Popular economy in the city? The current text tries to answer that by using a comparative analysis between two family aggrupation's; U6A and Nueva Generacion located in the human settlement Jose Carlos Mariategui, San Juan de Lurigancho distritc, Lima city. For this purpose is mandatory the reconstruction of their memory, the visibilization of their organization and intern conflicts, their relationship with extern agents and last, their future perspectives.


Based on the crowding distance algorithm of Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm-II (NSGA-II), three improved algorithms are proposed: side length optimization strategy, diagonal optimization strategy, center optimization strategy. Zero-Ductility Transition (ZDT) series functions and Diode-Transistor Logic with Zener diode (DTLZ) series functions are used to calculate and compare the convergence and diversity of three improved algorithms and NSGA-II. The center optimization strategy based NSGA-II is confirmed to be the optimal algorithm. The body-in-white (BIW) optimization functions are established and optimized by center optimization strategy based NSGA-II, and the most appropriate BIW structure is calculated and verified by mode tests. The result shows: after the optimization, the BIW total mass increment is less than 3%, the first torsional mode frequency increment is more than 15%, and the torsion stiffness increment is more than 10%.


Chemical space contains every possible chemical compound. It includes every drug and material we know and every one we'll find in the future. It's practically infinite and can be frustratingly comp...


Occupational health situates itself in serving the development of economy. With the rapid development of economy, occupational diseases are changing and methods for occupational diseases prevention are being improved, which bring out many new problems to our occupational health. All above affect the development of occupational health in China and put forward stricter demands on our occupational health. So what measures should be taken need thoroughly discussion.


The diagnosis of male factor based infertility is performed by the evaluation of semen specimens in laboratories. Semen samples are investigated in terms of sperm concentration, morphology and motility. These investigations are generally performed manually by experts using microscopes instead of using computer based systems due to their high costs. However, manual observation also known as Visual Assessment (VA), has demonstrated significant subjectivity, including intra-observer and inter-laboratory variations. In this study, two CNN models especially for the possible usage in mobile platforms have been tested in the sperm morphology classification problem to eliminate the human factor in the analysis. In the analysis, three well-known sperm morphology data sets namely, HuSHeM, SMIDS and SCIAN-Morpho have been employed. Due to the data imbalance and scarcity problem of the utilized data sets, data augmentation and epoch analysis are also presented.


Tuberculosis incidence and HIV infection incidence in the regions of the Russian Federation are declining, but the proportion of HIV positive people among the entire cohort of tuberculosis patients is clearly growing.The objective: to determine causes for increasing proportion of HIV infected people among tuberculosis patients and to provide additional recommendations for enhancement of tuberculosis detection in HIV infected patients. as well as prevention of its transmission.Subjects and Methods. The cohort of new tuberculosis patients with concurrent HIV infection (TB/HIV coinfection) in the Russian Federation region with a high prevalence of HIV infection was studied based personal medical records of patients for the first 6 months of 2022 (682 cases totally).Results. The cohort of patients with TB/HIV co-infection belonged to socially vulnerable population. Among them, the parenteral route of HIV infection transmission still prevails, while in the whole country, among new HIV patients, the sexual (heterosexual) route of transmission already prevails. The majority of patients with TB/HIV co-infection, who had been infected with HIV for more than 5 years by the time tuberculosis was detected, were not registered with the Center for AIDS Prevention and Control and accordingly received no antiretroviral therapy. In most cases, HIV-infected patients sought medical care in general medical services when they developed symptoms of tuberculosis, however they referred for help when the disease was advanced. When assessing effectiveness of tuberculosis treatment, the specific parameters of tuberculosis course in HIV-infected patients with compromised immunity have not been taken into account.


Inundation and related problems have become more uncontrollable all over the world leading to unexpected deaths, severe damage to infrastructure, and epidemics like conditions every year. A great number of cities in India have reported a series of heavy hazardous precipitation events during past few years. The immediate effects observed of floods specifically in urban areas are on the transportation network leading to its disruption. Most of the studies on transportation susceptibility including immediate and shortly after inundation events consider topographic properties along with supply and demand side of transportation system to access the disruption caused. In response to such events, this study aims to provide framework to access the susceptibility to urban road network due to inundation events. An integrated framework between meteorological information, land use functions, and hydrodynamic model simulated in HEC-RAS with rainfall event with 1-in-100 year is used for the analysis of the impacts being generated on the transportation infrastructure by such event. A critical map and index is developed to identify affected road length susceptible to flood. It has been observed that more than 40 percent of road length across the network has been affected by such unpredictable events. Also, there is a significant decrease in average speed of movement as compared to average normal speed observed on the normal days.


Staley KG, Kuehni CE, Strippoli MPF, McNally T, Silverman M, Stover C. Properdin in childhood and its association with wheezing and atopy.
Pediatr Allergy Immunol 2010: 21: e787–e791.
© 2010 John Wiley & Sons A/S


In the article ways of use of genetic markers to selections of the Ural cattle of black-motley breed are offered.


Cane molasses has been used as feed for live stock for many years. It has served especially as an appetizer or for increasing the palatability of grains and roughages. A few experiments have been run by various stations to determine the feeding value of molasses as compared with grains, while a larger number have been run to determine its effect on the digestibility of the ration. The United States produced in 1919 over sixteen million gallons of cane molasses, and imported approximately 160 million gallons. (1) Part of this is used for the manufacture of alcohol, small quantities for domestic consumption and the remainder, which as nearly as the writer can determine amounts to approximately 10 to 15 per cent, goes for stock feeding purposes.


AbstractClimate change is expected to alter the frequencies and intensities of at least some types of extreme events. Although Alaska is already experiencing an amplified response to climate change, studies of extreme event occurrences have lagged those for other regions. Forced migration due to coastal erosion, failing infrastructure on thawing permafrost, more severe wildfire seasons, altered ocean chemistry, and an ever-shrinking season for snow and ice are among the most devastating effects, many of which are related to extreme climate events. This study uses regional dynamical downscaling with the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model to investigate projected twenty-first-century changes of daily maximum temperature, minimum temperature, and precipitation over Alaska. The forcing data used for the downscaling simulations include the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) interim reanalysis (ERA-Interim; 1981–2010), Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory Climate Model, versio...


In order to analyze the performances of directly-driven permanent magnet synchronous generator wind turbine(PMSG-WT) connecting to the grid,a dynamic model of PMSG-WT is established.The generator side converter is used to control the active power transferred from the generator by feeding the output active power back to achieve maximum power point tracking and to control the reactive power exchange with the generator in the modes of unit power factor and id=0 with the objective of keeping the d-axis air-gap flux equal to the rotor permanent flux respectively.The grid side converter is used to keep the dc-link capacitor voltage constant and exchange reactive power with grid.The validity of the established model and proposed control strategies are demonstrated by simulation system under the software package PSCAD/EMTDC and the operation performances of the generator are compared when controlled by the two reactive power control strategies.


This paper presents speedup predictions for a reconfigurable hybrid computing system containing a fixed number of processor cores and accelerators and switching components to vary connections between the processor cores and accelerators. Maximum acceleration criteria for given values of initial process parameters are specified. As distinct from FPGA-based reconfigurable systems, the systems considered in this paper contain only two components: a MIMD-component, being a set of universal processor cores, and a SIMD-component, being a set of arithmetic accelerators. Restricting the types of components to these two computing structures makes it possible to considerably simplify the algorithm of decomposition and reconfiguring. In particular, it resolves into (hardwareor software-) switched connection of processor cores and accelerators implemented based on the analysis of the values of initial process parameters. The relationships obtained show that if certain conditions are fulfilled, reconfiguring makes it possible to speed up the process of computations by hybrid systems significantly, but no more than by a factor of two, in comparison with non-reconfigurable systems. Vendors of computer components have established production of systems structurally identical to those studied in this paper. Application of the solutions proposed in the paper renders computing systems more efficient.


Objective To evaluate the effect of delegation theory on self-efficacy and the self-care behavior of patients with Type 2 diabetes.Methods 85 cases of Type 2 diabetes patients were randomly divided into the experimental group of 43 patients and the control group of 42 patients.The former was instructed with delegation theory mode while the latter with traditional health education mode.Telephone follow-up surveys were conducted to find out the self-efficacy and self-care behavior of the two groups one month after their discharge.The difference and correlation of the indexes were analyzed.Results The difference in self-efficacy and self-care behavior was significant(P 0.05),and the measured indicators were highly correlated.Conclusion Delegation theory mode can significantly improve self-efficacy and self-care behavior of patients with Type 2 diabetes in clinical nursing practice.


Objective To investigate the changes before and after two-stage treatment by comparing their effects on dento-maxillo-facial characteristics. Methods The study sample consists of 27 patients (aged between 10 to 13 years). Paired t -tests were applied to compare the dento -maxillo -facial characteristics between before and after treatment measurements. Results SNA and ANB decreased by 1.34 and 1.82 degree respectively, the length increased by 7mm, L1/MP increased by 3.78 degree, U1/SN decreased by 9.5 degree, overbite and overjet decreased 4.3mm and 5.4mm respectively. Conclusion Two -stage treatment obtains good results. Mandibular growth is stimulated and has become larger. The low incisors proclinate more and the lower lips protrude more than before treatment. Overbite and overjet could be controlled.


