An important result of the denazification program as it has been conducted in the American occupation zone of Germany has been a considerable shift in the control of business enterprise. This shift was necessary if we were to eliminate Nazi control of the economy of the country. The accompanying abrogation of basic property rights was largely unforeseen and unintended, but it is laying the groundwork for serious legal problems, creating a situation where fraud and graft are certain to be widespread, and making it difficult to establish confidence in democratic legal processes in the minds of the German people. During the first few months of occupation Military Government centered its attention in the program of denazification of business primarily upon elimination of Nazi control from the banking system and the large corporations. It was realized by the end of the summer of 1945 that a complete program of denazification of business could not be carried out through direct action by the limited number of Military Government officers. As a result a law was put into effect by military authorities which placed upon the owners or managers of business enterprises the responsibility for seeing that Nazis were removed from any positions of control. The intention naturally was to shift to the German people the responsibility for removing Nazi controls in industry and to leave with Military Government personnel only the work of checking to see that the law was obeyed and of taking action where disobedience or evasion became apparent. Such a program was quite feasible in the larger business organizations where the elimination of a Nazi executive meant only that another employee moved up to take the position, although usually the top group of executives was so loaded with Nazis that a very minor employee had to be shifted suddenly into a position of responsibility. The greatest difficulty of the new program revealed itself in connection with the large number of small establishments such as bakeries, shoe-repair shops, groceries, clothing stores, etc. During a time of severe consumer-goods shortage Nazis at the head of even small businesses of this type were in positions of real importance and might well influence public opinion by judicious release of scarce items. But the fact that ownership, management, and technical skill were all combined in the person of the Nazi owner of the shop made it obvious that a policy of replacement of the owner by one of his employees was not the solution to the


The free-electron laser (FEL) community is interested in taking full advantage of the high-repetition-rates of FELs run by superconducting machines while maintaining the spectral properties achieved with external seeding techniques. Since the feasibility of seed lasers operating at a repetition-rate of MHz and with sufficient energy in a useful wavelength range, such as the ultraviolet (UV) range is challenging, a seeded oscillator-amplifier scheme is proposed instead for generation of fully coherent and high-repetition-rate radiation. The process is triggered by an external seed laser while an optical feedback system feeds the radiation back to the entrance of the modulator where it overlaps with the next electron bunch. Downstream from the feedback system, the electron bunches are then used for harmonic generation. We discuss the optimization of dedicated simulations and we investigate the stability of this scheme with numerical simulations. As a result, we address the control of the reflectivity of the resonator as a key parameter to achieve a stable HGHG seeded radiation. Finally, we show the impact of the power fluctuations in the oscillator on the bunching amplitude with analytical and simulated results. The output FEL radiation wavelengths considered are 4.167 nm and 60 nm.


Taking the construction of a certain section of Guiyang rail transit as an example, the theoretical analysis of the stress conditions and constraints of the pipe shed during tunnel excavation is carried out for the support parameters of the large pipe shed. By analyzing the force of the micro-segment of the pipe shed, bringing the Bernoulli-Euler beam theory formula into the equilibrium equation of the micro-segment, the governing differential equations of the pipe shed at the vault and the non-arch is obtained. Two types of pipe sheds are designed, and the numerical simulation of the tunnel with two structural forms of tunnel with advanced support of large pipe shed is carried out by using MIDAS/GTS NX finite element software, and the displacement and stress of the pipe shed are obtained and the theoretical verification is carried out. By comparing the displacement and vertical stress of the large tubular awning in plan 1 and plan 2, it is concluded that plan 2 is more reasonable and has better bearing capacity.


Useful books 1 1. Brief outline 2 2. The Merton problems 2 2.1. Utility functions and convex conjugates 4 2.2. Merton terminal wealth problem: direct solution 5 3. Dynamic programming and the HJB equation 7 3.1. Finite horizon problem 7 4. Dynamic programming solution to the Merton problem 10 4.1. Merton terminal wealth problem 10 4.2. Merton problem with consumption and terminal wealth 12 5. The dual approach to optimal investment 12 5.1. Multi-dimensional complete Itô process market 13 5.2. Utility maximisation from terminal wealth 15 6. Full versus partial information models 16 6.1. Drift parameter uncertainty 17 7. Filtering theory 18 7.1. Linear observations and linear signal 18 7.2. Merton problem with uncertain drift 20 8. Basis risk model 22 8.1. Perfect correlation case 23 8.2. Utility-indifference valuation and hedging 24 8.3. Residual risk process 27 8.4. Power series expansions for the indifference price and hedge 27 8.5. Optimal versus naive hedging 29 9. The dual approach to optimal investment in incomplete markets 31 9.1. Abstract incomplete market 32 10. Optimal investment with random endowment in an incomplete market 36 10.1. Exponential utility-based indifference valuation 37 10.2. The basis risk model revisited via duality 38 References 40


Objective:To find out the results of ultrasonography in the community elderly health examination.Methods:Routine ultrasonography was used to screen the diseases of liver,gallbladder,spleen and kidney in 7 432 elder people over 60 years old and their results were analyzed.Results:In the 7 432 elderly people examined,53.00% of them were found to have various diseases.According to the detection rate rank,the top five diseases were fatty liver(29.00%),hepatic cysts(6.70%),renal cysts(5.80%),gallbladder stones(5.50%),and hepatic hemangioma(3.40%) in turn.Nine cases of malignant tumors were detected(0.01%),among whom 6 were liver cancer,2 kidney cancer and 1 gallbladder cancer that were all confirmed by surgical pathology.Conclusion:It has an important significance to conduct the regular ultrasonography of the health examination for the elderly people so as to early diagnose and treat diseases.


