pioneer in the field (Rappaport, 1996) and the collaborative Web site maintained by the ''Cytokinesis Mafia'': http://www.bio.unc.edu/faculty/salmon/lab/ mafia/index.html. As most students know, mitosis entails the condensation of duplicated chromosomes during prophase; their alignment and separation along the mitotic apparatus (or spindle, as it is sometimes called) during, respectively, metaphase and anaphase; and the chromosomes' compartmentalization and relaxation during telophase. Once the chromosomes have been separated, cytokinesis begins, typically producing a cleavage furrow oriented at right angles to the axis of the spindle and passing through the plane of the metaphase plate. Anaphase, telophase, and furrow formation in a cultured animal cell are illustrated in Figure 1 (taken from Alsop and Zhang, 2003). Mechanistically, chromosomal movement occurs through the agency of the mitotic spindle, the kinetochores that attach chromosomes to various microtubular fibers of the spindle, the dynamic instability of microtubules themselves, and microtubular ''motor'' proteins (Rieder and Khodjakov, 2003). In contrast, cytokinesis and the formation of a cleavage furrow depend on the contraction of a cortical ring of actin and myosin filaments located just beneath the plasma membrane (Alberts et al., 2002). Ring constriction during cytokinesis is often referred to as purse-stringing, because the dividing daughter cells often resemble bags with gradually closing necks. The relative organization of the spindle and cortical ring is illustrated in Figure 2 (taken from Alsop and Zhang, 2004). Although mitosis and cytokinesis are different phenomena, it is clear the mitotic apparatus is responsible for the location of the cortical ring midway between the spindle poles (centrosomes) and around the metaphase plate (Alberts et al., 2002). Micromanipulation of the spindle at critical times can cause the relocation of the cleavage furrow (see Rappaport, 1996). In the extreme, cytokinesis can occur in the absence of a spindle, as elegantly shown in an early experiment by Rappaport (1961), in any cytoplasmic region where astral microtubules from two centrosomes contact one another and adjacent regions of the plasma membrane. (This classic experiment is summarized in unattributed Figures 1831 [Alberts et al., 2002] and unattributed Figures 20-41 [Lodish et al., 2003].) It is not well understood how cortical ring contraction causes a furrow to form and to become constricted or how the spindle determines the location of the cortical ring. Here I review recently published videos that depict the roles played by myosin II in contraction of the cortical ring during cellularization and cytokinesis in early development (Royou et al., 2004), by spindle and astral microtubules in regulating the formation of cleavage furrows during the cleavage of primary spermatocytes (Inoue et al., 2004), and DOI: 10.1187/cbe.04-08-0049 Address correspondence to: Christopher Watters (watters@ middlebury.edu). Cell Biology Education Vol. 4, 10–18, Spring 2005


Since the publication of Keynes' General Theory, macroeconomic theory has a better understanding of the monetary and fiscal policies. The result of this advance is that the 2008-2009 Great Depression did not happen, explains Fernando de Holanda Barbosa.


ABSTRACT The effect of fruit maturity at harvest from a tomato field plot without detectable silverleaf whiteflies (SLWF) on subsequent internal white tissue (IWT) and external tomato irregular ripening (TIR) was assessed. SLWF damage has been documented as the primary cause of IWT and external TIR, but some symptoms are observed in the absence of detectable whiteflies. Tomato fruit were harvested at either the red-ripe or mature-green stages from four different rows of a field treated with imidacloprid to control SLWF. The mature-green fruit were placed in a ripening room (20°C) for seven days. The fruit harvested at the red-ripe stage had a mean external TIR of 5.0%, and the fruit harvested at the mature-green stage and ripened at 20°C had a mean external TIR of 8.9%. The mean percentage of vine- and ripening-room ripened fruit with IWT was 8.3% and 8.9%, respectively. There were no differences in degree of external or internal symptoms for vine- and ripening-room ripened tomato fruit. The reasons for the occurrence of TIR and IWT in tomato fruit harvested from fields with undetectable SLWF are not known.


Since the end of World War II, football in its institutionally organized forms has provided German citizens with a means of reconstructing national identity in a way that is considered politically "safe" in light of the country's fascist past. As the sport and the culture surrounding it are normally viewed as an apolitical realm, the feedback effects from football on society have been under-researched and widely under-acknowledged, particularly in relation to discrimination in football and the repercussions it may have on society at large. This paper uses primary survey and sociological data, empirical data, a selection of secondary literature which make their own analyses of data-based research studies, primary media sources, and secondary media anaysis studies on the topics of the German national football team, the 2006, 2010, and 2014 FIFA World Cups, and the local leagues of the German Football Association (DFB), to investigate the impact of football on social cohesion, integration, and multiculturalism in twenty-first century Germany. Far from being a non-political entity, the research shows that football has had a significant effect on integration efforts and multiculturalism in Germany over the past two decades, and that it has largely been a negative one. However, it is also evident from some positive, uniquely unifying effects of football upon society, that with changes to regulation, social accountability, and media representation, the sport has the potential to positively impact German integration in the future.


【Objective】To study the effects of Losartan on serum level of interleukin-18(IL-18) in pa-tients with chronic heart failure(CHF).【Methods】 76 patients with CHF were divided into CHF control group(n =39) and CHF treatment group(n =37),and another 28 healthy adults were selected as normal con-trol group.Patients in the CHF control group were given conventional medicine treatment such as Digoxin,Diuretics,Nitrates and so on.Patients in the CHF treatment group were given orally Losartan(50 mg/day) for six months besides conventional medicine treatment.Left ventricular end-diastolic diameter(LVEDD),left ven-tricular ejection fraction(LVEF),the level of high sensitivity C-reactive protein(hs-CRP) and IL-18 were e-valuated in all subjects before and after treatment.【Results】Compared to those in the normal control group,LVEDD,LVEF,hs-CRP and IL-18 were significantly different(P 0.05) in the both CHF control group and CHF treatment group before treatment,and LVEF is negative related to level of IL-18(R=-0.41,P 0.05).Although there was no change for LVEDD(P 0.05) after treatment for six months in the both CHF control group and CHF treatment group,LVEF were improved(P 0.05) and hs-CRP and IL-18 were significantly de-creased(P 0.05).After treatment for six months,LVEF was higher and hs-CRP and IL-18 were significantly lower(P 0.05) in the CHF treatment group compared to those in the CHF control group.【Conclusion】Losar-tan can improve heart function of patients with CHF by decreasing serum level of IL-18 and alleviating in-flammatory reaction.


A comparison between the mononuclear platinum complexes of three structurally different monoanionic borato ligands is presented:  [Ph_2B(pyrazolyl)_2]- ([Ph_2B(pz)_2], 1), [4-Ph_3B(2,2'-bipyridine)]- ([(4-BPh_3)bpy], 2), and [Ph_2B(CH_2PPh_2)_2]- ([Ph_2BP_2], 3). The new bipyridylborate ligand 2 is introduced in this study. The relative trans influence of these ligands has been assessed by comparison of the structural and spectroscopic (NMR) data of the platinum dimethyl complexes [[Ph_2B(pz)_2]Pt(Me)_2][NBu_4] (4), [[(4-BPh_3)bpy]Pt(Me)_2][NBu_4] (5), and [[Ph_2BP_2]Pt(Me)_2][ASN] (6). The neutral complexes [Ph_2B(pz)_2]Pt(Me)(NCCH_3) (7), [Ph_2B(pz)_2]Pt(Me)(CO) (8), [Ph_2B(pz)_2]Pt(Me)(P(C_6F_5)_3) (9), [(4-BPh_3)bpy]Pt(Me)(NCCH_3) (10), [(4-BPh_3)bpy]Pt(Me)(CO) (11), and [(bpy)Pt(Me)(CO)][BPh_4] (12) were prepared, and the carbonyl complexes 8, 11, and 12 provide information pertaining to the relative electron-releasing character of each ligand type. The CO stretching frequencies suggest that the charged borate moiety renders the borato ligands more electron-donating than their neutral analogues. Of the neutral platinum methyl solvento complexes supported by ligands 1, 2, and 3, only those of 1 display very different C−H activation propensities. Upon protonation or methide abstraction in benzene at room temperature, complex 4 rapidly activates two molecules of benzene to generate [[Ph_2B(pz)_2]Pt(Ph)_2][NBu_4] (13). Isotopic scrambling of deuterium into methane in C_6D_6 solvent suggests the intermediacy of a methane σ-adduct in this reaction. The double C−H activation reaction can be halted by addition of acetonitrile to trap the intermediate [Ph_2B(pz)_2]Pt(Ph)(NCCH_3) (14). Complex 3 also displays reactivity toward the benzylic C−H bonds of mesitylene at room temperature to form [Ph_2B(pz)_2]Pt(pzH)(CH_2C_6H_3(CH_3)_2) (15) in modest yield.