The advantages of implementing a virtual channel can be derived from the notion of the 'death of distance' that would result from electronic commerce. According to this view, the internet was going to make distance irrelevant, in that firms would no longer need to establish a physical presence in a geographical location in order to do business there. However, on-line firms selling physical products could take advantages of presence in the related off-line(brick and mortar) industrial area. This paper developed a conceptual framework that highlights the various types of synergies by location on-line businesses in the related off-line industrial area. Using data from 96 on-line ventures selling physical products, factor analysis was used to figuring out six synergies including improved customer trust, value-added service, cost savings, personnel and organizational efficiency, sharing products and customer information, relationship with suppliers, and relationship with local government. The six empirically derived critical synergy factors were then used to examine how they improve performance of the on-line ventures measured by Balanced Scorecard(BSC). According to lthe results, we concluded that the on-line firms selling physical products can take advantages of presence in the related off-line industrial area.


Topological conjugateness of one dimensional unimodal dynamical systems, which are generated by interval [0, 1] into itself maps are studied. We study the smoothness and differentiability of the conjugacy of symmetrical and non-symmetrical tent maps. Also weprove the extremal property of the length of the graph of the conjugacy of symmetrical and non-symmetrical tent maps.


Between 80s and mid 90s of 20 century,sociological studies in rural problems were basically focused on emigration of the rural labor and development of the rural enterprises among others.Over the recent decade,studies in the rural labor emigration and its influence on rural social structure,economic structure,farming families,and farmers have been strengthened,and research in rural modernization also emphasized.In line of steady development of reform and opening,study in such a theme ought to be paid more attention in sociology.


This paper investigates the relay-assisted wireless information and power transfer enabled hybrid visible light communication (VLC)-radio frequency (RF) network, where a light emitting diode (LED) access point (AP) serves multiple information users (IUs) and multiple energy harvesting users (EHUs). IUs are allowed to receive information from the LED AP through time-division-multiple-access (TDMA) manner by either the single-hop VLC-ONLY mode or the relay-assisted dual-hop VLC-RF mode, while EHUs harvest energy via the VLC links. An optimization problem is formulated to maximize the achievable information rate of IUs by jointly optimizing the access mode selection, the direct current (DC) offset at the LED AP, the peak amplitude of the alternating current (AC) component at the LED AP, the electrical power allocated to the LED AP and the power allocation at relay, subject to the energy harvesting (EH) requirement constraints of EHUs. To tackle the non-convex problem with binary variables, we first decompose it into two subproblems in terms of the two access modes. Then, the subproblems are equivalently transformed and solved by the proposed successive convex approximation (SCA)-based algorithms. Simulation results show that significant performance gain can be achieved by optimizing the DC offset. It is also observed that the area where the VLC-ONLY mode is superior to the VLC-RF mode is enlarged with the decrease of the minimal EH requirement. Besides, the achievable information rate of IUs by the VLC-RF mode first increases and then decreases with the increment of the distance between the relay and the LED AP.


A long debated issue in regional economics is whether "people follow jobs" or "jobs follow people." That is, do people move to where jobs are available, or do employers locate their facilities where potential employees reside? If people follow jobs, an appropriate economic development policy would be to concentrate on luring employers, especially large employers. This view reflects many traditional state and local economic development policies. If, on the other hand, jobs follow people, a better policy would be to focus on luring skilled people by creating an environment that is an attractive place to live. ; Increasingly, state and local economic development agents are following the latter policy. In particular, many state and local governments are seeking to attract a "power cohort" of young, childless, college-educated residents. These people are not only attractive to employers but are typically more responsive to the quality of the urban milieu, which can be influenced by policy. Because singles are generally more mobile than families with school-aged children, much of the economic development effort is focused on that subgroup, but the effort also focuses on childless couples. ; In the Tenth District most cities are relatively weak in attracting this power cohort. Specifically, the district cities as a whole attract fewer migrants from this cohort than would be expected given their populations, wage levels, and housing costs. This fact raises an important question: Why? ; Edmiston argues that the relative performance of migration across Tenth District cities—and elsewhere in the United States—is largely a function of two sets of factors. The district does well based on the first set of factors: unemployment, wages, and taxes. The district is relatively weak based on the second set of factors: cultural and recreational amenities, intellectual capital, topography, and crime.


This research paper grapples with the oppressive consequences and liberatory possibilities of innovations in menstruation technologies enabled by the Fem- Tech industry. First, it discusses a feminist technoscience framework, tracing some progressions of feminist thought on technology. Then, it reviews popular discourse about FemTech and problematizes some of its implicit assumptions. Using FemTech as a starting point, the paper looks backward in time to some recent histories of menstrual technologies. Finally, it draws on Ursula Franklin's 1985 discussion about the dichotomy of values that underlie that technological order and those that underlie the women's world, wondering whether FemTech can serve as a bridge between them. In all, this paper explores how the "femi- nist" label is implicitly and explicitly tied up with FemTech and imagines what truly feminist menstrual technologies could accomplish.


Judicial power is a divided important public power in the process to solve contradictions and dispute in human society. After it was produced, the study to design a rational system in order to ensure that it can realize social justice has been going on. This paper points out why we must pay attention to the study of judicial power and analyses the problems in the current study.


In addition, four additional presentations were made in a final Plenary Session (Session 6). Following a Rapporteur overview summary of the MIMA-2 conference proceedings, the MHT MIMA-2 Special Issue contains 7 papers based on presentations made during the course of this conference. Importantly, papers originating from four of the main sessions are included [an eighth paper based on a third session presentation was published in Materials at High Temperatures, 2023, 40(1), 88-98]. For example, the first session, which was concerned with High Temperature Materials Issues, mainly (but not exclusively) covered developments associated with 9Cr-3W3Co-VNbBN (alternatively referred to as MARBN). The MARBN steel was originally developed in Japan by a group headed by Fujio Abe, who has continued to be active in studying the metallurgy of this alloy, and a number of other associated advanced martensitic steels. It was therefore appropriate that the first presentation in the first session of the conference was by Dr Abe, and that the 9Cr-3W-3CoVNbBN alloy played an integral part in the first paper in this Special Issue. In fact, Dr Abe's paper is more generally concerned with The role of inclusions on the degradation in creep life and rupture ductility of ferritic power plant steels and, more specifically, considers the role of BN, AlN and MnS particles on degradation of the creep properties of 9 to 12%Cr martensitic steels and a 1%Cr bainitic steel at temperatures in the range 550 to 700°C. A second paper from the first session concerns Experience of P93 manifold welding under fabrication conditions, and was by de-Smet, Tang & Bok (of Siemens Energy Heat Transfer Technology). While MARBN is an ASME Code Case variant of P93 (or 9Cr-3W-3Co), the presented evidence indicates that further optimisation of the heat treatment and welding procedures are required in order to attain the required impact toughness properties for weldments of the more generic grade of this steel. The second session was concerned with Plant Life Assessment, with the contribution of Professor Nonaka (of Tohoku University) from the Plenary Session representing the Japanese perspective on this topic. Entitled Activities to advance residual life evaluation techniques for highly aged power plant, Professor Nonaka's paper concerns the wide ranging activities of a Japanese Materials Sciences Society Working Group and recent developments in techniques being adopted for the life assessment of very old power generation units. Two papers based on presentations from the third session (Plant Inspection and Maintenance) are included. The first by Pascal Decoussemaeker (of GE Power, Switzerland) is concerned with Risk-based life management for steam turbines and generators, and considers the necessary important details of an asset management program to ensure reliable operation over the commercial life of, in particular, steam power plant. The third session presentation of Adam Wojcik (Matelect, UK) et al formed the basis of A review of the factors affecting the use of electrical potential drop (EPD) for creep life monitoring. Direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC) variants of electrical potential drop instrumentation have been widely used for identifying and monitoring sub-critical crack growth in the laboratory and in plant in a variety of engineering materials for over 50 years. The novelty of the work described in the Wojcik et al paper is the successful development of a unit combining both DC and AC EPD instrumentation to give advance warning of the evolution of creep damage in power plant components. The research represented the outcome of work conducted as part of an ETD-led industry-sponsored project.


Objective
To explore the surgical method and outcome of craniosynostosis combined with Chiari malformation in children.

Methods
A retrospective analysis was conducted on the clinical data of 16 children with craniosynostosis combined with Chiari malformation who were admitted to Department of Neurosurgery, Children′s Hospital of Nanjing Medical University from April to December 2017. All cases were retrospectively analyzed and their imaging results were analyzed. Of the 16 children without hydrocephalus, 12 underwent craniofacial reconstruction of cranial suture or craniofacial reconstruction, of which 1 case underwent posterior fossa reconstruction and suboccipital decompression at 7 months post operation. In 4 children with combined hydrocephalus, 3 underwent routine right ventricle-peritoneal shunting and cranial reconstruction, of which 1 case was treated with posterior fossa reconstruction and suboccipital decompression at 5 months post operation. The other 1 case was Pfeiffer syndrome and underwent right ventricle-peritoneal shunting plus posterior fossa reconstruction as well as suboccipital decompression. At 3, 6 and 12 months post operation, all patients were followed up at the outpatient clinic and underwent the reexamination of head MRI for assessment of brain tissue development, ventricle changes and cerebellum tonsil herniation.

Results
All 16 children underwent operation successfully without any surgical complications. Revealed by the postoperative skull CT, all the children′s cranial cavity volume was enlarged, and the cranial malformation was improved. The follow-up time of 16 children was (12.1±2.0) months (10-18 months). The review of head MRI showed that brain tissue developed well and the position of the cerebellar tonsils did not decline further. All children were free of neurological deficits, and parents were satisfied with the improvement in the appearance of their skulls and faces.

Conclusions
The combination of craniosynostosis with Chiari malformation should be fully evaluated before surgery and appropriate individualized treatment program should be selected according to specific conditions. One-stage craniofacial surgery seems an effective treatment method.