From the Publisher:
More than 48 million items have been sold via the eBay on-line auction Web site since its inception in 1995. This companion guide teaches strategies and techniques for successful trading on the different types of eBay auctions and offers advice on how to get the best prices, how to automatically increase bids, and how to safely send in payment to the seller. It also explains ways to become a more effective buyer, when to participate in an auction and when to pass one by, and how to avoid buyer's remorse when making an impulse bid. It also covers how to establish credibility at eBay using their unique rating system to evaluate both the buyers and sellers of on-line purchases.


Paralinguistic analysis of speech remains a challenging task due to the many confounding factors which affect speech production. In this paper, we address the Interspeech 2018 Computational Paralinguistics Challenge (ComParE) which aims to push the boundaries of sensitivity to non-textual information that is conveyed in the acoustics of speech. We attack the problem on several fronts. We posit that a substantial amount of paralinguistic information is contained in spectral features alone. To this end, we use a large ensemble of Extreme Learning Machines for classification of spectral features. We further investigate the applicability of (an ensemble of) CNN-GRUs networks to model temporal variations therein. We report on the details of the experiments and the results for three ComParE sub-challenges: Atypical Affect, Self-Assessed Affect, and Crying. Our results compare favourably and in some cases exceed the published state-of-the-art performance.


|Compared to crystalline silicon solar cells, thin-(cid:12)lm solar cells are inexpensive, but a weak absorption of sunlight at a longer wavelength is a signi(cid:12)cant issue. In this perspective, an efficient light trapping mechanism is needed to facilitate the light-guiding in enhancing light absorption. This paper presents a theoretical investigation of ultrathin amorphous silicon (a-Si) solar cells using the rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA) method. We noticed broadband light absorption of the designed solar cell due to an efficient light trapping geometry. Our proposed design is composed of anti-re(cid:13)ection coating (ITO), an absorbing layer (a-Si), a back re(cid:13)ector (Ag-substrate), top-indium tin oxide (ITO), and bottom-silver (Ag) nanogratings. Using an Ag-back re(cid:13)ector with diffraction gratings demonstrated the improved diffraction and scattering of light, which enhanced light absorption within a 50 nm thick absorbing layer. Compared to the reference solar cell, the proposed ultrathin solar cell endorsed the enhanced photovoltaic conversion, i.e., 19% and 23%, corresponding to the transverse electric (TE) and magnetic (TM) polarization conditions. Furthermore, we explore the investigations of light absorption, current density, (cid:12)eld distributions, re(cid:13)ection, transmission, and parasitic losses for the optimal design of ultrathin (cid:12)lm (a-Si) solar cells.


The nonlinear time history analysis simulates the response of building when subjected to real earthquake ground motion. Current practice only considers single earthquake in analysis. However, the tremors of earthquake always occur repeatedly for several times after the first one. This nature can be technically called as repeated or multiple earthquake. It also occurred during 2015 in Ranau, Sabah. The seismic performance of a building also influences by the soil type. The objective of this work is to study the effect of multiple earthquake and soil types on seismic performance of reinforced concrete school building. A total of two models of school building which have 2 and 4 storeys will be used in this work. The building is assumed to be located in Sabah. All models will be design based on BS8110 to represent the current RC school building. The nonlinear time history analysis has been conducted on both models using SAP2000. The single and multiple earthquakes has been considered in the analysis with two types of soil. The results are discussed in term of the lateral displacement at each storey and the interstorey drift ratio. In this study, the magnitude of interstorey drift ratio is increasing from the single earthquakes to the repeated earthquakes around 5.0% to 6.0%. Besides, the magnitude of interstorey drift ratio of models on Soil Type D which is around 14% higher than Soil Type B. Therefore, the effect of repeated earthquake and the soil type cannot be neglected for analysis and design in order to build safer structure in seismic region.


Theoretical and experimental studies on the ratchet effects in graphene and in quantum wells with a lateral superlattice excited by alternating electric fields of terahertz frequency range are presented. We discuss the Seebeck ratchet effect and helicity driven photocurrents and show that the photocurrent generation is based on the combined action of a spatially periodic in-plane potential and a spatially modulated light.


Evaluation of the compost maturity is important for both composting and compost. The parameters for compost maturity are grouped into three types: physical, chemical and biological indices. There is no unanimous parameter to evaluate compost maturity till now. In this paper, the characteristics and shortcomings of existing parameters are analyzed. The necessity and feasibility to build a comprehensive assessment of compost maturity is discussed and the C/N, NH4+-N, SOUR are suggested indices for assessment.