This chapter explains how to analyze the frequency content of a periodic signal and shows how to reconstruct the signal if its frequency content is known, an operation called spectral synthesis. It introduces the basics of spectral analysis and spectral synthesis, distinguishes between time domain and frequency domain, and applies the Fourier series to find the spectrum of a periodic signal. The chapter describes how to find the Fourier series for various types of periodic signals and demonstrates the effect of filtering on signals from the standpoint of spectral analysis. It explains the concept of harmonic distortion and shows that the harmonic distortion is the phenomenon where an output signal contains more harmonics than an input signal. The chapter describes the mathematical foundation of the Fourier series and explains the power spectrum of periodic signals. It also introduces the concept of power‐bandwidth trade‐off in modern communications.


49 the o ne D avid F oster W allace w restled with in The Pa le K ing, re leased a fter h is recent death as an unfinished manuscript. Wallace s truggled w ith h ow t o p ortray boredom a nd t he n umbing re petition o f contemporary labor in a novel with mixed success. This issue of the style of the book overlaps with the question of its intended audience. As someone who was employed for a n umber o f y ears a s a n a djunct, I sympathize with Duffy, but I also did not learn much a bout t he a djunct c ondition. If K undera's in tended re ader i s one w ho has yet to consider the plight of the contingent w orker, I w orry t hat s /he m ight not stick long enough with the book given its tempo and mood. I hope t hat i s not t he c ase a s we must find w ays t o s hed l ight o n t he W alMartization o f t he a cademy a nd t he threat i t p oses t o o ur c ultural l ife a nd economic h ealth. There i s a n eed f or novels t hat g enerate s ympathy f or t he professoriate, for people at the bottom of the l adder a s w ell a s t hose s tuck in t he middle w ho a re n ot m aking s ix figures as s ome o f t he t enured f aculty de picted here. Ge nerally, A mericans do not s eem interested in t he p light o f w orkers w ho, in t heir m inds, a re vo luntarily c hoosing low-paid c ontract w ork in o rder t o k eep their foot in the door of a life of the mind. This i s especially t rue when we a re talking a bout p ublic in stitutions t hat w ould require re -investment o f t ax d ollars in order to address the problem. This makes finding c reative ways to tell these s tories all the more urgent.


Implementation is the application in an activity to achieve activity objectives based on certain norms so that the activity can run effectively. In the Nurul Ikhlas Modern Islamic Boarding School there is one program that is running, namely the life skills program. Based on the phenomena found in the field when making observations, namely the existence of this life skill program was formed due to the limited space for students to move. Therefore this study aims to describe the implementation of the Intensive High School life skills program on the development of students at the Nurul Ikhlas Padang Panjang Modern Islamic Boarding School Foundation. The theory used in this research is Structural Functional Theory according to Parsons. The approach used is qualitative with a descriptive research type. Data collection techniques used in this research are observation, interviews, and document studies. Selection of informants in this study through purposive sampling technique. With the number of informants 12 people. The unit of analysis in this study is the individual. Data analysis used in this study used 4 steps, namely: data collection, data reduction, data presentation and drawing conclusions. This research was conducted at Nurul Ikhlas Panjang Panjang Intensive High School. The results of this study indicate that the implementation of the life skill program at Nurul Ikhlas Padang Panjang Intensive High School on the development of students, namely: students are able to develop creativity in processing food ingredients and foster an entrepreneurial spirit in the field of culinary arts, students are able to improve literacy and creativity in writing in the field of journalism , students are able to increase self-confidence and skills in playing music in the field of music and students are able to build creativity, motor skills, and express themselves in the field of craft.


The sub-regional international economic co-operation that China,as a party, takes part in includes those in Tumen River Area, Lancangjiang-Melong River Area and middle-Asia Area. It Influences the continue-ability development of border nationalities region. This paper analyses the sub-regional international economic co-operation obstacles of border nationalities region and puts forward some suggestions as follows: strengthening multilateral talks, laying down the common continue-ability development strategy of the sub-regional international economic co-operation progressively, enforcing green industrial plan, improving circumstances of trade and investment, enthusiastically seeking supports of international organizations.


ABSTRACT In this study, Eichhornia crassipes and Thespesia populnea flowers were collected and composites were prepared using the Soxhlet apparatus. The flower composites were finished to polyester and cotton fabrics by mordants of alum, CuSO4, and FeSO4. The mordants were determined by wash fastness tests such as fastness to washing, alkalis and acids, perspiration, and light. Two common pathogens were tested for synergistic antibacterial activity of flower composites, and the physical tests were evaluated for control and finished fabrics. Alum showed excellent color fastness than other mordants. Alum-finished fabrics showed higher antibacterial activity. In the inhibitory zones, the cotton fabrics were observed as 31 mm and 29 mm, and the polyester fabrics were observed as 30 mm and 29 mm. Both the inhibitory zones are against E. coli and S. aureus. The tensile strength, air permeability, and dimensional stability were slightly reduced on the finished polyester and cotton fabrics when compared with control fabrics. Control fabrics showed no pilling, and the finished fabrics showed slight pilling. Finishes on fabrics showed a slight increase in the GSM of the finished fabrics.


Nanocomposites based on conducting polypyrrole (PPY) and inorganic SnO2 have been synthesized by the soft chemical route. Absorption spectra of PPY–SnO2 nanocomposites show peaks at wavelengths of 310–340 nm corresponding to nanosized SnO2 and two broad bands present at around 450–475 nm and in the range 600–900 nm are due to polypyrrole. The absorption band at lower wavelength indicates a blue shift of about 30 nm with respect to bulk SnO2. Direct current conductivity of nanocomposites as a function of temperature for different concentrations of polypyrrole have been interpreted by three-dimensional Mott's variable range hopping process. The observed diode like current–voltage characteristics are satisfactorily explained using the Schottky type barriers.


A mixture of (Z,Z)-3,13-octadecadien-1-yl acetate(1) and its (E,Z)-isomer(2), the sex pheromone of the cherry tree borer, Synanthedon hector Butler was synthesized. (Z)-11-Octadecen-1-al(3) was prepared from 1,10-decandiol. The Wittig reaction the above aldehyde3 with carboethoxymethylenetriphenylphosphorane, or the Wadsworth-Emmons reaction of the above aldehyde3 with the anion of triethylphosphonoacetate gave ethyl (Z,Z)-2,13-octadecadienoate and its (E,Z)-isomer. Deconjugative protonation of ethyl (Z,Z)-2,13-octadecadienoate and its (E,Z)-isomer with potassium hexamethyldisilazide followed by aqueous ammonium chloride work-up afforded stereoselectiv디y ethyl (E,Z)-3,13-octadecadienoate and its (Z,Z)-isomer, respectively, of which stereoselectivity was adjusted to give the product in the required ratio. Exposure of the above deconjugated ester to excess lithium aluminium hydride resulted in formation of the penultimate (Z,Z)-3,13-octadecadien-1-ol and its (E,Z)-isomer. Acetylation of the desired alcohols afford the final products, (Z,Z)-3,13-octadecadien-1-yl acetate(1) and its (E,Z)-isomer(2).