Key words:
Craniosynostosis; Arnold-Chiari malformation; Child; Treatment outcome


This paper reports the results of the research project in which the heart,the muscle,the gill and the brain ganglion of Macrobrachium rosenbergii were radiated by He Ne laser, presents the effect of M.rosenbergii's tissues cell in the shape and the structure after the laser radiation:(1) The percentage of cell's quantities of obviously heterochromatin in the heart's,the muscle's and the gill's tissues of the laser groups were respectively 16.70%,6.06% and 9.35%,but the percentage of the cell's quantities of obviously heterochromatin in the heart's,the muscle's and the gill's tissues of the control groups were respectively 8.10%?2.59% and 4.55%. Evidence showed that the cell's quantities of obviously heterochromatin in the heart's, the muscle's and the gill's tissues nuclei were increased after He Ne laser radiation;(2) The nervous cells of the brain ganglion of the laser groups were reduced by 7.40μm compared with the control groups. The nuclei of the laser groups were reduced by 1.53μm compared with the control groups. The results that the nervous cells of the brain ganglion and the nuclei were changed obviously by He Ne laser radiation, it is especially worth mentioing that the nervous cells were reduced obviously.


The nineteenth century was a very important century for the development of surgery. It showed the final transition of the humoral, Galenic way of thinking, often resulting in bloodletting and purging, to a more scientific discipline. Surgery had freed itself gradually from a subordinate position to the doctores medicinae (physicians) to a parallel, sometimes rival position, by applying scientific principles and providing better training of surgeons (1, 2). However, great progress could only be made after the introduction of anaesthesia in 1846, which was rapidly adopted by the world of medicine, and the introduction of antisepsis (1867), which was applied more hesitantly over many years and gradually evolved in asepsis. These two innovations made elective operations and access to the body cavities possible. This was in contrast to the previous mostly emergency operations (3), when the operating speed of the surgeon could shorten patient suffering, at times helped by the senses being blunted by morphia, alcohol and shock. Local anaesthesia was nonexistent at that time and did not arrive until about 40 years after the advent of general anaesthesia. The first successful resection of the stomach by Billroth in 1881 was an expression of the change of paradigm that took place (1, 4, 5). Such an operation was considered the most audacious and formidable undertaking in surgery, perhaps comparable to the first heart transplant 80 years later (6, 7). In carrying out this intervention, the surgical profession introduced the hope of cure, into the previous domain of the physician (8, 9). Billroth appeared to be the right man in the right place at the right time : two attempts before his by Péan in Paris in 1879 and Rydygier in Poland a year later had failed. In the same year that he was successful (1881) and the news had spread rapidly, the same operation was performed in six places elsewhere (10). However, Billroth's operative success was not a lucky incident, but the culmination of a very careful and scientific preparation over many years (11). He had been waiting years for the ideal patient on whom to perform this operation. The 19 century was the century of Industrial Revolution. The development of railways facilitated travel and effective postal services were established. This enabled active correspondents like Billroth to communicate with his contemporaries and get access to scientific journals (3). Many new scientific journals appeared during his professional lifetime.


Two‐dimensional reciprocal space mapping with high‐resolution x‐ray diffraction has been used to characterize the strain in as‐grown and annealed Sb‐doped Si. Si(100) layers with Sb concentrations 1×1019–3×1021 cm−3 were grown by molecular‐beam epitaxy at a growth temperature of 310 °C. High‐resolution transmission electron microscopy has been applied to determine the critical thickness for epitaxial growth, growth morphology, and defect structure. The critical thickness for low‐temperature epitaxial growth decreases with increasing Sb concentration from ∼1000 A for CSb≊2×1020 cm−3 to ∼25 A for CSb≊2×1021 cm−3. Following the defect‐free epitaxial layer was a (100)‐oriented layer with stacking faults and facets to the final amorphous phase. The strain in as‐grown Si layers increased with increasing Sb concentration CSb up to 1×1021 cm−3. The thermal stability for concentrations above 2×1020 cm−3 was poor, resulting in Sb precipitation. The lattice expansion obtained due to Sb‐doping in Si was β=5.4×10−24 c...


For at least 2000 years people have been trying to calculate the value of pi, the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle. We know that pi is an irrational number; its decimal representation goes on forever. Early methods were geometric, involving the use of inscribed and circumscribed polygons of a circle. However, real accuracy did not come until the use of infinite series techniques, in which one can, by calculating more and more terms, obtain smaller and smaller corrections all leading to a precise value. Such series go on forever, so the limitation on accuracy is how much time one is willing to devote to the task and how fast the computer is, but mainly how quickly your series converges.


BACKGROUND: There is not much information about high-risk behaviors in young groups, especially students. This study was conducted to estimate the prevalence of high-risk behaviors in students of universities of medical sciences in West Azerbaijan Province, Iran, by network scale-up (NSU) method. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This cross-sectional study was performed on 450 students from the universities of medical sciences. A researcher-developed checklist was used to collect the data. We considered number 16 for the social network size of students according to a previous study. Based on the response of individuals to each of the high-risk behaviors (including cigarette smoking, hookah use, opium consumption, alcohol drinking, tramadol/ecstasy taking, and extramarital sex) in their social network, the prevalence of these behaviors was estimated. The required calculations were performed using the NSU method. Furthermore, 95% uncertainty interval (UI) was calculated using the bootstrap method. RESULTS: Totally, 196 (44%) participants were male. The mean age (standard deviation) of the participants was 22 ± 2 years. Results showed that hookah use (20% 95% UI [18.9–21.1]) and opium consumption (0.4% 95% UI [0.24–0.6]) had the highest and lowest frequencies, respectively. Cigarette smoking (17% 95% UI [15.8–18]), alcohol use (8.3% 95% UI [7.5–9.1]), extramarital sex (8.2% 95% UI [7.4–9]), and tramadol/ecstasy taking (4% 95% UI [6.4–4.6]) were the next most common high-risk behaviors, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Given that hookah use and cigarette smoking are the most common high-risk behaviors in students, especially males, appropriate cultural activities and educational programs should be employed by relevant authorities to reduce these behaviors.


User-generated content presents many challenges for its automatic processing. While many of them do come from out-of-vocabulary effects, others spawn from different linguistic phenomena such as unusual syntax. In this work we present a French three-domain data set made up of question headlines from a cooking forum, game chat logs and associated forums from two popular online games (MINECRAFT & LEAGUE OF LEGENDS). We chose these domains because they encompass different degrees of lexical and syntactic compliance with canonical language. We conduct an automatic and manual evaluation of the difficulties of processing these domains for part-of-speech prediction, and introduce a pilot study to determine whether dependency analysis lends itself well to annotate these data. We also discuss the development cost of our data set.


Global warming affects the seasonal rainfall variation and changes extreme rainfall events, in terms of frequency and intensity have an impact on the local, regional and global scales. An attempt has been made in this study to define the rainfall features of Ganges basin under moderate climate change scenario. The river basin has diversified climatic patterns. Ganges river basin is divided into 14 major sub basins. However, impact of climate change over Ganges is observed using Hadley Center's regional Climate model, PRECIS (Providing Regional Climates for Impact Studies). PRECIS simulation was carried out corresponding to SRES A1B scenario for a time period of 1971-2099. PRECIS generated rainfall shows deviation from observed rainfall therefore simulated rainfall needs to be corrected with respect to observed rainfall for impact studies. In these particular study PRECIS generated rainfall time series is bias corrected with respect to rainfall data of Indian Meteorological Department. The climate projections are examined over three time slices, viz. near (2020s, i.e. 2011–2040), farther (2050s, i.e. 2041–2070) and transient (2080s, i.e. 2071–2099). Analysis indicates that monsoon rainfall increases 0.01% at 2020's, 5.5% at 2050's and 7.3% at 2080's. Probability of rainfall extreme over Ganges basin such as maximum 1 day rainfall, count of consecutive rainfall days shows increasing trend, on the other hand number of rainfall event (>20 mm) on monsoon season shows decreasing trend.


There is an inherent contact potential difference between the head and the disk surfaces in hard disk drives (HDD's). Current HDD's use thermal fly-height control (TFC) during read/write operations. In this study, we show a method to determine the contact potential for the head disk interface (HDI) using TFC technology. We utilize TFC to measure the flying height of the slider via touchdown power by applying a DC voltage bias to either the head or the disk or both. The DC voltage condition where the TFC clearance is maximized corresponds to the balancing of the HDI contact potential. In other words, the opposite polarity of that DC voltage bias condition is the HDI contact potential. Additionally, we show that the contact potential of HDI can be determined by either applying the DC voltage bias to the head or to the disk.Copyright © 2014 by ASME


Consumers seek for not only base functionalities of products they buy but also fairness in transactions. In this work, we investigate how such fairness-seeking behavior affects a manufacturer's distribution channel structure selection. Specifically, the manufacturer can sell the product directly to consumers (named direct selling) or via a middleman retailer (named agent selling). The manufacturer then decides which distribution channel to adopt with an aim to maximize his profit. Under a news vendor framework, the distribution channel structure endogenizes the procurement cost and thus impacts consumers' fairness perception and willingness to pay. Interestingly, we show that it may be in the best interest of the manufacturer to downward decentralize his distribution channel by adopting agent selling when consumers are extremely fairness-minded. However, when the consumer's fairness concern is weak, direct selling is preferred by the manufacturer. We find that those results are quite robust in various settings.