Calcium doping of magnesium oxide results in significantly increased water dissociation rates, thus enhancing both hydration rate and reaction completeness of hydration compared to pure MgO. For a series of mixed magnesium–calcium oxides (MgxCa1−xO) with varying Ca contents between 0% and 40%, the material of a composition Mg0.9Ca0.1O shows the fastest rehydration, transforming completely within 80 min to the mixed hydroxide. In consecutive dehydration/rehydration cycles, reasonable cycle stability is found. A "regeneration" of the aged material (reactivity reduced by excessive cycling) in liquid water re‐establishes the initial rehydration reactivity. Density functional theory calculations support the experimental findings, confirming that calcium doping can reduce the energy of the rate limiting water dissociation reaction, exploiting both electronic and steric (size) effects.


hesson, S. (1993) Coastal migration and wind drift compensation in nocturnal passerine migrants. OmzS Scad., 24, pp. 87-94 Alerstam, T. (1978) Analysis and theory of visible bird migration. Oikos, 30, pp. 273-349 ~ (1990) Bird migration. Cambridge University Press, pp. 312-332 ~ (1991) Bird flight and optimal migration. Tree, 6, pp. 210-215 Bloch, R. and Bruderer, B. (1982) The air speed of migrating birds and its relationship to the wind. Behav. E d . Socwbwl, 11, pp. 19-24 Csorgo, T. and Ujhelyi, P. (1991) Migration strateges of Acrocephalus species from an analysis of recaptures. In: Gyuracz, J. (Ed.) 7 k 3rd Scientific Meeting of the Hunganan Omithobpal and Nature Conservation Society, SzombatheLy, pp. 111-122 (in Hungarian with English summary) Eden , S. T. (1975) Migration: orientation and navigation. In: Famer, D. S., Kmg, J. R. and Parkes, K. C. (Eds.) Avian Biol., Vol. V, Academic Press, New York, pp. 129-210 Fitzgerald, J. A. (1993) Effects of long and of migratory dark-eyed juncos and non-migratory house sparrows. Bird Behav., 8, pp. 87-94 Fowler, J. and Cohen, L. (1991) Statisticsfor ornithobguts. British Trust for Ornithology Guide 22 Gauthreaux Jr., S. A. (1982) The ecology and evolution of avian migration systems. In: Farner, D. S. and King, J. R. (Eds.) Avian Bwl., Vol. VZ, Academic Press, New York, pp. 93-168 ~ (1991) The flight behaviour of migrating birds in changmg wind fields: Radar and visual analyses. Am.


Thank you very much for downloading urban fortunes the political economy of place. Maybe you have knowledge that, people have search hundreds times for their favorite novels like this urban fortunes the political economy of place, but end up in infectious downloads. Rather than reading a good book with a cup of coffee in the afternoon, instead they juggled with some harmful bugs inside their computer. urban fortunes the political economy of place is available in our book collection an online access to it is set as public so you can download it instantly. Our books collection hosts in multiple countries, allowing you to get the most less latency time to download any of our books like this one. Kindly say, the urban fortunes the political economy of place is universally compatible with any devices to read.


A Search Engine is very important in any information system; it can help us easy to search available information quickly. In Content Management System, we also need a search engine to find information from itself and from existing resources. The research study describes an overview of federated search method and implementation of prototype Search Engine within the Plone CMS. That can search useful information from external sites and relational databases. Moreover, this research study also mentions about Ajax technology that it is used to build LiveSearch function on the Search Engine. The research study uses resources from the AIT's websites including web-pages and relational database as a case study. 10.


—The traditional control chart for industry often requires identical and independent (i.i.d) assumptions. Thus, some modification on the control chart used in the industry need to be done before it can be used in the environmental application due to the difference in the nature of the data. The recorded environmental data are usually multivariate, correlated, and non-stationary and can be expressed as a function of time. In this present study, a control chart for monitoring curves data is to be applied where the hourly recorded data within a one day period is treated as multivariate point data and the occurrence is treated as a function of time. The control chart is constructed using the Functional Principal Component Analysis (FPCA) model. In the monitoring of quality indices overtime, autocorrelated data often negatively affects the performance of a control chart resulting into increase in the number of false alarm. Data pre-whitening approach is proposed during the monitoring phase of analysis to tackle the problem of data autocorrelation. Based on the seven years (2004-2010) recorded data from the Shah Alam air quality monitoring station which is located in the Selangor state of Peninsular Malaysia, after data pre-whitening has been conducted, the analysis results have shown that the false alarm rate in the control chart for the PM10 indices has reduced and the existence of lag 1 autocorrelation AR(1) effect is found insignificant. Thus, it is indicated that the employment of data pre-whitening approach able to improve the control chart performance.


The objective of this article is to report on the planning, development and results based on the perceptions of teachers participating in the training provided by the Center for Distance Education, Federal University of the Triângulo Mineiro, about the tools Moodle, G Suite Education and Office 365 as options for conducting remote teaching activities, in order to meet the demands of the supply of subjects according to the resolution of the supplementary emergency period PSE.


The aim of this work is to improve catalytic properties of mixed oxides by addition of activated coal. Hydrotalcites have typical layered structure, that is destroyed, when calcinated to form mixed oxides. Hydrotalcites are used as drug carriers, in making nanocomposites and in formation mixed oxides. Mixed oxides are used as catalysts in biofuel production or in decomposition of N2O. The certain amount of active coal was added during the synthesis of hydrotalcites, then the hydrotalcites were calcinated and converted into mixed oxides. XRD, TGA-MS, N2 - adsorptive isothermy and optical emission spectrometry were used to compare properties of synthetized mixed oxides. The target of this work was to find optimal amount of activated coal to achieve the best catalytic properties. Catalyst activity was studied in transesterification reaction of rapeseed oil and methanol.