This paper results from two researches developed in both Doctorate and Masters Levels in Group of Studies of Language in Aging and Pathologies (GELEP). This paper's purpose is to discuss the Word Finding Difficulty and the relationship between paraphasia and paralexia. These linguistic-cognitive phenomena provide visibility to the lexical-semantic selection and organization procedures and are frequently associated with aphasia. These phenomena are characterized by the replacement of the intended or target word for another, being so that paralexias occur during the reading process, while paraphasia is the oral exchange of words. Recent researches developed in the context of enunciative-discursive Neurolinguistics (NOVAES-PINTO, 2009, 2014; NOVAES-PINTO; SOUZA-CRUZ, 2013; SOUZA-CRUZ 2014) reveal that lexical-semantic paraphasias are constant in the wording of individuals with fluent aphasia or not and are related to Word Finding Difficulties.


Garcinia prainiana King is a rare fruit from South East Asia with known anti-inflammatory activity. In this study, we isolated biflavonoids from the leaf extracts and tested these for cytotoxicity, Nitric Oxide (NO) inhibition in mouse macrophages (RAW 264.7) and α-glucosidase inhibition. Extract of G. prainiana leaf showed potent inhibition of NO production from lipopolysaccharide stimulated RAW 264.7 cells, with IC 50 of 17.55 ± 2.37 µg/mL. Bioactivity-guided fractionation led to the isolation of four biflavonoids from the extract: morelloflavone ( 1 ), amentoflavone ( 2 ), 4‴-methyl amentoflavone ( 8 ) and 2″,3″-dihydromorelloflavone or GB-2a ( 9 ); and the glucosides of 1 and 9, morelloflavone-7″-O-β-glucoside ( 7 ) and 2″,3″-dihydromorelloflavone-7″-O-β-glucoside ( 10 ), respectively. The four biflavonoid compounds 1, 2, 8 and 9 inhibited NO production within the range of IC 50 = 44.80 - 75.20 µM. The α-glucosidase inhibition assay revealed variable activity from IC 50 of 6.34 µM (4‴-methyl amentoflavone ( 8 )) to IC 50 of 43.75 µM (morelloflavone glucoside ( 7 )). This study highlights the potential for value-adding G. prainiana as an anti-inflammatory and anti-diabetic food source.


Humans learn language via multi-modal knowledge. However, due to the text-only pre-training scheme, most existing pre-trained language models (PLMs) are hindered from the multi-modal information. To inject visual knowledge into PLMs, existing methods incorporate either the text or image encoder of vision-language models (VLMs) to encode the visual information and update all the original parameters of PLMs for knowledge fusion. In this paper, we propose a new plug-and-play module, X-adapter, to flexibly leverage the aligned visual and textual knowledge learned in pre-trained VLMs and efficiently inject them into PLMs. Specifically, we insert X-adapters into PLMs, and only the added parameters are updated during adaptation. To fully exploit the potential in VLMs, X-adapters consist of two sub-modules, V-expert and T-expert, to fuse VLMs' image and text representations, respectively. We can opt for activating different sub-modules depending on the downstream tasks. Experimental results show that our method can significantly improve the performance on object-color reasoning and natural language understanding (NLU) tasks compared with PLM baselines.


It has been suggested that a deficit in junior clinicians anatomical knowledge is causing harm to patients, evidenced by a rise in surgical negligence legal claims resulting from a lack of knowledge of underlying anatomy. This study set out to examine the state of anatomy in the UK and Ireland in 2019 and how it has changed over the past two decades. The study used questions previously published by Heylings (2002), with some additions to reflect recent innovations in anatomy teaching. The project was awarded ethical approval (ER/BSMS3867/8) and a survey comprising 53 questions was hosted on the University of Sussex Qualtrics platform. Heads of Anatomy in the UK and Ireland (n=40) were asked to complete the survey and a 100% response rate was obtained. The results showed that anatomy is a defined 'group' or department in 62% of institutions. For medical teaching, 38% of institutions follow a systems‐based curriculum and 35% a hybrid curriculum. The number of medical student being taught in a cohort ranged from 71–450. The time dedicated to gross anatomy teaching ranged from 34–145h. Only one institution teaches anatomy by dissection only, 12 using prosection only, and 17 use a combination of the two. Five institutions do not use human cadaveric material. In 2018, five new medical schools were created in the UK, each following an existing institution's curriculum. At the time of the survey, were yet to enroll students and therefore, were not included in the study. In comparison to data gathered therein 1999 (Heylings, 2002) when 160h was the mean teaching time for traditional regional anatomy courses and 116h for system based courses, the results of the current study reveal a considerable reduction in anatomy teaching hours. Is this reduction responsible for the increase in surgical negligence claims?


It is known that microprocessor based relay testing has become a challenge nowadays mainly because of the increased complexity. Most of the modem numerical relays have provisions to detect phase-to-ground faults for any type of neutral compensation. This raises the standard for everybody in the relay industry to introduce improved settings management as well as reliable test plans. To create a manual test plan becomes increasingly difficult so the focus on developing fully automated test plans is no longer a luxury but a necessity. This paper describes some of the challenges in developing an automatic test plan for earth fault detection functions.


This study was supported by grants from the South African Medical Research Council and the Staff Research Fund of the University of Cape Town. N A Theodorou received help from the King Edward Fund for London, Simpson Smith travelling fellowship, and Ethicon Foundation. The authors thank their colleagues who helped in the management of patients, and the Chief Medical Superintendent, Groote Schuur Hospital, is thanked for permission to publish this paper.


A rare case of tuberculosis of many bones (skull, ribs and pubis) is described. There was also paravertebral cold abscess with fistulisation opened to groin region; no lesions were seen in lungs, urinary or gastrointestinal tracts. The response to medical treatment was favourable.


The Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) adopts an innovative active optics technique that changes mirror surface continuously to achieve a series different reflecting Schmidt systems at different moments. The key technical innovations makes it a unique astronomical instrument combining the largest aperture with a wide field of view, and it is the telescope with the highest spectrum acquiring rate by 4000 fibers in the world. The observed declination of the telescope covers from - 10° to 90°. There are two major components of the LAMOST survey: The LAMOST ExtraGAlactic Survey (LEGAS) and the LAMOST Experiment for Galactic Understanding and Exploration (LEGUE). It is known that the Milky Way is the only galaxy that we can study in enough detail, and the LEGUE survey can be divided into three parts according to sky coverage: the Galactic spheroid, the disk and the Galactic anticenter, and will observe a huge sample of stars of our Galaxy. At the moment, LAMOST survey focuses on the stellar spectra of our Galaxy, and will obtain optical spectra for statistically complete samples totaling at least 7.5 million Galactic stars from the thin- and thick-disk and halo during the first five year survey. It will open up new windows in near-field cosmology. LAMOST opened a new road to the large scale optical fiber spectroscopic sky surveys in China. As a national large scientific project, the spectra from the survey are opened to all Chinese astronomers. With this huge spectra database stellar kinematics can be obtained and the metallicity distribution function in the Galaxy will be derived, especially those within a few kpc of the Sun. With the structures revealed from such a large survey, it is possible for us to systematically map out the spatial density, Galactocentric rotation velocity and velocity ellipsoid, and chemical abundance of stars as a function of position in the Galaxy. These results will provide important constraints on the present models of Galactic structure, formation history, kinematical and dynamical evolution, chemical evolution, and the distribution of dark matter in the Milky Way. The survey will also provide important clues to the structure of the Galaxy's gravitational potential, and can pin down the mysterious of the possible structure and sub-structure of dark matter. Based on these results we can test models of dark matter, gravitational collapse, hydrodynamics of gas, stellar formation and feedback including properties of the first generation of stars and enrichment of interstellar medium through supernova explosions.