Medium-voltage power cables are the backbone of the electrical system in modern petrochemical plants. These cables must provide maximum reliability and performance. Prior practice, in many instances, has been to select cable products based on price alone. A novel approach, using life cycle costs, is making inroads within the petrochemical industry. Selecting cable that represents state-of-the-art technology is only a part of this process. Emphasis is now being placed on supplier performance through the use of quantitative and qualitative continuous improvement programs. Implementation of these programs will help increase product performance and reliability, thus resulting in the lowest evaluated total cost of cable system ownership. Considerations that are deemed important in the specification and procurement process of quality cables are addressed. The goal is to ensure that the right cable is available at the right time and in the right quantity.<<ETX>>


Synchrotron x-ray powder diffraction measurements have been performed on unpoled ceramic samples of (1-x)Pb(Mg1/3Nb2/3)O32xPbTiO3 (PMN-xPT) with 30%≤x≤39% as a function of temperature around the morphotropic phase boundary, which is the line separating the rhombohedral and tetragonal phases in the phase diagram. The experiments have revealed very interesting features previously unknown in this or related systems. The sharp and well-defined diffraction profiles observed at high and intermediate temperatures in the cubic and tetragonal phases, respectively, are in contrast to the broad features encountered at low temperatures. These peculiar characteristics, which are associated with the monoclinic phase of MC-type previously reported, can only be interpreted as multiple coexisting structures with MC as the major component. An analysis of the diffraction profiles has allowed us to properly characterize the PMN-xPT phase diagram and to determine the stability region of the monoclinic phase, which extends from x=31% to x=37% at 20 K. The complex lansdcape of observed phases points to an energy balance between the different PMN-xPT phases which is intrinsically much more delicate than that of related systems such as PbZr1-xTixO3 or (1-x)Pb(Zn1/3Nb1/3)O32xPbTiO3. These observations are in good accord with an optical study of x=33%, where monoclinic domains with several different polar directions coexisting with rhombohedral domains, in the same single crystal, were observed.


It employs in this work the analysis multivariate technique on a varied set of data gathered by means of the questionnaires application in 84 companies of the industry of wooden furniture of Estado do Para. The goal of the use of this technical is to reveal clusters industrial and her relations among variables of the competitiveness and of the cases (furniture companies) and then to select the nearest that form the industrial groupings.


The fundamental principle of quantum mechanics is that the probabilities of physical outcomes are obtained from the intermediate states and processes of the interacting particles, considered as happening concurrently. When the interaction is described by a potential, the total energy of the particle is equal to its total kinetic plus potential energies. We derive the Schrodinger and Dirac equations as the conditions the wavefunction must satisfy at each point in order to fulfill the corresponding energy equation. In our approach quantum theory is tangible, experimentally justified and theoretically consistent. PACS numbers: 03.65.-w Keywords: Quantum principles; Quantum dynamics; Schrodinger equation; Dirac equation


Authors proposed the modeling of the steel pipe for the seismic performance verification for pile-supported wharves against the level II design ground motion. The proposed method can evaluate the load-bearing capacity and the deformation performance of the steel pipe, where local buckling occurred. In this study, we performed a reproduction analysis of the open-type wharves on vertical piles in the Port of Ko-be which was damaged during the 1995 Hyogoken-Nambu earthquake with the aim of confirming the ap-plicability of the proposed model. The results showed that the plastic hinge occurrence in the steel pipe piles and the residual deformation of the open-type wharves on vertical piles were consistent with the ac-tual damage.


The integration of social media in formal education has received consistent interest in the recent decade. While most studies have focused on the mandatory use of social media as pedagogical tools, less explored is the context in which students voluntarily choose and use social media to supplement their formal learning. In this study, we employ an affordance approach to exploring the resources in social media that students perceive and use voluntarily for formal learning. Drawing on a qualitative study using focus groups of university students, we identified ten categories of social media affordances for learning in the voluntary context: association, editability, immediacy, interactivity, manageability, modality, persistence, scalability, searchability, and visibility. The affordances mentioned most frequently by students were visibility, persistence, and interactivity. These identified affordances encompass the major resources offered by social media for learning in the voluntary context, and provide insights into understanding, evaluating, and guiding social media adoption in formal education as well as lifelong learning. This paper concludes by presenting limitations and implications for research and practice.


The Informal Learning refers to the way that one learns outside the formal school and continuing education in informal time and place such as daily life,work,and social communication and so on.It takes up more than 80% of all the knowledge which one learns.Because of the important role of informal learning in study,people pay more and more attention to it,and how to carry out better informal learning has been a matter of concern.Mblog,as a new-emerging mobile internet work business,has the characteristics of instant,mobile,personal,convenient and so on.So it is very suitable for informal learning.This paper expounds characteristics of the connotation of Mblog,analyses at Mblog on the advantages of informal learning,and promotes the research of informal learning based on the Mblog.


Effects of purified proteases such as trypsin, papain, pronase E, and collagenase injected i.p. on the cell surface architecture, as well as on the DNA synthesis and mitosis in the liver of rats and mice, were investigated biochemically and histologically. Among the proteases examined, only papain induced the stimulation of DNA synthesis and mitosis, as well as the alteration in the pericellular constitution. Histochemical staining showed that the pericellular acidic material in the liver, probably the cell coat acid mucopolysaccharide, disappears temporarily prior to the stimulated DNA synthesis and mitosis in papain-treated animals.

Glucosamine-3H incorporations into the plasma membranes, as well as other subcellular fractions of the liver, were markedly reduced soon after papain injection, reaching a minimum at 12 hr but recovering to the normal level at 36 hr. On the other hand, the rate of removal of previously incorporated glucosamine-3H was increased soon after papain injection in the cytomembranes (microsomes plus plasma membrane fragments) but not the cytosol.


This paper presents a new family of multilevel asymmetric power converters which are suitable for unipolar current loads such as a switched reluctance motor drive. The fundamental operation of each topology is reviewed and some simulation results are presented showing the potential system performance improvements that can be realised by operating with intermediary voltages rather than the full DC-link.


Published data and available herbaria were used to compile a checklist of Croatian mosses. The flora of bryophytes of Croatia numbers 476 taxa. Among taxa known from Croatia, three are European endemic species and 25 taxa are of pan-European conservation interest.


Honey is a natural liquid which generally has a sweet taste produced by honey bees (Apis sp.) from floral nectar or other parts of plants (extrafloral). Kelulut honey is the honey produced by kelulut bees (Trigon sp). The kelulut bee is a member of the Meliponidae family (Stingless bee) and has a smaller body size compared to Apis bees, making it safe for cultivation. The honey quality cannot be uniformed every time it is harvested. This is because the physical and chemical quality characteristics of honey are very dependent on external and internal factors. External factors that influence it are the source of nectar, season, soil or geographic conditions, processing, and storage conditions. The internal factor that influences it is the type of bee. This study aimed to analyze the chemical characteristics of Bangka kelulut honey based on the Indonesian National Standard (SNI) 3545: 2013. The honey sample used was fresh kelulut honey without processing from the Karomah Forest Farmer Group in Lubuk Lingkuk Village, Lubuk Besar District, Central Bangka Regency. The results showed that the chemical quality characteristics of Bangka kelulut honey have not passed the standards set by the Indonesian National Standard (SNI) 3545: 2013, especially on water content, reducing sugar content and acidity, respectively 28.7%, 59.3%, and 74.6 ml NaOH/kg. Kelulut honey also has vitamin C of 24.1 mg/kg.


The use of 30 mm balloon-expandable intravascular stents has been shown to effectively treat vascular stenosis in congenital heart disease. This retrospective study was performed to evaluate the efficacy and possible advantage of using short (≤20 mm) stents to treat vascular stenosis. Between 8/93 and 5/95, implantation of endovascular stents was attempted in 12 patients at our institution. Patients were aged 0.5 to 15.6 years (mean± SD, 7.5 ± 5.5) and weighed 5.2 to 62.9 kg (mean ± SD, 31.1 ± 22.8). Percutaneous implantation was performed using 6 to 11 Fr(mean, 9.3) long sheaths.


3,000-year history of peoples, tribes and empires, A 417 Abdulla, Farhad Hassan see Hama, Hawre Hasan ABE, SHINZO: Peak Japan: the end of great ambition 664; Understanding Japanese democracy in a populist age 283 Abhijeet 433 Abrahamian, Andray: North Korea and Myanmar: divergent paths 170 Abu Dhabi Bar Mitzvah: fear and love in the modern Middle East, The 420 AFGHANISTAN: Afghanistan: discerning China's westward march 546; The Islamic state in Khorasan: Afghanistan, Pakistan and the new Central Asian jihad 146; Pakistan adrift: navigating troubled waters 437; Politics without parties: Afghanistan's long road to democracy 40, 44 (illus.); Taliban narratives: the use and power of stories in the Afghanistan conflict 634; Talibanization of the Islamic State and the quest for retrospective legitimacy 520 Ahsan, Syed Badrul 429 AL-ASSAD, BASHAR: Pax Syriana: The staying power of Bashar Al Assad 1 Alam, Kamal: Pax Syriana: The staying power of Bashar Al Assad 1 Aljaleel, Alaa and Diana Darke: The last sanctuary in Aleppo 423 Allchin, Joseph: Many rivers, one sea: Bangladesh and the challenge of Islamist militancy 427 Alshaikh, Ala'a Bakur: Citizen participation in Saudi Arabia: a study of the Ministry of Labour 112 Analysing China's soft power strategy and comparative Indian initiatives 652 Anand, Anita: The patient assassin: a true tale of massacre, revenge and the Raj 643


Identifying causes of food waste at grocery retail level is crucial for the development of effective measures to reduce waste. Frontline employees manage food waste in their day-to-day operations; however, there is a paucity of research that draws attention to their knowledge of and approach to causes and measures to reduce food waste. In this empirical study, a mixed methods approach is adopted, using multiple interviews and participatory observations with employees, and primary quantitative data on fruit and vegetable waste for one year from the supermarkets. The results illuminate the fact that the role of employees is central for reducing food waste, and from their perspective, the causes and measures can be divided into four different main themes covering policy, practice, people and product. The analysis involves 73 different fruit and vegetables categories, and the fruit and vegetables waste at the three supermarkets is 60 tonnes. The results also reveal different causes for different fruit and vegetables categories, implying that generic descriptions of causes are not enough to use as bases for planning reduction measures. The paper provides a base for planning and implementing reduction measures for the grocery retail sector, which contribute to a sustainable food supply chain.