Cloud detection is a key step in the preprocessing of optical satellite remote sensing images. In the existing literature, cloud detection methods are roughly divided into threshold methods and deep-learning methods. Most of the traditional threshold methods are based on the spectral characteristics of clouds, so it is easy to lose the spatial location information in the high-reflection area, resulting in misclassification. Besides, due to the lack of generalization, the traditional deep-learning network also easily loses the details and spatial information if it is directly applied to cloud detection. In order to solve these problems, we propose a deep-learning model, Cloud Detection UNet (CDUNet), for cloud detection. The characteristics of the network are that it can refine the division boundary of the cloud layer and capture its spatial position information. In the proposed model, we introduced a High-frequency Feature Extractor (HFE) and a Multiscale Convolution (MSC) to refine the cloud boundary and predict fragmented clouds. Moreover, in order to improve the accuracy of thin cloud detection, the Spatial Prior Self-Attention (SPSA) mechanism was introduced to establish the cloud spatial position information. Additionally, a dual-attention mechanism is proposed to reduce the proportion of redundant information in the model and improve the overall performance of the model. The experimental results showed that our model can cope with complex cloud cover scenes and has excellent performance on cloud datasets and SPARCS datasets. Its segmentation accuracy is better than the existing methods, which is of great significance for cloud-detection-related work.


Context: The purpose of the present study was to investigate the context of research into the physiological roles of VEGF and the most important potential mechanisms that may lead to a temporary decrease in serum VEGF, as well as to perform a desirable conclusion and provide more relevant data from previous research. Methods: In this study, articles were searched in specialized databases and 40 related articles were selected based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. Then the effect of physical activity on VEGF and HIF-1 signaling was investigated. Results: Exercise and physical activity by stimulating and activating VEGF and HIF-1 signals may induce generating new arteries and angiogenesis. Conclusions: The present study showed that physical activity increases capillary density by increasing the level of diffusion, increasing the time of exchange between blood and tissue, and decreasing the oxygen diffusion distance. As a result, capillary dilatation and capacity increase and ultimately it improves athletes' performance.


The purpose of this paper is not only to investigate how does
the bending stiffness of composite beam effects on the story
-stiffness of frames, but also to analyze for the elastic moment
distribution of framed structures composed of composite beams
considering the characteristics of varying cross section of
composite beams properly, when the frames are subjected to the
earthquake loading or vertical loading.


The College's public awareness programme was launched in August 2007 with the aim of raising awareness of the various surgical specialities, new techniques and research, and the charitable activities of the College. This ongoing programme, run by the development office, now has an established event schedule throughout the UK with the federations of the Women's Institute (WI), the Freemasons and more recently, the University of the Third Age (U3A).


In this Special Issue, we focus on biomineralization/pathological biomineralization systems and the synthesis of bioinspired materials. This Special Issue promotes the current trend of "green chemistry", and, as such, in all published papers, only aqueous solutions and eco-friendly additives were used for the production of well-characterized bioinspired materials [...]


Two stereoisomers of penazetidine A (1a), the azetidine alkaloid isolated from the Indo-Pacific marine sponge Penares sollasi, were synthesized by starting from (S)-serine and (R)-or (S)-citronellol. The natural penazetidine A must be either (2S,3R,4S,12′R)- or (2S,3R,4S,12′S)-1a.


The cyclic voltammetric behaviour of mononuclear oxovanadium(IV) complex with 2,6-pyridinedicarboxylic acid (H 2 dipic), [VO(dipic)(H 2 O) 2 ] has been studied at GCE working electrode in aqueous 0.2 M NaClO 4 and 0.2 M KCI as supporting electrolytes at initial pH 4.25. [VO(dipic)(H 2 O) 2 ] complex undergoes diffusion-controlled irreversible one electron oxidation reaction in the potential range +0.865 to +1160 mV vs Ag/AgCI for scan rate 25 to 500 mV s -1 .


Virtual Humans are on the border of fiction and realism: while it is obvious that they do not exist in reality and function on different principles than real people, they have been endowed with human features such as being emotionally sensitive. In this article we argue that many dimensions, both human-like ones and ones made possible by the computer technology, are still unexploited to increase the effectivity and engagement of interaction with VHs.


The influence of porosity and adhesion on characteristics of zinc coatings have been investigated. It were determined the parameters which give information about theirs influence on zinc coatings,.


Sorcha Ní Fhlainn is a senior lecturer in film studies and American studies at Manchester Metropolitan University. She specializes in gothic studies, horror cinema, popular culture, and American studies indeed. Her work is focused in particular on vampire and monster narratives. She has published a long list of essays and several books, among which the collections Our Monster Skin: Blurring the Boundaries Between Monsters and Humanity(2010), The Worlds of Back to the Future: Critical Essays on the Films (2010), Clive Barker: Dark Imaginer (2017), and her monograph Postmodern Vampires in Film, Fiction and Popular Culture (2019).