The invention relates to a drying device, particularly relating to an energy-conserving device, and providing a high-air-volume multistage circular energy-conserving drying device utilizing wastes to heat fresh air. A drying room is composed of multi-section drying ovens; each drying oven is provided with a diaphragm; an enclosed air room with multiple air flue slits is arranged on the diaphragm, and is communicated with a heat exchanger through an air inlet main pipe, an air inlet branch pipe, an air outlet main pipe and an air outlet branch pipe; a fresh-air taking opening is connected with the heat exchanger and a heat exchanging draught fan in sequence; the outlet of the heat exchanger, the air inlet main pipe and the air inlet branch pipe are connected with each air room; the air exhaust branch pipe of the previous two-section drying oven air room with high waste gas concentration is discharged through a primary heat exchanger; other air exhaust branch pipes are connected on the air outlet branch pipe, and are connected with a secondary heat exchanger and the front end part of the heat exchanging draught fan to form circulation; the inner air volume is increased; the hot air circulates in the drying oven; the waste gas temperature is utilized to save energy source; the drying oven temperature is flexibly set, and small circulation is flexibly regulated in the drying oven; and the temperature control is uniform.


Cereals are used as staple food in the world because they provide more energy and important source of vitamins, minerals, protein and carbohydrates. Oat is considered important cereal cultivated in different regions due to its ample source of soluble dietary fiber. Bran is the outermost layer of the grain which contains the appreciable amount of soluble dietary fiber called β-glucan helpful in lowering cholesterol and maintaining glucose level. Due to the health benefits of fibrous material from oat bran it gained more importance globally and has been added in different food items. But incorporation of fibrous material in food items negatively affects the characteristics of product ultimate acceptance. To improve the functionality of fibrous material, different methods are applied such as addition of chemicals and enzymes but they did not gain much popularity because people demand organic foods. So, the current study was designed to improve the functionality of fibrous material through extrusion cooking as it is more effective than other techniques. Proximate analysis expressed that oat bran had moisture, protein, fat, ash and fiber content as 8.25±0.04%, 14.15±0.07%, 6.12±0.05%, 2.50±0.10% and 3.55±0.23%, respectively. Extrusion of oat bran was done by using the barrel exit temperature 120˚C, 140 ˚C and 160˚C, screw speed 100rpm, 150rpm and 200rpm and feed moisture was 20%, 30% and 40%. Extruded bran was investigated for total dietary fiber, soluble dietary fiber and insoluble dietary fiber. Extrusion parameters had showed positively significant (P<0.01) effect on dietary fiber content, β-glucan content and extractable β-glucan content. In conclusion, current research showed that extrusion treatment of oat bran results in increased availability of fiber.


With the scaling down of CMOS technology, process variations are becoming significant. Power consumption is a major constraint on IC yield. However, there has been little research on statistical power analysis compared with that on timing analysis. Here, both the static and dynamic power are considered. We characterize a cell library containing mean power. A standard deviation power library is extracted from Monte Carlo simulations. Then, the mean and variance of the power are derived. The proposed technique is validated on benchmark circuits at 35 nm. We compare the results with SPICE simulations and show that the difference is acceptable.


Successfully conducting business on the Internet calls for new marketing paradigms that meet the requirements of the unique combination of its inherent characteristics: electronic markets, technological platform, and marketing issues. In this context, electronic markets are the framework in which market transactions are performed on the Internet. Underlying Internet technology forces marketing activities to be different from the ones applied to traditional sales channels and performance marketing is the essential ingredient for creating the best offering for the customer. The Web Assessment model unites these ingredients into a unified approach for the evaluation of commercial Web sites. The Web Assessment methodology has been developed over the last one and a half years and the initial ideas have appeared in conference proceedings (Selz and Schubert 1997a; Selz and Schubert 1997b, Schubert and Selz 1999). Based upon the Web Assessment methodology a software tool has been created in order to enable Web users to make an online evaluation of their favorite Web sites. The paper describes the underlying model and presents preliminary usage observations. The findings outlined in this paper were collected from participating Internet users who completed the online questionnaire. The data is a collection of subjective user assessments of various Internet commerce applications. There are various kinds of observations which can be made with the Web Assessment tool. We selected examples portraying a "single company profile" and an "inter-business comparison". The inter-business comparisons is explored in more detail using the examples of two bookstores – the virtual Amazon.com versus the traditional bookseller Barnes & Noble.


The invention relates to fungicidal mixtures containing the following as active components: 1) at least one 1-methyl pyrazol-4-yl carboxylic acid anilide of formula (I), in which X = O or S, R1 = C1-C4 alkyl or C1-C4 haloalkyl, R 2 = hydrogen or halogen, R3, R4 and R 5 = independently of one another cyano, nitro, halogen, C 1-C4 alkyl, C1-C4 haloalkyl, C 1-C4 alkoxy, C1-C4 haloalkoxy or C1-C4 alkylthio; and 2) at least one active ingredient II, selected from the active ingredient groups A) to F) in a synergistically active quantity: A) azoles; B) strobilurins; C) carboxamides; D) heterocyclic compounds; E) carbamates; F) other fungicides. The invention also relates to a method for controlling pathogenic fungi using mixtures of at least one compound I and at least one active ingredient II, to the use of the compound(s) I and active ingredients II for producing mixtures of this type and to agents and seeds containing said mixtures.


Martin Bucer's Kingdom of Christ [De Regno Christi] was written while he was in exile in England. It served as advice to King Edward VI (ruled 1547–53) on how to pursue more effectively reform of the English Church and commonwealth, and as constructive criticism of what had been done. The treatise was a summary of Bucer's thinking on the relationship between church and society, and on how the Gospel should influence every aspect of life, resulting in the establishment of the rule of Christ in this world. The treatise is in two books; the first describes what constitutes the Kingdom of Christ, the second is a plan of action built on fourteen laws for reform of church and all of society. Though it is not a theological treatise in a narrow sense, the work makes substantial contributions to the doctrine of the church, church–state relations, and the conduct of the Christian life (especially church or Christian discipline).


Introduction: In cerebrovascular disorders, special attention is paid to a hypertensive cerebrovascular crisis, which combines a vascular injury of the brain and hypertension. The paper studies the cerebrovascular properties of the calcium channel blocker of S-Amlodipine nicotinate antihypertensive agent.
 Materials and methods: Tests were performed on 96 nonlinear male rats, measuring local blood flow in the cerebral cortex in 36 awake animals, using a laser Doppler flowmeter. Cerebral circulation was recorded in the animals when modeling ischemic and hemorrhagic brain injuries.
 Results and discussion: S-Amlodipine nicotinate (0.1 mg/kg i/v) shows a pronounced cerebrovascular activity in the models of ischemic and hemorrhagic injuries of the brain. In terms of the vasodilating effect in ischemic brain injury, the drug is comparable to mexidol, nimodipine, picamilon, but is superior to nimodipine and picamilon in terms of duration of action, and in the model of hemorrhagic stroke, S-Amlodipine nicotinate is superior to nimodipine and is comparable to picamilon and mexidol. The analysis of the mechanism of action of the agent revealed the participation of GABA A-receptors in the implementation of cerebrovascular properties of the agent.
 Conclusion: Significant cerebrovascular activity of S-Amlodipine nicotinate (0.1 mg/kg i/v) antihypertensive agent was revealed. The presence of GABAergic mechanism on cerebral blood flow in the agent action along with blockade of slow calcium channels ensures its high efficacy in treatment of both ischemic and hemorrhagic brain injuries.