Access of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to external financing sources is defined in many respects by the tendencies of bank system development in different countries as well as by the possibilities and interest of commercial banks to make loans to creditworthy small- and medium-sized borrowers. In the present paper, we suggest that even in post-crisis conditions, this is small- and medium-sized Russian banks, rather than large banking institutions, that tend to issue loans to small and medium-sized enterprises. Analysis of the data available from the Russian banks gives evidence that with the growth of the bank size and with widening of the scope of the bank's activity, bank's lending to legal entities, in particular, to SMEs and to individual entrepreneurs, tends to become more intense. At the same time, the share of lending to SMEs and individual entrepreneurs in the legal entities loan portfolio tends to decrease.


A study involving fabrication of a model body and comparison to pottery shards from the Mississipian site of Aztalan ( ~ 900-1450 AD) has been outlined and implemented. The focus of this study was the effect of rock salt additions on a shell-tempered clay body fired to 700°-1200°. The model body consisted of 65% Ocmulgee clay, 20% Blackbird or M + D ball clay, and 15% crushed oyster shells. Oyster shells were combined with the clay components as a raw, coarse addition, and as a coarse and fine addition after preheat treatment to 540°. Rock salt was added to the various batches covering the range 0-20 weight%. It was found that, by the addition of rock salt, a clay body containing 15% shell temper can be successfully fired to temperatures less than 1000° without exhibiting spalling. The amount of salt required to prevent spalling depends on the particle-size distributions of salt and shell present; the most favorable situation involves fine grinding of both components. Docking the samples after firing decreased the occurrence of spalling. The development of a bulk liquid phase due to salt in the body is not the mechanism which leads to successful firing of shell-tempered ware. Thermal analysis indicates that in the presence of salt, calcite does not decompose. Reaction occurs between calcite and halite at temperatures as low as 700°, producing CaCl 2 . Possible eutectic formation in the binary system NaCl-CaCl 2 results in the encapsulation of shell fragments by local glass-phase development. Analysis of Aztalan pottery shards proved the presence of salt by the identification of cubic voids with chlorine-rich rims. If salt was deliberately added to Aztalan shards it was done so in small amounts (<5 weight%), and probably was not well dispersed. -- AATA


Background: Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affects various structural and functional domains in the lungs. It is characterized by damage of small airways due to an inflammatory process, oxidative stress and imbalance of proteolytic and anti-proteolytic activities. The aim of this work is to investigate the mechanisms involved in COPD and the role of erythromycin and/or N-acetyl cysteine in amelioration of these mechanisms by their role in the extracellular matrix remodeling together with their anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects. Methods: In this study a total of 50 male albino rats were divided into five groups (10 rats/group); control group, COPD group, COPD group treated by erythromycin, COPD group treated by N-acetyl-cysteine and COPD group treated by both erythromycin and N-acetyl-cysteine. In lung tissue, levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factorα (TNF-α ) were measured using ELISA techniques, glutathione (GSH), catalase, myeloperoxidase activity (MPO) and malondialdehyde (MDA) were measured by specific chemical methods, together with gene expression of Interleukin-8 (IL-8), matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) and tissue inhibitors of matrix metalloproteinase-1 (TIMP-1) by RT-PCR, histo-pathological examination of lung tissues to detect the damage level was also done. Results: When compared with the control group, COPD group showed significant increase of IL-8, IL-6, TNFα , MPO activity, MDA and MMP-9 with significant decrease of GSH, catalase and TIMP-1 together with tissue damage shown by the histo-pathological examination. The use of erythromycin or N_acetyl-cysteine lead to significant decrease of IL-8, IL6, TNF-α , MPO activity, MDA and MMP-9 with significant increase of GSH, catalase and TIMP-1and improvement of histo-pathological damages, but the use of erythromycin affected significantly the inflammatory aspect of COPD ( IL8, IL-6, TNF-α , MPO activity, MDA and MMP-9 and TIMP1 balance), while N-acetyl-cysteine affect significantly oxidative stress in COPD (TNFα , MPO activity, MDA, GSH and catalase). However, treatment of COPD by both erythroCorrespondence to: Dr. Heba M. Shawky, The Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University mycin and N-acetyl-cysteine lead to improvement of inflammation, alveolar structure destruction (emphysema) and oxidative stress in COPD. Conclusion: Administration of erythromycin or N-acetylcysteine can ameliorate the changes that occur in COPD by their anti-inflammatory, antioxidant effects and their role in regain the balance between extracellular matrix degradation and deposition, while treatment of COPD using combination of the two drugs resulted in better improvement.


This article presents the theoretical and empirical study of youth activity in the virtual world. Theoretical issues of media pedagogy regarding youth participation in cyberspace were presented. A qualitative study was conducted using a case study method of young people showing excessive activity in the virtual world. A qualitative analysis of research results was carried out, which was presented in the methodological part of the article.


Nowadays,our country has already got into the phase of mass education.The elite higher education as a part of the whole body system represent the quality of higher education.This paper analyses the notion of the elite higher education,its necessity and rationality in the phase of mass education.At last,this paper also offers some strategies of higher educational development.


A four leg static compensator for harmonic mitigation and reactive power compensation is proposed for an unbalanced load consisting of CFL and R-L linear loads. The converter is controlled in order to insure high power factor and neutral current compensation at the source level. In order to verify the performance of the power conversion system a digital model of the CFL is developed and implemented into the SimPower simulation platform. The obtained results show high quality performance of the converter in terms of total harmonic distortion, power factor and transient characteristics. In addition, the system response towards load variation and unbalance is tested and analyzed.


A unification algorithm is described which tests a set of expressions for unifiability and which requires time and space which are only linear in the size of the input.


The
 uptake and reaction of HOI and IONO2 with dry and frozen NaCl/NaBr salt surfaces was investigated using
 a coated-wall flow tube reactor coupled to a mass spectrometer for gas-phase analysis. HOI and IONO2
 react with
 both surfaces to form the di-halogens IBr and ICl, which are released into the gas phase. On mixed Cl−/Br−
 surfaces in which the concentration of Cl− greatly exceeds that of Br−, both HOI and IONO2 react to form
 ICl or IBr. ICl reacts further with Br− to form the observed gas-phase product, IBr. Formation and release
 of ICl is only observed once the Br− concentration has been chemically depleted. The sum of IBr + ICl in the
 gas phase was found to remain constant during the reaction, and to account for all of the HOI/IONO2
 taken up, indicating
 no loss of iodine to the surface, and a catalytic role of iodine in the activation and release of
 bromine and chlorine from mixed salt surfaces. The uptake coefficient of HOI on a frozen, mixed salt surface
 of similar composition to sea-water at 243 K was >10−2. Similar results (γ>10−2) were obtained for the uptake
 of HOI onto dry, mixed salt surfaces of similar composition at 298 and 243 K. Lower limits for the accommodation
 coefficient of HOI on frozen salt (243 K), dry salt (253 K) and H2SO4 (253 K) of 0.05, 0.12 and 0.3, respectively
 were obtained.
 The implications
 of these results for
 tropospheric halogen chemistry are briefly discussed.


Ultrasonic transducer array is the crucial parts of the audio directional transmission weapon system. Beam angle is also an important performance index. In order to make a change on the disordered actuality of audio signal beam angle test methods, improve the testing efficiency and accuracy, and shorten the testing time, directivity model of ultrasonic transducer array is analyzed in this paper. By a digital simulation, the ranges of the angle and intensity are obtained, and angle step in test was put forward. Through parametric array theoretical calculation and experimental verification, the test distance is acquired. Finally, a new beam angle test method has been proposed. It can be the reference and basis for the beam angle testing of the audio directional transmission weapon system based on ultrasonic transducer array.


The purpose of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic efficacy of transvaginal two‐dimensional fundamental sonosalpingography (2D‐FS) combined with saline infusion pelvic sonosalpingography (SIPS) for assessing fimbrial part's morphology and function of the fallopian tubes.


The regioselective 1,6-conjugate addition of ethyl malonate and malononitrile to ( E )-2-styrylchromones is described. A synthesis of novel pentasubstituted spirocyclohexanes discovered during the course of these studies is also discussed. A novel domino multicomponent 1,6-/1,6-/1,4-conjugate addition reaction for the formation of these new spirocyclohexanes is proposed.


Along with the oilfield development, the productivity and the system effectiveness of oil well are reduced. Generally the lower production rate caused the downhole pump work abnormality, which could accelerate the rod pump system failure. Based on the problem, the "pump off control" technology for the stripper well was developed. By using real time dynamic monitoring and oil well dynamometer card, the main characteristic parameters of pump off control for downhole pump fullness were obtained to determine the intermittent pumping sequence. Intermittent pumping could make balance between fluid supply from formation and the lift capacity of the pump,improve well production rate, reduce the electric quantity consumption and prolong pump detection period.