: This study evaluates the Performance of agricultural labor in Karnataka. The evaluation encompasses various aspects such as productivity, efficiency, skill levels, and contributions to the agricultural sector. It highlights the importance of assessing the performance of agricultural labor to enhance productivity, sustainable practices, and livelihoods. Agricultural labor in Karnataka plays a vital role in the state's agricultural sector, contributing to crop cultivation, productivity, and rural economies. Evaluating their performance is crucial for understanding their efficiency, skill levels, and overall contributions. Assessing productivity involves analyzing output per unit of time, land, or labor invested, considering crop yields and efficiency in achieving targets. Efficiency evaluation focuses on resource utilization, including land, water, and machinery, as well as the adoption of modern farming techniques. Skill levels assessment covers knowledge of farming practices, crop management techniques, and machinery operation. It also considers the adoption of sustainable practices such as integrated pest management and soil health management. The evaluation examines the contribution of agricultural labor to the agricultural sector, rural economies, and food security. It considers their participation in various stages of the agricultural value chain, such as sowing, harvesting, and post-harvest activities. Income levels, working conditions, and access to healthcare and education are also evaluated to assess the welfare of agricultural labor.


Destinations inscribed into regional tourism development planning system need for strategic development documents. The review of destination definition approaches in modern Russian and international practice makes it possible to define destination characteristics. Marked specific affects on destinations management and development planning. This paper presents a «Kizhi» destination model and distinguishes steps of destination development strategy associated with the idea of harmonious tourism activities and infrastructure development of the territory.


The infrastructure safety and response to the natural or man-caused calamities has always been a top consideration for any modern project. Impact energy absorption is one such area where advanced measures are being adopted to prevent any damage to the infrastructure from any impact caused by vehicles or other elements. Honeycomb structures have been primarily used in such high impact energy absorption applications. With the advent of modern additive manufacturing practices, drastic modifications to the simple honeycombs generally used are possible, thus expanding the reach and capability of these structures. In this article, in-plane uniaxial compression performance of hybrid and hierarchical hexagonal honeycombs has been studied in the context of strain energy absorption for in-plane impact such as the case of vehicle collision to the pillars of flyover or bridges. The polylactic acid (PLA) filament has been used to manufacture the honeycombs through fused deposition modeling (FDM) additive manufacturing technique. Simple hexagonal honeycombs have been studied first at low deformation speed to understand the deformation mechanics under uniaxial compression and its dependence on the unit cell dimensions and cell wall thickness. The effect of transition to the hybrid and hierarchical hexagonal honeycombs on the compression deformation has been highlighted next. While the hierarchical structures show better energy absorption capabilities and plateau stress, the hybrid hexagonal honeycombs show their high loadresistance. Dependence of the mechanical performance of such structures on the unit cell dimensions, orientation and wall thickness has also been examined through detailed experimental analysis.


Using France as our main example, we show there is a much scope for improving the SCImago ranking. We detect problems of nomenclature, double affiliation, aggregation and of bias toward large public-funded research organizations. The examples we cite suggest that only detailed knowledge of the situation can help in addressing the issue and take us beyond any automatic reading of the metadata.


The situation created after the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and compulsory licensing may have an impact on pharmaceutical multinational corporations (MNCs) patent filing trend in India. So, there is a need to understand the impact of intellectual property (IP) policy change in the patenting trend of pharmaceutical MNCs in India. There are no studies on the patenting trend of pharmaceutical MNCs in India specifically to their disclosed treatable diseases and product and process patent types. This study is based on patinformatics and information analysis, to establish the implications of Indian IP policy on patenting activity of pharmaceutical MNCs in India. This study correlates pre and post TRIPS patenting trend of pharmaceutical MNCs in India. This study finds that after an amendment of Indian Patent Act in compliance with TRIPS norms, MNCs have filed a number of patents in India. This study concludes that Indian pharmaceutical companies can devise the RD this will give them a competitive edge over the global players.


Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to offer a critical review of the work of Tom Peters.Design/methodology/approach – Notes a degree of narrative experimentation in the works of Tom Peters. Offers a narrative typology to describe this narrative change, suggests a number of reasons for this narrative experimentation and outlines topics for future research in this area.Findings – The paper suggests that Peters' narrative experimentation reflects twin frustrations. Namely Peters' frustration with the short‐term orientations and innate conservatism of the US business elite and peripheralization in Corporate America.Originality/value – The paper proposes an original narrative typology for the examination of Peters' work and suggests directions for future research.


The Tripura province of northeast India, situated in the western fringe of the Indo-Myanmar biodiversity hotspot was extensively explored for butterfly fauna. We surveyed 28 wild and managed locations in the hot and humid environment of Tripura province (2009–2012) across different landscape gradients to observe and record butterfly diversity. We report here 212 butterfly species, 65 of which are considered threatened including 41 species protected by Indian Wildlife Protection Act 1972. Thirty-eight species are categorized as threatened by IUCN including one species also by CITES. We recorded the abundance of each butterfly species to highlight the population status of individual butterfly species in order to reveal the status of their conservation in Tripura, in India, and also at global scale. Geographic distribution of 142 species is extended to Tripura. Results of this study form a baseline data on the diversity and conservation of butterflies in this biodiversity hotspot.