It was found that Mn 2+ may occupy (Mn 2+ ) sub and (Mn 2+ ) int sites by luminescence and excitation spectra. EPR measurements support this conclusion. (Mn 2+ ) sub , (Mn 2+ ) int and nclusters were identified. The g factor and HFS constants increases with decreasing the diameters of the nanocrystals. It might be due to the hybridization between sp and d states by quantum confinement effects and the surface states.


The relevance of the paper is in the possibilities of using the experience of co-operative construction in the USSR to solve the housing problem in modern world. The purpose of the research work is to analyze the process and results of the cooperative housing development in the Krasnodar Territory in the 1960s and the main tasks are related to the study of the conditions and factors in the development of this type of construction.


In this study, we carried out an investigation of the etching characteristics (etch rate, selectivity to ) of ZnO thin films in /Ar inductivity coupled plasma. A maximum etch rate and selectivity of 108.8 nm/min and, 3.21, respectively, was obtained for ZnO thin film at a /Ar gas mixing ratio of 15:16:4 sccm. The plasmas were characterized by optical emission spectroscopy. The x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis showed the efficient destruction of oxide bonds by ion bombardment. An accumulation of low volatile reaction products on the etched surface was also shown. Based on this data, an ion-assisted chemical reaction is proposed as the main etch mechanism for plasmas containing .


Objective To investigate the common motivations of asthmatic exacerbation and the way how to prevent children with asthma from them. Methods 229 asthmatic exacerbation children in pediatrics outpatient or emergency department were enrolled, 126 cases were assigned into over 3 years group and the other 103 cases into infantile group. Causes were corrected by query sheets and investigated the potential causes associated with which led to asthmatic exacerbation in children with asthma. Result Respiratory tract infection was one of the most common causes led to asthmatic exacerbation in children with asthma,93.2% in infantile group vs. 54% in over 3years group, which were significant different in statistics (χ2 =46.122, p 0.01) . The other common cause was to quit to inhale corticosteriods or to reduce dosage of inhalation corticosteriods without suggestion by pedestrians, 30.1% in infantile group vs. 44.4% in over 3years group, which were significant different in statistics (χ2 =4.952, p 0.05) . Allergens in living entertainment led to asthmatic exacerbation, 26.2% in infantile group vs. 43.7% in over 3years group, which were significant different in statistics (χ2 =7.497, p 0.05) . Although sports were the important factor cause asthmatic exacerbation in children with asthma, there were no significant differencet from both two groups in statistics (χ2 =2.744, p 0.05) .172 cases in total were positive in skin prick test with allergens, and the ratio was 77.1%, among which mites were major allergen. positive in skin prick test with house mite and powder mite were the most common allergen, 54.4%and 43.7%in infantile group, 77%and 62.7% in over 3 years group, significant different in statistics (χ2 =13.072 and 8.248 respectively, p 0.01) . Conclusion Respiratory tract infection was one of the most common causes led to asthmatic exacerbation in children especially infantile with asthma .Non- infection factors became the important cause led to asthmatic exacerbation in children with asthma when growth up. To reduce the risks of respiratory tract infection, keep out of allergens and inhale corticosteriods regulate were available ways the prevent children with asthma from asthmatic exacerbation.


We are grateful to Dr Onder for the comments on our case report, "Unusual case of idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus initially presenting as Parinaud's syndrome." Below are our responses to the comments. With regard to the first comment that pure upward gaze palsy without dorsal midbrain lesion makes the diagnosis of Parinaud's syndrome (PS) doubtful, we disagree with this opinion. We believe that PS could be regarded as a clinical syndrome with a cluster of abnormalities of eye movement and pupil dysfunction, and the pathophysiology of PS is thought to be induced by dorsal midbrain dysfunction regardless of any specific lesion. We deduced that normal pressure hydrocephalus (NPH)-induced compressive effect affecting the dorsal midbrain might result in upward gaze palsy and ptosis of the patient. Characteristic neuroophthalmological findings in PS consist of vertical gaze palsy, especially upward rather than downward; pupillary light-near dissociation; convergence-retraction nystagmus; and lid retraction. However, as aforementioned in the letter of Dr Onder, it was found that the classical triad of PS was only present in 65% of cases in a recent crucial review. Pollak et al. defined PS as showing one or more of the following signs: limitation of upgaze, pupillary light-near dissociation or convergence-retraction nystagmus. In this literature, the full picture of PS was present in 27% of patients, and the following patients were regarded as having PS: two patients showing only pupillary light-near dissociation; and two other patients with pure convergence-retraction nystagmus. Also, Rojas et al. reported a patient with minimal anomalies of PS showing slowed upward saccades and pupillary light-near dissociation in the absence of upgaze palsy, convergence-retraction nystagmus, and lid retraction. Additionally, the present patient had not only upward gaze palsy, but also ptosis, which could be observed in PS. As a consequence, we concluded that the phenomenology of the present case was highly compatible with PS. We could understand the Author's concern, which points out the possibility of dual pathology of progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) with idiopathic NPH, and neurodegenerative NPH (distinct from idiopathic NPH) as a presenting feature of PSP. However, upgaze palsy only is extremely rare, and slowing of downward or horizontal saccades appears in the early stage of PSP with ocular motor dysfunction. In the present patient, downward and horizontal saccades/pursuits were unremarkable. In addition, according to the new diagnostic criteria of PSP revised in 2017, typical neuroimaging features suggestive of idiopathic NPH make the diagnosis of PSP highly unlikely. Dramatic response of upward gaze palsy to ventriculoperitoneal shunt operation (Video S1) also strongly supports that PS was induced by idiopathic NPH. For the last comment, demonstration of postsynaptic striatal dopaminergic degeneration using functional imaging is not mandatory, but supportive for the diagnosis of PSP in the revised crietria. Several articles were published investigating the role of F-fluorinated-N-3-fluoropropyl-2-β-carboxymethoxy3-β-(4-iodophenyl)nortropane (F-FP-CIT) positron-emission tomography (PET) as a potential diagnostic modality for PSPRichardson's syndrome. Although there is little data about the utility of dopamine imaging in variant PSP, a few studies reported that dopamine imaging could be sensitive for variant PSP, as well as PSP-Richardson's syndrome. Furthermore, Yoo et al. recently showed that F-FP-CIT PET could be used for the diagnosis of PSP (including PSP-Richardson's syndrome and variant PSP) at early stages of the disease. Hence, the absence of dopaminergic depletion using F-FP-CIT PET might contribute to the patient's diagnosis in this case. Clinical features of PS without downward gaze palsy commonly seen in PSP, typical neuroimaging features of idiopathic NPH, dramatic response to ventriculoperitoneal shunt operation and the absence of dopaminergic depletion on F-FP-CIT PET led us to the conclusion that clinical diagnosis of PSP was inappropriate in the present case. Furthermore, after the ventriculoperitoneal shunt operation, the patient has been well for a year without any worsening of neurological deficits. Collectively, we concluded that the patient showed shunt-responsive PS without dorsal midbrain lesion.


The magnitudes of d001 spacings of fulvic acid-Na-montmorillonite complexes were not affected by temperatures between 25 and 60°C. Slightly more than one half of the total amount of fulvic acid adsorbed by Na-montmorillonite was in the interlamellar spaces, with the remainder on external surfaces. The d001 spacings and amounts of fulvic acid adsorbed in the interlamellar spaces of Pb++−, Mg++−, Co++− and Ni++− saturated montmorillonite decreased with increase in pH. The capacities of cation saturated clays to adsorb fulvic acid in interlamellar spaces decreased in the following order: Pb++ > Mg++ > Co++ > Ni++. The exotherm near 670°C in the DTA curve of the fulvic acid-Na-montmorillonite complex signalized the formation of an interlayer complex.