The great news before the end year of 2015, January 2016 and onwards, Education in Medicine Journal will be published and managed by USM Press (www.penerbit.usm.my) – one of renowned publishers in Malaysia. So far, USM Press has published and managed 15 journals and the journals are indexed in various renowned databases, for examples one of the journals is indexed by ISI & Scopus, five of the journals are indexed by Scopus, and the rest journals are at least indexed by Google Scholar and EBSCO databases (4). As a result, several adjustments are expected to take place over next year such as (but not limited to):  The manuscript submission system will be transferred to the ScholarOne Journal Submission System provided by Thomson Reuter – this system is expected to take place on March 2016. However, while waiting for the new submission system fully functions, manuscript submissions must be made through www.eduimed.com until further notice is announced.  A new set of review criteria will be employed.  The editorial and publication process will be synchronized with USM Press Journal Management System.  The journal website will be transferred to a new website.  The Editorial Board Members will be appointed by the Vice Chancellor of Universiti Sains Malaysia.  Accepted articles will be proofread by American Journal Editors.  Accepted articles will be the intellectual property of USM Press.


Ann Kristin Rhode, PhD candidate in Business Administration – Marketing at ESCP Europe Business School and Universite Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne and former MSc student of Social Psychology at LSE, explores how language interacts with culture to affect the way we process visual information.


This paper considers the convective heat-transfer characteristics of the flow in the annular gap between a rotating inner cylinder and a stationary outer cylinder. Heat-transfer measurements are reported for two gap sizes and various combinations of axial and rotational flows. Both smooth and slotted surfaces were used. Measurements for laminar and turbulent-flow conditions followed the trends predicted by theory. An unusual feature of the results for rotational flow without axial flow is the heat-transfer rate in an intermediate flow region existing between the laminar and turbulent regimes. Here, regular ring-shaped vortexes cause a heat-transfer rate even greater than with turbulent flow.


To support safety critical application at low cost, we have proposed the smartphone-based V2X system as an alternative of DSRC. To assess the feasibility of our system on the road, we should address channel interference. We briefly describe (1) our smartphone-based system, (2) a typical graph coloring algorithm TABUCOL, and (3) our idea to avoid interference. I. SMARTPHONE-BASED V2X A smartphone which is widely distributed personal mobile devices supports various network technologies such as Wi-Fi Direct (WFD), and cellular network. In proposed smartphonebased system, WFD is mainly used as an alternative to support Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) without Dedicated Short Range Communication (DSRC) because it provides data rates up to 250Mbps, cost-free, and fit perfectly into forming an ad-hoc network. However, there are several challenges to be addressed in WFD for V2X communication, such as long connection establishment time, short transmission range, human intervention, and inter-group communication. Therefore, we consider a cooperative system that uses a flexible mix of cellular network and WFD. Our system consists of server and smartphones. Each smartphone periodically updates its position information to server while vehicles with the smartphone travel. By monitoring the position information collected from moving smartphones, the server can immediately detect a chance encounter among smartphones, and rapidly notify their information to the adjacent smartphones. Before smartphones exchange safety messages, they immediately form a group using WFD. Consequently, the original process to manually search for neighbor can be eliminated from smartphones using WFD. Note that the cellular network is only used in the update and the notification between smartphones and server, and the exchange of the safety messages among smartphones is performed through WFD. However, the formed group from either WFD communication or smartphone-based V2X is generally limited up to max 8 nodes because of performance degradation of WFD. In this regard, multiple small groups are concurrently formed on the congested road, and some of them might operate on the same channel. They likely suffer from interference among groups and may fail to exchange safety message in time. Therefore, we plan to develop an interference-free channel assignment to groups based on complete improper k-coloring algorithm in the cooperative system. II. PROBLEMS IN TABUCOL ALGORITHM TABUCOL (TABU search for graph COLoring) is kcoloring algorithm which finds minimal k value in a given graph with tabu search. it is a heuristic searching algorithm for choosing the best solution after finding multiple local optima. Every vertex in the graph is colored with a random color in initialization step where a set of vertices is defined as initial solution S0 as shown in Fig. 1. Two vertices are conflicted if two vertices have the same color and are adjacent. After TABUCOL finds the conflicted vertices, it randomly changes a color of one of them, and makes a new solution S1 from initial solution S0. In this way, it continues the search for making the list of new solutions Si (0≤ i ≤ n, n is the maximum number of iteration for the list of new solutions). This iteration is finally at the end when it exceeds the given iteration counter n or detects no conflict. TABUCOL performed by a server takes 48 seconds on allocating only 12 different colors with 500 vertices [1], where it does not consider the mobility of vertices. It is not proper for network topology being prone to short-term changes such as a road environment. Figure. 1. List of possible solutions in TABUCOL.


We provide a study at the boundary for a class of equations including the Ginzburg–Landau equation as well as the equation of travelling waves for the Gross–Pitaevskii model. We prove Clearing-Out results and an orthogonal anchoring condition of the vortex on the boundary for the Ginzburg–Landau equation with magnetic field.


Summary The LH concentration (measured by the ovarian ascorbic acid depletion assay) in the pituitaries of pseudopregnant rats showed a fairly progressive rise from day 1 of the diestrus through day 11. On day 1? the level (2.0 μg/nig dry wt) was equivalent to that seen in cyclic rats in estrus or on day 1 of diestrus. The levels virtually equalled or slightly exceeded those characteristic of proestrus (4.2 μg/mg dry wt) from day 4 through 8. On days 9 through 11, the mean potency (5.4 μg/mg dry wt) somewhat exceeded proestrous levels. On day 12 the LH concentrations (l.5 to 2.0 μg/mg dry wt) were again typical of estrous levels in cyclic rats.


The Garden of Şehzade Residences is located in Yildiz Technical University Yildiz (Besiktas) Campus situated at the northwestern part of Yildiz Palace. The garden was designed according to the slope of the site, and has authentic elements such as tree branchshaped parapets, grotto ornaments with cascades, pavements adorned with various bordures, fountains and pools, stairs and pergolas, and a footbridge designed like tree branches. Despite the requirements related to new functions of the buildings surrounding the garden have resulted in modifications in the republican period, the latest form of the garden in Ottoman period is rather preserved as it is being located in the campus; however, the degree of deterioration in authentic architectural elements exposed to environmental factors has increased locally in areas of concentrated use.  The Garden of Şehzade Residences and its state of preservation are examined in this paper composed of three sections. Yildiz Palace gardens, which were influenced by English garden design seen in Istanbul in the 19th century, and which the Garden of Şehzade Residences belongs to, were examined in the first section. Design features of the Garden of Şehzade Residences and its present state including its preservation problems are discussed in the second section, which is the main part of the study. The paper is concluded with a general evaluation of the whole study and with suggestions in the third section.


Qi-Peng gold mine is well known by its natural gold deposits.In this paper,based on the summary of controlling geological characteristics and mineralization characteristics of Qi-Peng gold mine area,we study the genesis and occurrence regularity of Qi-Peng gold deposits from the aspect of control action caused by mixed igneous complex to the occurrence location and state of natural gold deposits during the formation process.Studies have shown that migmatization provides constant energy source for gold activation,which prompts the gold-bearing mineral migration to favorable locations,enrichment and mineralization.Multi-phase superposition of dikes and pulsating plays a decisive role in the formation of natural gold.By summary the particularity of the metallogenic model and mineralization law,we definited prospecting factors,and the delineation of exploration targets,and achieved good results in the actual deep prospecting process.


Tubular alteration textures, mineralized by titanite, in glassy rims of pillow lavas from a Norwegian ophiolite (Solund‐Stavfjord ophiolite complex (SSOC)) are described and characterized by a multimethod approach. Tubular alteration textures, mineralized by titanite, have been previously proposed to result from bioalteration. The microstructure of the titanite and the tubes is investigated using focused ion beam milling in combination with transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and scanning transmission X‐ray microscopy (STXM). These indicate an assemblage of submicrometer‐sized (about 500 nm) titanite single crystals with no organic film or residue in between the grains. In situ U‐Pb radiometric dating of the titanite, using laser ablation–multicollector–inductively coupled plasma–mass spectrometry (LA–MC–ICP–MS), yielded a metamorphic age of 442 ± 13 Ma. An isotope dilution–thermal ionization mass spectrometric age obtained previously for zircons from the SSOC plutonic rocks yielded a magmatic age of 443 ± 3 Ma. The overlap in ages indicates that subseafloor metamorphism, responsible for titanite formation, occurred during seafloor or subseafloor formation of the tubular alteration textures. The rare earth element contents of the titanite were determined using LA–ICP–MS and chondrite‐normalized patterns are similar to those of the SSOC volcanics; hence these do not reflect hydrothermal or seawater influence. The Y/Ho ratio of ∼20–30 in the titanite is also consistent with an upper mantle–derived origin. The sum of all of the spatial resolved data reported here neither supports nor refutes a biogenic origin for the tubular textures.


Abstract : A new high-temperature material, termed SG-60, is a silicon carbide-graphite composite in which the graphite is the thermostability carrier since it is more heat-conducting and softer (heat conductivity of graphite is 0.57 cal/g-cm-sec compared with 0.02 cal/g-cm-sec for silicon carbide) while silicon carbide is the carrier of high-temperature strength and hardness. The high covalent bonding strength of the atoms of silicon carbide (283 kcal/mole) accounts for its high decomposition temperature (above 2500 degrees C) (without melting) and hardness. This composite is obtained by means of thermochemical treatment of porous graphite with silicon in both liquid and gaseous states. In such a composite the positive properties of phase components (high oxidation resistance of SiC, high thermostability of graphite) can be combined while their negative properties (low thermostability of SiC, low hardness and strength of graphite) can be to some extent neutralized. (Author)


Emerging viral pandemics place extraordinary and sustained demands on health, social care, and economic systems across the globe. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends a combination of evidencebased interventions for the active and rapid extinction of local outbreaks.1 To use these interventions in various contexts, concerted, coordinated action is needed within and across countries. The variable response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic raises a critical question about the existence of the necessary mechanisms to coordinate these types of complex responses to humanitarian crises.2 With each threat that substantially disrupts large, dispersed populations, the arguments for investing in the development and integration of needed capacity within health and social care systems have been strengthened. The field of implementation science can make a meaningful contribution by guiding how to build the capacity to use measures for prevention, containment, and elimination of disease outbreaks and other humanitarian crises.3,4 The National Institute of Health defines implementation science as "the study of methods to promote the adoption and integration of evidencebased practices, interventions, and policies into routine health care and public health settings."5 Comprehensive reviews of dissemination and implementation evaluation literature have identified implementation strategies in the form of applied models and frameworks.6,7 The Active Implementation Frameworks (AIFs), for example, provide a roadmap of how to build ongoing capacity that supports effective implementation of innovations and how to influence policy and funding to create an enabling context for sustaining the use of evidencebased interventions in practice.8-13 The AIF consists of 6 core components that function in an integrated manner.