The article deals with Finnish ice-hockey slang. Its goal consists in stressing a number of Finnish expressions differing from Czech ice-hockey slang rather than in collecting as many expressions as possible (though the number of terms included is about two hundred items).
The Finnish vocabulary is divided into six parts: 1. ice-hockey equipment, 2. players and
officials, 3. quality of the game, 4. situations on the rink, 5. reaction of the audience to the
game being played, 6. nicknames of teams and players. Every part is provided with a number
of examples taken from Finnish newspaper reports or a dictionary of colloquial Finnish.
A large number of the expressions included are based on figurative meanings, particularly
metaphor and metonymy.


Complex terrain features—in particular, environmental conditions, high population density and potential socio-economic damage—make the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (TMVB) of particular interest regarding the study of deep convection and related severe weather. In this research, 10 years of Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) cloud observations are combined with Climate Hazards Group Infrared Precipitation with Station (CHIRPS) rainfall data to characterize the spatio-temporal distribution of deep convective clouds (DCCs) and their relationship to extreme precipitation. From monthly distributions, wet and dry phases are identified for cloud fraction, deep convective cloud frequency and convective precipitation. For both DCC and extreme precipitation events, the highest frequencies align just over the higher elevations of the TMVB. A clear relationship between DCCs and terrain features, indicating the important role of orography in the development of convective systems, is noticed. For three sub-regions, the observed distributions of deep convective cloud and extreme precipitation events are assessed in more detail. Each sub-region exhibits different local conditions, including terrain features, and are known to be influenced differently by emerging moisture fluxes from the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific Ocean. The observed distinct spatio-temporal variabilities provide the first insights into the physical processes that control the convective development in the study area. A signal of the midsummer drought in Mexico (i.e., "canícula") is recognized using MODIS monthly mean cloud observations.


The MCDF-EAL method is shown to be closely related to the procedure used to solve the Bethe-Salpeter equation by Douglas and Kroll (1974) in their study of helium 3P fine structure. The authors interpret the former as a method based on a well defined effective Hamiltonian derived from QED which yields a solution within a finite set of CSF which is exact to all orders of perturbation theory. This interpretation allows one to examine the contribution of higher-order terms in the perturbation series for 23P in helium-like F VIII, 1s2p2 4P levels in the lithium isoelectronic sequence and 1s22s22p2 3P levels in the carbon isoelectronic sequence. These terms are shown to be essential if the theoretical predictions are to match the precision obtainable in current experiments. In the case of the carbon sequence, the authors identify discrepancies due to missing (non-relativistic) correlation contributions, and show how these may be taken into account in some cases.


Can experts be trusted to provide useful recommendations? We develop and experimentally test a simplified recommendation game where an expert recommends one of two actions to a decision maker who might instead take no action. Consistent with predictions from the cheap talk literature, we find that recommendations are persuasive in that they induce actions benefiting the expert, but decision makers partially discount recommendations for the action a biased expert favors. Even unbiased experts pander by recommending the action that the decision maker already favors, which decision makers then discount. And if the decision maker is uncertain over whether the expert is biased or not toward an action, unbiased experts follow a political correctness strategy of recommending the opposite action to be more persuasive. However, decision makers do not sufficiently anticipate how uncertainty over the expert's bias gives even unbiased experts an incentive to lie, implying that transparency may be even more important to successful communication in practice than it is in theory.


ABSTRACT This paper serves three purposes, using a vector-error-correction model (VECM) to analyse the effects of permanent changes in R&D variables. First, we re-consider the traditional result of zero or negative foreign R&D spillovers to US productivity from private and public foreign R&D stocks. Both have a positive and statistically significant effect on labour-augmenting technical change (LATC) and public R&D in the USA. Moreover, US private R&D reacts positively to foreign private R&D and negatively to foreign public R&D shocks. Second, we also find new results for the effects of changes of US R&D. Foreign public and private R&D react positively to US public R&D. All the mentioned variables react positively to changes in US private R&D. Third, based on the time profile of the simulated VECM estimate, we calculate the sum of discounted net gains for (i) additional private and public US R&D, and (ii) for policies reacting to foreign private and public R&D shocks with additional domestic private and public R&D. Additional private and public US R&D expenditures have very high internal rates of return and are profitable also in reaction to shocks from foreign R&D. All LATC reactions are transitional, suggesting semi-endogenous growth for the USA.


Background: The aim was to evaluate the parameters of metabolic syndrome (MS) in patients of alopecia areata and to investigate the possibility of an existing relationship between MS and alopecia areata (AA).

Methods: This cross-sectional observational study included 50 patients with AA who attended OPD of department of dermatology at a tertiary care center during a period of 1 year. Clinical and laboratory parameters were noted in each patient.

Results: This study included 50 patients with AA (33 males and 17 females). In the present study maximum number of patients belonged to the age group 20-30 years with 23 patients, followed by 30-40 years with 17  patients. Most of the study subjects, 17 were college students and number of employees were 15. Out of 50 patients 44  had patch(es) and 2 patient had alopecia totalis. In this study out of 50 patients, 38 had mild AA, 7 had AA and 5 patients had severe AA. No significant derangement of clinical and laboratory parameters of MS observed in patients of AA.

Conclusions: In the present study we did not observe any significant derangement of clinical and laboratory parameters of  MS  in patients of alopecia areata.


Patients with alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma (ARMS) have inferior outcomes compared to patients with embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma (ERMS) and more effective chemotherapy options are needed for these patients. Vinorelbine is a semisynthetic vinca alkaloid that has clinical activity in relapsed rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS) when used alone or in combination with cyclophosphamide.