This publication contains the results of the conference South-South Policy Dialogue on Quality Education for Adults and Young People that took place in Mexico City in 2005. Articles were written by participants who presented their national programmes from the governmental perspective, which were reflected in the literacy policies, but there were also important contributions on basic education and competence recognition. Accent was put on the experiences of four countries that were considered as locomotives of development in the field: Brazil, India, South Africa and Mexico. Nevertheless, dialogue was also enriched by information provided by other African, Asian and Latin American countries: Angola, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Thailand, China, Guatemala, Nicaragua and the Arab States as a whole. The chapters are as follows: Introduction / Madhu Singh; Adult learning: situation, trends and prospects / Chris Chinien; Part II, 'Model programmes' contains: Brazil's national programme for adult and youth education / Ricardo Henriques and Timothy Ireland; India's national adult education programme / Satish Loomba and A. Mathew; Mexico's national adult education programme/ Luz-Maria Castro Mussot and Maria Luisa de Anda; South Africa's national adult education programme / Morongwa Ramarumo and Vernon Jacobs; Part III, 'Country cases', contains: Asia - Adult literacy and learning in Bangladesh: the UNESCO and NGO experience / Ahmadullah Mia and Wolfgang Vollmann; Thailand's national programme of adult and youth education / Roong Aroon and Wilaipan Somtrakool; A system of quality education for adults and youth in China / Yuquan Qiao; Latin America - Adult and youth education in Nicaragua / Nydia Veronica Gurdian and Elizabeth Navarro; Challenges for the construction of a policy for quality adult and youth education in Guatemala / Ilda Moran de Garcia and Otto Rivera; Africa - Namibia's adult literacy and learning programme / Beans Uazembua Ngatjizeko; Mozambique's literacy and adult education programmes: a sub-sector strategy / Ernesto Muianga; Educating adults and youth in Tanzania: Complementary Basic Education and Training (COBET) and Integrated Community-Based Adult Education (ICBAE) / Basilina Levira and Valentino Gange; The context of literacy development and adult education in Angola / Juao Romeu and Luisa Grilo; The Arab States - Adult education in the Arab region / Seham Najem, Aicha Barki and Nour Dajani-Shehabi.


Apparatus for measurement of spectral directional reflectance in the far infrared between 2–100 μ is described. The reflectometer consists of opposed paraboloids, one on axis with 90° lip angle and a second of longer focal length off axis. A large uniform source beyond a chopper and the focal point of the off-axis paraboloid provides diffuse irradiation onto the sample. Spectral reflectances of diffusing and specular materials measured with the reflectometer attached to prism and grating monochromators are reported. Performance data including stray energy measurements are given, and results of an error analysis are presented.


In this paper, we propose a method that can beautify user's handwriting to the character of Kai style calligraphy. Structural and style features of Chinese character are summarized, and a model for representing character is proposed. Bezier curve with varying width is used for approximating user-input stroke segment. Corner shapes are modeled and utilized to beautify the corner points in the stroke. Rendering rules are designed based on the character features. Also, antialiasing technology is adopted to make the edge of the contour fine and smooth. Experimental results show the effectiveness of our system on beautifying the handwriting to Kai style calligraphy.


AbstractMany data-merging studies of the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite involve the integration of high-resolution Visible and Infrared Scanner (VIRS) signals (~2 km) with low-resolution Precipitation Radar (PR) footprint (~5 km) to obtain comprehensive information from observations. Based on the merged dataset, "warm rain" is generally identified as having averaging 10.8-μm brightness temperatures (TB10.8) exceeding 273 K and the existence of surface rainfall. However, this integration may lead to the misidentification of warm rain because the beam-filling problem (nonuniform TB10.8 in PR pixels) is not fully considered through the method using high-resolution TB10.8 to match low-resolution rainfall. To assess the bias that is associated with identifying warm rain, a new dataset that includes all VIRS signals within the PR resolution is established, and the characteristics of this warm rain in the summers of 1998–2012 are analyzed. The results show that clear-sky pixels and "cold" p...


The article discusses the possible remote interviewing and recruitment of new finance organization employees during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 Topics covered include the conduct of video interviews where basic professional basic rules apply, the remote assessment of potential employees on company culture fit, and the at-home skill testing of candidates Also noted are ways to smoothen the remote onboarding of new staff


Radiosensitivity of barley varieties as expressed by callus growth was examined after exposure of seeds to gamma-rays and transfer of mature embryos detached from seeds or whole seeds onto medium for the initiation and growth of callus. Marked differences in the value of D50 about 7-fold at maximum were observed among the varieties employed (Figs. 1 a and b). Particularly all the naked varieties used showed much lower values of D50s than the covered ones (Table 1). These results correspond to the level of radiosensitivity expressed by seedling growth after seed irradiation (Figs. 2, 3). A major gene (rs) on chromosome I which has recently been found to control the latter radiosensitivity seemed to exert its effect on the radiosensitivity measured by the callus growth. When calli initiated from seeds were irradiated three days after inoculation on agar medium, the value of D50 for callus growth decreased markedly from 44 kR in seed irradiation to 5 kR in callus irradiation for the covered variety, while the change in the value of D50 was slight, changing from 7 to 3 kR for the naked variety. The difference in the value of D50 was not large, but still significant (Figs. 4 a, 4 b). The relationship between the value of D50 for seedling growth in the case of seed and seedling irradiation and that of D50 for callus growth after callus irradiation varied considerably with the varieties.


Ray floret (rf) petals detached from inflorescences of Gerbera hybrida were cultured in vitro and the effects of exogenous ammonium on petal pigmentation and growth were investigated. NH4+ of 10.00 mmol·L-1 obviously blocked petal pigmentation and the petal expansion, the width, fresh weight and dry weight were also declined significantly. The anthocyanin content of the petals of ray floret cultured in vitro began to increase 36 h and accumulated greatly fast between 54 h and 84 h after the incubation, which was followed by a gradually decline. The application of NH4+ within 36 h was completely effective on the inhibition of the pigmentation, while the effect was gradually decreased when NH4+ was applied after 36 h. Moreover, stronger inhibition was observed when the working time of the NH4+ was longer than 12 h. The anthocyanin accumulation was promoted by the increase of sucrose content in the present of NH4+. Other sugars such as fructose, lactose, maltose and glucose in the media had little effect on the NH4+-induced inhibition of pigmentation.


Based on the methods of existing grid resource discovery,a layered model of grid resource discovery is propos-ed in this paper,User queries are performed in the ground floor Virtual Organization firsti,f it can not find request then transmit query to agora layer made up of super node,query times to super node are reduced by introducing the local theory.Virtual communities based on classification are organized and queries for resource are performed only in given community,by which the search space can be reduced and the efficiency of resource discovery can be improved evidently.


Mrs S., set. 30, seven months in her sixth pregnancy, and of debilitated habit, became my patient on the 16th May 1850, when she complained of uneasiness in the belly, of four days' duration, attributed by her to a fright. She said the membranes had ruptured, and that a large discharge of water had taken place. On examination, the os uteri admitted only the point of the finger. I could not tell whether the waters had escaped or not. Bowels regular, from the use of medicine. An opiate was ordered. 17th.?Much the same as yesterday; os uteri as on former examination.


Gated pyramid-shaped polycrystalline diamond field emitter arrays (FEAs) were fabricated by microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition and the transfer mold technique. The FEAs were fabricated with various standard integrated circuit technologies and micromachine electromechanical system technologies; thermal oxidation, chemical wet etch, sputtering, and glass-to-metal bonding technique by using anisotropic conductive film (ACF). As a result of ACF bonding, thin flat film type FEAs were simply realized on an indium tin oxide coated glass substrate without the necessity of an additional cathode contact. Fabricated diamond FEAs were electrically characterized in triode configuration and an anode current of 237 nA was obtained at the gate bias of 120 V.


Learn how to set up a hydrogen fuel cell by extending an activity most schools already do – the electrolysis of 'water'.