The purpose of the thesis is to examine to what extent former high ranking state officials are immune for international crimes before foreign national courts. Historically national courts have recognized absolute immunity, but this approach has gradually to some extent changed after the establishment of international tribunals and the International Criminal Court in which official capacity is irrelevant. These courts' jurisdictions are limited and intended to be complementary to national jurisdictions, therefore the application or non-application of immunity by foreign national courts is an important subject.

The thesis is based largely on the study of judgements by the International Court of Justice and national courts, in particular the Arrest Warrant case and the Pinochet case. Comments made by prominent authorities in the field such as Andrea Bianchi, Dapo Akande, Sangeeta Shah and Antonio Cassese are also given consideration.

According to international customary law former high ranking state officials are only entitled to immunity for acts committed in an official capacity (functional immunity). This thesis finds that international crimes can be committed in a such capacity. Criminality does not deprive the act its official character. The context in which international crimes occur and the nature of such acts often imply state involvement. Furthermore, certain international crimes can according to treaties only constitute official acts. However, the Convention against Torture and the Convention for the Protection from Enforced Disappearance lifts immunity for official acts. The Genocide Convention removes immunity at least before courts exercising territorial jurisdiction.


ABSTRACT An umbrella study, consisting of two university samples (N = 196), examined mock jurors' decisions after being presented with a trial summary (and accompanying audio) about the murder of the defendant's wife and neighbor. As part of the simulated trial, jurors were asked to disregard incriminating, but unreliable, wiretap evidence from a judge who was male or female. When the judge simply admonished jurors to disregard the evidence, participants in the female judge condition were more likely to rate the defendant as guilty compared to the male judge condition, suggesting the former considered the inadmissible evidence more. However, this pattern was reversed when, in addition to the disregard instruction, an collaborative explanation for why one should disregard the evidence was provided: specifically, participants in the female judge condition rated the defendant as less guilty than those in the male judge condition. These findings suggest that gender-congruent behaviors (i.e. female judge providing a collaborative explanation) by an individual occupying an incongruent social role may elevate that individual's level of authority.


This paper presents knowledge extraction and natural language processing methods used to enrich the knowledge graph of the plenary debates (textual transcripts of speeches) of the Parliament of Finland. This knowledge graph includes some 960 000 speeches (1907–2021) interlinked with a prosopographical knowledge graph about the politicians. A recent subset of the speeches was used to extract named entities and topical keywords for semantic searching and browsing the data and for data analysis. The process is based on linguistic analysis, named entity linking, and automatic subject indexing. The results were included into the ParliamentSampo knowledge graph in a SPARQL endpoint. This data can be used for studying parliamentary language and culture in Digital Humanities research and for developing applications, such as the ParliamentSampo portal.


The invention discloses a loranthus parasiticus TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) preparation for curing headache, which is prepared by adopting TCM raw materials with weight parts as follows: 200 to 400 parts of abalone shells, 200 to 300 parts of uncaria, 100 to 200 parts of semen impatientis, 150 to 250 parts of loranthus parasiticus, 50 to 150 parts of gastrodia elata and 50 to 150 parts of achyranthes roots, wherein liver calming and yang suppression effects are achieved by all medicine together. The TCM preparation disclosed by the invention achieves a remarkable curative effect on liver-yang type patients with internal damage headache, can rapidly relieve symptoms of dizziness caused by headache, restlessness, irritability, sleep disturbance, facial flushing, conjunctival congestion and bitter taste, does not have toxic and side effects and achieves the curative effect, so that the pain of the patients is fundamentally relieved.


agree, but we may also want to not dismiss their claims out of hand. If from these claims of intervention they conclude that they have a meaningful message from God that relates to morality, we may demur without mocking them for making an elementary category mistake, or using scare words as Tauber does, accusing them of "insinuating" their "ideology" and "doctrine" into the unchallengeable domain of science. After all, people claiming to create new ethics in the name of science, as Dewey wanted, have a long history of repudiation by later generations. It is easy now to be aghast at Mengele and the U.S. experiments on prisoners with syphilis, but many people draw the conclusion that they are seeing the same thing now when they look at the dismembered body parts of fetuses or monkeys whose brains have been experimented on. Is it so wrong for these people to question, like the postmodernist, the morality claims of science? Tauber gives us no path for resolving these difficult ethical conflicts, and seems to feel that even to consider ethical limits on scientific practice, as Bush did, is to tread illegally in the territory of science. At the same time, humility would also say to those whose religions do allow for disagreement with scientists, that they can be skeptical of science claims but also can be skeptical about truth claims in the name of religion. Believing some claims of the miraculous does not require gullibility about all such claims. But none of this is addressed by Tauber. His book is addressed at the "small" Science Wars, the debates among academics. As such, his work is a useful survey of the history of philosophy of science, drawing together the threads of Kant, Thoreau, Polanyi, Kuhn, etc. But it is hardly the final word in the larger debate.


Therapies now available to the specialist for curing female stress incontinence are varied: medical, surgical or rehabilitation. The latter may seem to many to be the most recent, whereas it was first used in an attempt to cure female stress incontinence at the end of last century. After having been pratically abandoned, this method was taken up again by Kegel in 1948 and introduced into Europe in the seventies. Due to a better understanding of the physiopathological mechanisms of incontinence and a correct standardisation of rehabilitation techniques, over the last decade rehabilitation has become part of the specialist's store of knowledge when dealing with the problem of female stress incontinence.


Background: Early use of inhaled steroids is recommended for bronchial asthma. The side effects are rare, but oral discomfort and candidiasis are clinically important complications. Most previous studies reported that the use of spacer and water gargling was necessary to prevent oral complications. However, in some patients, this may fail to prevent such complications. Objective: To compare the effects of water gargling with those of amphotericin B, in the prevention of oral complications in asthmatics using inhaled steroids. Methods: Pharyngeal swab samples were obtained aseptically from the posterior pharyngeal wall of 128 asthmatics who have been using inhaled steroids (beclomethasone dipropionate) for more than 1 year. The amount of Candida albicans in cultured swabs was evaluated based on the following criteria: oral symptoms, method of gargling, dose of inhaled steroids, type of spacer and serum cortisol level. Results: The number of isolated C. albicans was significantly higher in asthmatics with oral symptoms than in those free of symptoms. It was also significantly higher in patients who gargled with water or 1,000 times dilution than in those who gargled with 100 or 50 times dilutions of amphotericin B. Moreover, it was significantly higher in patients with low levels of serum cortisol than in those with normal serum cortisol. Conclusion: We demonstrated that at least in a subgroup of asthmatics using steroid inhalers, gargling with water or even weak concentrations of amphotericin B does not prevent colonization of the throat with C. albicans. This group at high risk of developing oral candidiasis should gargle with amphotericin B at concentrations higher than 100 times dilution that can prevent clinically detectable oral candidiasis.


In this work, hydroxyapatite (HA) and hydroxyapatite doped with Sr (HA-Sr), Zn (HA-Zn) and both Sr-Zn (HA-SrZn) were synthesized by a sol-gel method and combined with polycaprolactone (PCL) to make HA/PCL composites using an electrospinning technique. The synthesized nanoparticles and their composite fibers were investigated using various techniques. The X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) result showed the characteristic peaks of the hydroxyapatite structure; whereas the scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results revealed that the synthesized nanoparticles were successfully incorporated into the randomly interconnected and highly porous PCL matrix.


Aims:  Although somatic diseases in psychiatric patients are increasing with the increase of the aged population, psychiatric wards in general hospitals in Japan have progressively been decreasing. The purpose of this cross‐sectional study was to clarify whether psychiatric beds in general hospitals play sufficient roles in medical comorbidities of psychiatric patients or not.


This book, written by the professor of ophthalmology at the University of Chile, consists of thirty clinical lessons given to undergraduate students of the medical school. The lectures include different and nonrelated subjects. Two deal with avitaminosis in keratomalacia and two others with hepatic insufficiency in the same disease. Hysterical amaurosis is well described. The clinical characteristics of dental infections as related to ophthalmology are fully treated. There are four lessons on fundus diseases, including arteriosclerosis of the retina, syphilitic arteritis and papilledema. The chapter on arterial cephalic hypertension is interesting. This condition is diagnosed by the application to the sclera of the Bailliart dynamometer (or, better, syphygmoscope). When the maximum retinal pressure is more than double the brachial pressure, the author considers the former a "limited pathologic cephalic hypertension," and there are the added symptoms of severe headaches, appearance of phosphenes, dizziness, transient paresis, aphasia, etc. Although in some


The goal of this research is to test how time budget pressure affect audit quality by ethical culture and also to test how ethical culture mediate time budget pressure on audit quality. This research uses primary data collected by using questionnaire that shared for auditor in Jakarta. Seventy five samples are used in this research. Data analyzed with the quality data test, classic assumption test and hypothesis testing tools that are used in this research is multiple linear regression, path analysis. From the regression, there are some findings: (1) time budget pressure does have negative impact to the audit quality; (2) time budget pressure does have negative impact to the ethical culture; (3) The ethical culture is found to have positive impact to the audit quality. From these results can be concluded that ethical culture mediates the indirect relationship between time budget pressure on audit quality.