Constructing a Network Diagram using the Critical Path Analysis methods is an important task in planning a project systematically. For details of Project Management, see Burke (2010) and Gido and Clements (2012). This task involves some basic and very practical mathematical modeling in determining the total project time; the earliest and latest start and finish times for activities; and the critical activities which constitute the Critical Path. Hence, procedures such as forward and backward passes would be necessary in these calculations. The interactive multimedia environment presented in this workshop has been based on an approach developed, tested and taught by the author for several years. The approach is structured on the three main phases of Formulation, Solution and Interpretation. In recent years, this approach was incorporated into a multimedia environment. It was then made available as an application for students to download and use it to simulate a typical face to face lecture on their chosen device at their chosen time. The learning outcomes have demonstrated the system's effectiveness.


Aneurysm is an abnormal widening or ballooning of a portion of an artery due to weakness in the wall of the blood vessel. Although venous aneurysms do occur, arterial aneurysms are much more common and severe than venous aneurysms. Aneurysmal degeneration of the abdominal aortic and iliac arteries is a common and frequently lethal age-related disease process (Baxter et al., 2008; Weintraub, 2009). Arterial aneurysm is a potentially lethal vascular disorder, much more common in older men with estimates of prevalence ranging up to 10 percent (Thompson et al., 2002). Death from a ruptured aneurysm accounts for about 1 percent of all the deaths in the Western world (Collin et al., 1988). Extensive evidence indicates that mediators of immunity and inflammation participate in the development of aneurysm formation (Duftner et al., 2006; Shimizu et al., 2006). However, the pathogenesis of the aneurysm formation and rupture remains unclear. Recent results obtained from clinical and experimental studies suggest that complement, an important mediator for immune and inflammatory responses may contribute to the pathogenesis of artery aneurysms. Here, we will extensively review the potential roles of complement in artery aneurysm formation and rupture.


AbstractThe Dominion of Canada has an area of 3,695,189 sq. miles, nearly as large as the whole of Europe. It includes nine provinces, in six of which the cadastre (legal survey) has been laid down under different systems of survey, and only the remaining three under the comprehensive Dominion Lands System of Survey.


In this paper we present a method for finding the solution of time-delay systems using a hybrid function. We present the properties of the hybrid functions, which consist of block-pulse functions plus Taylor series. The method is based upon expanding various time functions in the system as their truncated hybrid functions. Operational matrices of integration and delay are presented and are utilized to reduce the solution of time-delay systems to the solution of algebraic equations. Illustrative examples are included to demonstrate the validity and applicability of the technique.


By means of litertature,collective biography,the author analyzed the common characters on the sports elites who win the Owens Prize,and made an inquiry into the reason and way of success.The author hoped to provide some reference experiences and illuminating remarks for training elite athletes and athletes'growing in the future.


In many practical situations, the recovery of information about some phenomenon of interest f  reduces to performing deconvolution on indirect measurements , corresponding to the convolution of f  with a known kernel (point spread function) p . However, in practice, only discrete measurements of g will be available. Consequently, the construction of discrete approximations to f  reduces to deriving discrete versions of . How this is done depends crucially on what is assumed about the properties of the kernel p . Here, it is assumed that p  is symmetric and integrable, and that the Fourier transform of p  is strictly positive. Different discrete versions are obtained depending on how the discretisation of is performed. After establishing convergence of the truncated schemes, we discuss the underlying difficulties reflecting their ill-posedness and detail how approximations have to be treated with due care. Some of the technical issues underlying the arguments are treated in the appendix.


Despite the success of combination antiretroviral therapy, a significant proportion of patients experience a loss of virologic, immunologic, or clinical benefit from their current regimens. Frequently, these patients have limited options for alternative treatment regimens. Developing safe and effective therapies for treatment-experienced patients, particularly for those with documented threeor four-class antiretroviral drug resistance is a public health priority [1] that poses significant challenges. Causes of treatment failure are diverse as are target patient populations with respect to the type and duration of treatment experience. These aspects of patient care necessitate individualized treatment plans and make standardization of objectives and study designs for development of new therapies difficult. Issues in study design include the choice of adequate control arms, appropriate endpoints, and reasonable expectations for duration of response and safety considerations.


The transparency-of the cornea is dependent on a number of factors, such as its state of turgescence, the regular arrangement of its collagen bundles, and the maintenance of its curvatures. The slightest interference with any of these will lead to loss of transparency and therefore diminution of vision. The list of diseases which may affect the cornea directly or indirectly to cause a lowering of visual acuity is very long. Many ofthese diseases are, fortunately, self-limiting, and many of the changes in the cornea which -they produce are reversible. There are, however, certain corneal disorders which characteristically lead to permanent and more or less gross loss of corneal function. When such a disease affects only one eye the result may be unfortunate for the patient, but when both eyes are affected it is a disaster. The natural history of some of these major corneal disorders will now be described.