In recent years, corruption and possible anti-corruption measures have been extensively discussed at the national, international and multilateral levels. This article provides an empirical analysis of corruption by viewing corruption as an evolutionary process. It assumes that the institutional set-up of the country such as the characteristics of the political and judicial system determines the extent of corruption. The empirical results confirm that countries with totalitarian political regimes, ineffective judicial systems and lower levels of education as well as slower economic growth and higher inflation rates tend to have higher levels of corruption.


The case of a 21year old man with complaints of pain in the lower abdomen reported in the surgery OPD. USG showed a case of undescended testis. A radical Orchidectomy was performed and the specimen was received in the department of pathology. Grossly the testis was normal .Microscopic examination showed the encapsulated nodule composed of tubules lined by immature Sertoli cells interspersed with tubules and Spermatogonia and an interwoven network of hyalinised basement membrane having foci of calcification. The findings were identical to those of a Sertoli cell nodule-A typically microscopic encapsulated lesion commonly detected in crypt orchid testes. Here we present a case of undescended testis where incidentally we found all the features of sertoli cell nodule.


ABSTRACT In this work, a numerical and experimental study on flow-dynamics and heat transfer in a solar air heater (SAH) provided with dimpled and dimple with v-miniature as roughness element over plate (absorber). For experimental study a staggered dimple was created on the plate (absorber) as a roughness element and ANSYS was used for the simulation. By providing the relative longway length (L/d), relative depth of dimple, and relative short way length (S/d) range from 15–25, 0.024–0.036, and 10–15, respectively. The RNG k-ε model was used to model turbulence, and Nusselt number and friction factor values are estimated for a proposed roughness. The simple duct was validated using Dittus Boelter along with this comparison is also made for roughened plate with experimental and numerical values. The thermal and hydraulic performance parameter of the proposed roughness was also studied by varying the Reynolds numbers from 5000 to 20,000. Results revealed that dimple with v-miniature at relative short way lengths (S/d) value of 15 shows the highest heat transfer at Reynolds number value of 20,000. It was observed that maximum thermal and hydraulic performance parameter has achieved value of 1.73 at α = 45°, L/d = 20 and S/d = 15 at Reynolds number 20,000 for the dimple with v-miniatures roughness.


Recent developments in the Virtual Reality (VR) have positively affected the way design and construction parties understand, revise, and complete building projects. VR offers unique capabilities such as stepping into a 3D model of the building during early design stages and maneuvering with interactive features in the virtual environment. With these opportunities, designers, contractors, and owners can now share data and make crucial decisions even before the model is implemented at the construction site. A variety of applications and uses of VR are possible for contractors, yet the detailed analysis of key enablers and challengers from general contractors' (GC) perspective is missing. This study aims to perform a detailed review of VR applications in the construction industry by conducting a multiple case study approach. Data collection was performed on twenty-seven (27) case studies from eighteen (18) construction companies in the U.S. to report the uses and benefits of VR in the construction industry from GCs' perspective. Findings revealed the main uses of VR as design reviews for clients and occupants, project coordination, monitoring the construction process, and training. The greatest value of the VR technology was reported as decreasing cost, optimizing schedules, streamlining the occupant-related decision process, and enhancing collaboration. All companies have been using immersive VR technology, which showed their investment and commitment to this emerging technology and its benefits in the construction industry. Future studies are planned to compare applications of VR in academia vs. in construction industry to close the gap of knowledge between educators and practitioners.


In this paper, an Exponentially weighted Legendre-Gauss Tau Method (ELGT) for solving or- dinary differential equations (ODEs) with oscillatory solutions is developed. An algorithm for ELGT is build up by combining three apparantly different numerical techniques: The classical Legendre-Gauss spectral Tau Method, exponential fitting and piece- wise coefficients perturbation methods. Numerical examples illustrating the efficiency and the high ac- curacy of my established results are presented. The solution of second order ODEs has played a fun- damental role in the evolution of mathematical physics, starting with the eigenvibrations of a string, and culmi- nating in the atomic vibrations of Schrodinger wave equa- tions. While the solution of this class of ODEs cannot be given in a closed form except in special cases, it is possi- ble to obtain accurate approximate solutions by means of numerical procedures with high degree of accuracy. But a challenging problem continues to face numerical analysists and computational physicists is the approxi- mation of ODEs with highly oscillatory solutions. In the past there has been much interest in standard numerical methods such as Numerov, Runge-Kutta or de Vogelaere (see (6)). But due to the unsatisfactory performance of those standard methods in detecting the strong oscilla- tions exhibited by the solutions, efforts have concentrated on modern techniques that have proven to be highly ac- curate and more effective in approximating this class of ODEs. Among those techniques are procedures based on piecewise coefficients perturbation methods and on expo- nential fitting (see (4) and (5)). The present work is a contribution to this line of re- search. The specific aim of this paper is to develop an algorithm that combines three apparantly different tech- niques: Legendre-Gauss Tau Method (LGT), exponential fitting and coefficients perturbation methods.


Despite intensive research in recurrent miscarriage, most cases remain unexplained and no treatment modality has proved effective. In a multicenter trial in Great Britain and the Netherlands, researchers examined whether treatment with vaginal progesterone would improve live birth rates among women with unexplained recurrent miscarriage (defined in this study as loss of 3 or …


Due to airline market deregulation in Europe LCC's (Low-Cost Carriers) depicts a fast growth in the last decade and it's expected that this growth continues in the next years. Also, thisEuropean airline market change has affected the way many airports operate and it's likely that thischange impacts not only airports performance and efficiency, but also its hinterland. Tourism development is one of the main beneficiaries of this new paradigm. Airport hinterland definition is very broad.Traditionally hinterland is measured by several kilometres' radiuscentred on the airport or a certain travel time from one pointto the airport. However, this definition may be considered too simplistic because there are other indicators that can determine such influence area.Therefore, current literature prefers to do it in combination with certain pre-defined criteria: airport impact or effectiveness assessment, or a tourism destination perspective. This paper presents a study on airport hinterland socio-economic activity, with emphasis on tourism development due to LCC operations. Thestudy analyses socio-economic indicators from 2006 to 2012, a period whichrepresents the full operation entry and evolution of LCC's in the Portuguese south airport of Faro. Results are aligned with the expectations created by literature review as well by the empirical preliminary analysis from the case study, showing a possible correlation between LCC movements and some hinterland indicators with direct impact on the tourism sector.


This paper describes an architecture for the efficient computation of motion estimation based on phase correlation (PC). The entire block has been implemented on a Virtex2 FPGA, and particular care has been posed on the throughput requirements in a video coding framework. These tight requirements lead to the need for high performance solutions for both the discrete Fourier transform (DFT) block and the vector normalization engine. The DFT stage has been implemented with a pipelined decimation in time (DIT) flow, while a multiplierless CORDIC-based structure is used for the vector normalization


The theory that characteristics,functions,development trend,making proper use of labour resource in economy development of Maxism has practical guidance significance for the construction of ability of rural human resource in our country;Dualistic development theory has important significance to research that urban absorb rural surplus labour and develop in phase of employment between urban labour and rural labour;Human capital theory in western economics will offer theoretical support to promote the ability of rural human resource in our country.