A four-faceted magnetoelectric (ME) composite consisting of one cuboid bonded Terfenol-D composite and four plates of Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT) was fabricated. The ME voltage coefficients were measured along the length direction of the composite when PZT plates were parallelly or serially connected. Results show that the ME voltage coefficient remains almost the same when increasing the number of PZT in parallel mode. By contrast, the ME voltage coefficient increases multiplicatively with the increasing of the number of PZT in serial mode. This multi-faceted structure scheme offers an effective approach to improving ME effect and downsizing the ME devices.


The constant demanding, mostly from Software Maintenance professionals, so that it could be created new and more efficient methods of understanding programs, have put several challenges to Program Comprehension researchers. Nowadays, the programmers are not satisfied with the simple extraction of the program's structure, which mainly resides on the control and dataflow identification. They want to know the meaning of the program, so they can identify the real world concepts that are materialized on the source code of the program, which would provide a better and more efficient understanding of the program. To solve this problem, ProgramComprehension researchers have, mainly, developed approaches that use techniques which are based on Information Retrieval Systems, like search engines. The strategy involves the retrieval of non structured information, properly ranked, answering a question the system can interpret. Considering Program Comprehension, this strategy enables the programmers to search for real world concepts, also known as Problem Domain, implemented and mapped into programming concepts, also known as Program Domain. Although its use is not consensual, source code comments have the main objective of helping understand the source code, and it has already been proven its value on the process of comprehending, through several studies. Even though the reasons for this fact have not yet been proved, some authors have defended that source code comments are an important vehicle for the inclusion of Problem Domain information and that their exploration improves and increases the comprehension process. Therefore, the presenting Master Dissertation exposes the development of a solution based on Information Retrieval algorithms, based on Information Retrieval Systems, in order to check if, in fact, the information included in comments can contribute in a decisive way to increase the efficiency of the comprehension process of a given program or software system. The results and conclusions, extracted from this work, showed that comments, properly analyzed and classified by the developed system, helped to better understand the Problem Domain concepts and their materialization on the source code. The developed solution showed itself able of meeting the challenges posed, and proved to be a usefull and efficient tool for the comprehension tasks that may emerge on the process of software maintence of a system.


Objective
To investigate the relationship between absent or hypoplastic fetal nasal bone and chromosome abnormalities.

Methods
From January 2010 to April 2014, 187 fetuses were found to have absent or hypoplastic nasal bone by prenatal ultrasound scanning in Guangzhou Maternal and Children's Hospital. All the pregnant women should undergo interventional prenatal diagnosis for fetal chromosome abnormalities, and should be followed up for three months after the expected delivery date. The correlation between absent or hypoplastic fetal nasal bone and chromosome abnormalities, and the effects of complicating structural defects were analyzed by descriptive analysis and the Chi-square test.

Results
Of the 187 pregnant women, 126 underwent interventional prenatal diagnostic tests, and fetal chromosome abnormalities were detected in 36 cases (28.6%), including 26 cases (20.6%) of trisomy 21, 6 cases (4.8%) of trisomy 18, three cases (2.4%) of trisomy 13 and one sex chromosome chimerism. In the 126 cases received prenatal diagnosis, the incidence of chromosome abnormalities in fetuses without other structural defects was significantly lower than that with structural defects [12.7% (8/63) vs 44.4% (28/63), χ2=15.556, P=0.000]. Among 63 cases without other structural defects, seven fetuses were confirmed to have chromosome abnormalities in 14 women with high risk by Down syndrome screening, no chromosome abnormalities were found in 39 pregnant women with low risk by Down syndrome screening, and one sex chromosome chimerism was found in the other ten women who did not undergo Down syndrome screening. Absent or hypoplastic nasal bone detected in the first trimester resulted in a higher risk of chromosome abnormalities than that detected in the second and the third trimester [25.5% (28/110) vs 10.4% (8/77), χ2=6.613, P=0.007].

Conclusions
When a fetus is found to have absent or hypoplastic nasal bone, it is necessary to perform Down syndrome screening and a detailed morphology scan. Women shown to have fetuses with absent or hypoplastic nasal bone with other structural defects or high risk by Down syndrome screening should undergo prenatal diagnostic tests to exclude fetal chromosome abnormalities.

Key words:
Dysostoses; Bone diseases, developmental; Nasal bone; Abnormal karyotype; Ultrasonography, prenatal


The article examines the expansion of the Judicial Power in Brazil since the 1988 Constitution, both in theory and in the practice of courts.


The French Revolution occurred in the conditions of full development of capitalism and the uncompromising contradictions between capitalism and feudalism,having a solid foundation in economy,politics and theory.Xinhai Revolution occurred in insufficient in economic,politic and theoretic conditions.That's why they had different endings.


Nation is moving towards higher risk of environmental degradation and is largely affected by global warming. This Rising concern for global warming & corresponding increase in energy costs are causing consumer's to look for those products which are environment friendly. There has been a change in consumer attitudes towards lifestyle. Today most of the consumers have become environment conscious and the main challenge is to find a way how marketing can fulfill the needs of the most of the world's population for a better standard of living. To grasp the new emerging opportunities and to ensure better standard of living, the new concept – Green Marketing has emerged. Green Marketing promotes marketing of such products which are safer for the planet & people. This Paper is a way to present how people respond to greener products & what impact does green marketing creates in minds of consumers.


We report a case of a 10-year-old boy who presented with multiple asymptomatic nodules on the left ankle and dorsal aspect of left foot. He had no history of diabetes or other systemic diseases. Family history was unremarkable. Physical examination showed two palpable nodules about 2x1.5 cm and 1.5x1 cm in size without tenderness. These nodules were well defined and movable lesions with soft consistency. Excisional biopsy was done. Pathological finding of nodules showed subcutaneous granuloma annulare. No recurrence was noted after excision for three years. Subcutaneous granuloma annulare is a benign inflammatory granulomatous dermatoses. It is unfamiliar to most of surgeons. The clinician must recognize the clinical variants. This case is reported to keep us reminding the possibility of this kind of skin lesion when we face multiple nodules of lower limb in clinical practice.


We propose a modified adaptive multiresolution scheme for representingd-dimensional signals which is based on cell-average discretization in dyadic grids. A dyadic grid is an hierarchy of meshes where a cell at a certain level is partitioned into two equal children at the next refined level by hyperplanes perpendicular to one of the coordinate axes which varies cyclically from level to level. Adaptivity is obtained by interrupting the refinement at the locations where appropriate scale (wavelet) coefficients are sufficiently small. One important aspect of such multiresolution representation is that we can use a binary tree data structure in all dimensions, that helps to compress data while still being able to navigate through it. Dyadic grids provide a more gradual refinement as compared with traditional multiresolution analyses that use, for instance, di fferent quad-trees or oct-trees in 2D or 3D multiresolution applications. The cells may have different scales in different directions, this property can be explored to improve data compression of signals having anisotropic aspects.


Mechanisms of thermal enhancement of chemotherapeutic cytotoxicity, O. Dahl enhancement of the cytotoxic effects of chemotherapeutic agents in vitro and in vivo - alkylating agents, D.S. Honess enhancement of the cytotoxic effects of chemotherapeutic agents in vitro and in vivo - antibiotics, K.-I. Kawahara and E. Kano interaction between thermochemotherapy and thermotolerance - general, D.J. Honess hyperthermia and drug-resistance, L.R. Towle antitumour chemotherapy with hyperthermia and radiation trimodality therapy, B.A. Techer and T.S. Herman thermochemotherapy - from in vitro and in vivo experiments to potential clinical application, M. Urano hyperthermia and chemotherapy - contributions from canine studies, R.L. Page and D.E. Thrall hyperthermia and biological response modifiers, J. Klostergaard and S. Tomasovic modifiers of tumour blood supply, M.R. Horsman enhancement of radiosensitization and chemosensitization of nitroimidazoles by local hyperthermia, K.-H. Wong. Supplement: application of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to hyperthermia, P. Okunieff and M. Itoh.


Background Influenza A viruses are characterised by their rapid evolution, and the appearance of point mutations in the viral hemagglutinin (HA) domain causes seasonal epidemics. The A(H3N2) virus has higher mutation rate than the A(H1N1) virus. The aim of this study was to reconstruct the evolutionary dynamics of the A(H3N2) viruses circulating in Italy between 2004 and 2012 in the light of the forces driving viral evolution. Methods Phylodinamic analyses were made using a Bayesian method, and codon-specific positive selection acting on the HA coding sequence was evaluated. Results Global and local phylogenetic analyses showed that the Italian strains collected between 2004 and 2012 grouped into five significant Italian clades that included viral sequences circulating in different epidemic seasons. The time of the most recent common ancestor (tMRCA) of the tree root was between May and December 2003. The tMRCA estimates of the major clades suggest that the origin of a new viral strain precedes the effective circulation of the strain in the Italian population by 6–31 months, thus supporting a central role of global migration in seeding the epidemics in Italy. The study of selection pressure showed that four codons were under positive selection, three of which were located in antigenic sites. Analysis of population dynamics showed the alternation of periods of exponential growth followed by a decrease in the effective number of infections corresponding to epidemic and inter-epidemic seasons. Conclusions Our analyses suggest that a complex interaction between the immune status of the population, migrations, and a few selective sweeps drive the influenza A(H3N2) virus evolution. Our findings suggest the possibility of the year-round survival of local strains even in temperate zones, a hypothesis that warrants further investigation.