ine and device independence, code efficiency, an d compatibility with popular languages-all ar e vital to major software engineering problems , particularly those which involve computer graphics. The AED (Automated Engineering Design) Syste m developed over the past ten years by the Air Forc e sponsored MIT Computer Aided Design Project an d now distributed and maintained as Public AED b y SofTech, possesses all of the above attributes. Because of its great versatility, AED has bee n applied to the full spectrum of system applications from business and manufacturing informatio n systems through medical, scientific, and engineering problems. AEC can be compiled to be compatible with Fortran, PL,/I, or Cobol programs and is mor e efficient than any of them for system programming. The development of user-oriented interactiv e systems, particularly those using graphic terminals , provides an excellent test of the utility of AE D and the overall 'AED Approach ' to system building. The AED software component, Graphsys, which provides all the commonly required graphic input-output functions, has demcnstrated that an efficient device and machine independent interface ca n be provided between a graphics terminal and an application program. This approach, which allow s graphics-based systems to be easily converted t o different computers and different devices, has bee n used in a wide variety of graphics-oriente d systems. (Abstract) Until now most compilers and operating systems have been written i n assembly language, though such languages are difficult to read an d therefore complicate programming, debugging, documentation, an d maintenance. One may guess an alternative to be the use of an existin g high level language such as PL/I. But this would not solve the proble m at hand ; the reasons are as follows : A) The primary aims of high level languages are machin e independence and readability, even at the price of ineffectiv e computer usage. This order of importance differs from that neede d when writing software : here it is most important to have ful l control over all features of a computer, i .e. to the same degree a s by an assembly language. Of course, easy portability of program s from one machine to another machine would be desirable too, bu t only in the second place. Therefore, the solution of the proble m is not a general high level language, but one, that is tailored to th e …


The trial was conducted witforage pea ( Pisum sativumL.) during the period 2011 -2013 in the experimental field of the Institute of Forage Crops, Bulgaria. We studied the effect of three insecticides - NeemAzal T/SAE, Pyrethrum FS EC (biological insecticides) and Nurele D Chl g.


Empirical studies of consumer preferences for seafood ecolabels are relatively few, and typically address choices among labeled and non-labeled products of the same seafood species. Given that consumers often express strong preferences for certain seafood species, however, a more relevant assessment of consumer preferences would allow for choices among different seafood products of similar processed form, where some products bear ecolabels. This paper describes a choice experiment addressing consumer preferences for ecolabeled seafood, in which the experimental design allows for choices among various fresh, non-processed seafood products. The context is designed to be similar to that which consumers face at fresh seafood counters. Results suggest that consumers are unwilling to choose a less-favored species (i.e., to sacrifice taste) based solely on the presence of an ecolabel.


A high level of complexity is involved in program dynamics. A number of tools have been developed to assist the programmer in mastering this complexity in the various phases of software development. However, these tools are specifically oriented towards the monitoring of particular aspects of program behaviour. This paper presents the results of a systematic attempt at defining the user interface to an environment for program debugging, program performance evaluation and program structure analysis. This environment can be used to implement many common debugging techniques, and to evaluate important program performance indexes and program structure statistics. It supports both sequential and concurrent block‐oriented high‐level languages.


An African woman, aged 32 years, was admitted to the maternity department of the Edendale Hospital complaining of low backache and abdominal pain. This had been present for two days. Four hours prior to admission the patient had experienced a sudden attack of pain in the abdomen so severe that she had fainted. The patient has had four normal pregnancies. All her children are alive. Her last menstrual period had been 15 months previously. No fetal movements had been felt, and there had been no vaginal bleeding since the onset of the pain. She has had an umbilical hernia for as long as she can remember. For the past 15 months this had been irreducible (this coinciding with the cessation of her menstrual periods). 1956).


Land-use change and forestry projects are considered a low-cost option for addressing climate change mitigation. In Canada, afforestation is targeted to sequester enough carbon to meet one-fifth of its international obligations, and at lower cost than emissions reduction. We examine economic aspects of the institutions and incentives needed to encourage landowners in Canada to adopt tree planting on a large scale. Based on data from a survey of landowners, the transaction costs of getting landowners to convert their land from agriculture to plantation forests appear to be a significant obstacle, possibly increasing the costs of afforestation projects beyond what conventional economic analysis suggests. (JEL Q25)


In this paper, a novel dual-polarized wideband Vivaldi antenna is proposed. The antenna is a dual-polarized antenna composed of four Vivaldi antenna units. The whole antenna is symmetrical and uses antiphase feeding. In this way, the performance of high isolation and low cross-polarization can be obtained. The dual-polarized antenna can be well matched within 1 decade. It can operate in the frequency band from 0.7GHz to 7GHz. The port isolation is greater than 39dB, and the cross-polarization ratio is less than-34dB in the whole band.


Abstract The 2005 Hurricanes Katrina and Rita had a devastating impact on south Louisiana, as did the more recent flooding in 2016. Multiple disaster exposures are associated with distress which may be lessened through adaptive coping behaviors, although prior disaster losses may affect current coping responses. In this study, we assessed self-reported coping strategies, resilience, and mental health outcomes after the 2016 flood. The sample was comprised of mostly middle-aged and older adults (N = 223, age range: 18-89 years). Three groups were compared: (1) non-flooded adults as controls, (2) once-flooded adults with structural damage to homes and property in 2016, and (3) twice-flooded adults who had relocated to Baton Rouge because of catastrophic losses in Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and they experienced damage in the 2016 flood. Analyses of variance confirmed that the three groups differed in coping responses, with non-flooded controls using significantly fewer strategies than their once and twice flooded counterparts. Correlation analyses demonstrated that age was positively associated with adaptive forms of coping (acceptance, religiosity) and negatively correlated with maladaptive coping (self-blame). These data suggest that awareness of prior severe weather experiences and catastrophic losses, which are likely for older adults living in hurricane prone areas, are an important consideration for disaster planning and the development of age-sensitive interventions to mitigate adversity.


The stroke severity on admission and clinical outcomes were compared between ischaemic stroke patients with non‐valvular atrial fibrillation (NVAF) of the persistent (PeAF) and paroxysmal (PAF) types.


Abstract The polar and subpolar tropopause in both hemispheres is investigated using the ECMWF Reanalysis (ERA) data from 1979 to 1993 and radiosonde data from 1989 to 1993. Both the thermal and the dynamical criteria are applied to each dataset. The tropopauses derived from the radiosonde data are used to validate the ERA-derived tropopauses and to investigate the sharpness of the tropopause. The validation reveals that the ERA data are well suited for the determination of the tropopause. A comparison between the thermal and the dynamical tropopause shows a very good agreement except for polar winter, and there is clear evidence that the dynamical criterion is more appropriate in winter. The results show that the annual cycle of the polar tropopause can be classified into three different patterns. A single wave with a tropopause pressure maximum in winter and a minimum in summer is typical for the subpolar parts of eastern Siberia and North America. A double wave with pressure maxima in spring and autumn...


Several inherent characteristics make the Finite-Difference Time Domain (FDTD) algorithm almost ideal for the analysis of a wide class of microwave and high-frequency circuits as testified by the great number of papers that appeared in the last two decades and by the presence of many software packages on the present market. The application of the FDTD method to practical, three-dimensional problems, however, is often limited by the demand of very large computational resources. In this paper, the architecture of a digital system, dedicated to the solution of the 3D FDTD algorithm and based on a custom VLSI chip, which implements the "field-update" engine, is described. The system is conceived as a PCB module communicating with a host personal computer via a PCI bus and accommodating dedicated synchronous DRAM banks as well. Expectations are that significant speed-up, with respect to state-of-the-art software implementations of the FDTD algorithm, can be achieved.


About fifteen years ago, Emir Sader proposed the concept of post neoliberalism, assuming that the neoliberal era in south america had come to an end. Sader, a critic of neoliberalism, nevertheless agreed with him regarding the non-search for social homogeneity. Perhaps as a resignation, post neoliberalism never proposed equality but inclusion, and social policy played a very important role. This refers to less pretentious economic objectives, but to greater political openness: if we do not have to be all equal, we can allow diversity. Since 2015 we are witnessing a conservative turn both in the world and in the region. In South America it is a postpostneoliberal advance, which combines an orthodox economic ideology with a traditionalist rhetoric that opposes diversity. From an analysis of social policy in the new south american right-wing, we try to approach the new conceptions about the relationship between the state and the market, in order to better understand the meaning of the new (postpostneoliberal) right-wings in the region.