This study demonstrates a green and facile strategy to develop electrochemical sensors through the rational design of platinum nanoparticles@polyoxometalate decorating ordered mesoporous carbon (Pt@POMs-OMC) nanohybrids. The Keggin-type POMs, H3PW12O40, was applied to serve as a both reducing and stabilizing agent. The as-prepared nanohybrids were characterized comprehensively by X-ray diffraction, X-ray photo-electron spectroscopy, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, and transmission electron microscopy. The novel nanohybrids of Pt@POMs-OMC can provide new features for electro-catalytic applications because of the synergetic effects of Pt nanoparticles and OMC materials. This study reports on the use of Pt@POMs-OMC as an effective sensing template for enhanced hydrazine, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), and nitrobenzene (NB) electrochemical detection for the first time. It exhibits a steady amperometric response towards hydrazine in the linear concentration range of 10–840 μM with a sensitivity of 2.92 μA mM−1 and from 840 to 1400 μM with a sensitivity of 7.32 μA mM−1; the limit of detection was calculated to be 3.41 μM. It shows a steady amperometric response towards H2O2 in the linear concentration range of 5–5400 μM with a sensitivity of 10.64 μA mM−1 and a limit of detection of 1.09 μM. The NB sensor displays a linear range of 3.98–672.55 μM with a sensitivity of 102.62 μA mM−1 and a limit of detection of 3.82 μM. The successful fabrication of Pt@POMs-OMC holds great promise for the design of electrochemical sensors and is a promising material to promote the development of new electrode materials.


In the context of international carbon peak and carbon neutrality, it is difficult to transform the energy structure based on fossil energy such as coal. At the same time, the use of consumer-side terminal energy also has a huge impact on overall carbon emissions. The reduction of carbon emissions involves many complex variables. There is an urgent need to build a regional carbon emission prediction and feedback mechanism. This paper proposes an intelligent prediction model based on economic, energy and carbon linkage, establishes the linkage relationship between carbon emissions and social and economic development, builds the underlying logic from the perspective of social demand, predicts regional emissions, and simultaneously forms a feedback mechanism for carbon reduction and emission reduction. When carbon emission targets are clear, neural algorithm iterations can be used to find energy transition and industry optimization paths. The actual calculation of the energy economy in a certain region verifies the rationality of the algorithm in this paper.


The hull job shop in a shipyard is a typical flexible manufacturing system (FMS), the flexibility and efficiency of which largely depends on the level of FMS scheduling. In this paper, the Object-Oriented Colored Petri Net (OOCPN) is used to build the FMS model for the hull job shop. A four-step modeling method of FMS has been developed to successfully simulate the scheduling of the hull job shop.


An experimental study was performed to investigate the effects of Reynolds number based on approach velocity and step height, Reh and upstream roughness on the flow characteristics of a smooth forward facing step. The rough wall was produced from sand grains of average diameter 1.5 mm and the Reh ranged from 2010 to 9130 for both smooth and rough wall experiments. The results for the smooth upstream wall showed that the reattachment length, Lr * increased monotonically with Reh ≤ 5800 before it becomes independent of Reynolds number for the Reh > 5800. Wall roughness, on the other hand, decreased the Lr * by 16 % when Reynolds number increased from 2230 to 4010. Beyond Reh = 4010, the Lr * was independent of Reh. The Lr * of the rough case was 44 % shorter than values of the smooth case for Reh > 5800. Detailed comparison of the results revealed that the mean velocities, Reynolds shear stress and the ejections and sweeps are weakened by upstream roughness, although, the turbulent kinetic energy is enhanced. The Reynolds shear stress showed very large negative values at vicinity of the leading edge of the step which were found to be majorly contributed by the inward and outward interactions.


Chrysin (5,7‐dihydroxyflavone) is a bioactive compound found in different fruits, vegetables, honey and propolis. This flavone has been suggested for the treatment of reproductive dysfunction, mainly because of its antioxidant and hormonal properties. However, the effects of this polyphenol on the prostate are still poorly understood. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of short‐term chrysin exposure on the ventral male and female prostates of adult gerbils. To evaluate the androgenic potential of chrysin, gerbils were also exposed to testosterone. Male and female gerbils were exposed to chrysin (50 mg/kg/day, orally) or testosterone cypionate (1 mg/kg/week, subcutaneously) for 3, 7 and 21 days. Prostates were dissected for morphological, stereological and immunohistochemical analyses. Serum levels of testosterone and 17β‐estradiol were measured by ELISA. Serum testosterone levels were not increased by chrysin supplementation in males or females. However, only females treated with chrysin for 21 days showed an increase in estradiol levels. Increased androgen receptor immunoreactivity, higher proliferation rates and glandular hyperplasia were observed in male and female prostates for all chrysin treatment times. Additionally, increased oestrogen receptor alpha immunoreactivity was observed in all chrysin‐treated females. Although chrysin and testosterone promoted similar morphological changes in the gerbil prostate, chrysin supplementation was less deleterious to prostate health, since it resulted in lower incidence of hyperplasia and an absence of neoplastic foci.


Abstract Background/Objectives: To investigate in adolescents the relationships between retinal vessel diameter, physical fitness, insulin sensitivity, and systemic inflammation. Methods: We evaluated 157 adolescents, 112 with excessive weight and 45 lean, all without type 2 diabetes mellitus. All received detailed evaluations, including measurements of retinal vessel diameter, insulin sensitivity, levels of inflammation, and physical fitness. Results: Overweight/obese adolescents had significantly narrower retinal arteriolar and wider venular diameters, significantly lower insulin sensitivity, and physical fitness. They also had decreased levels of anti-inflammatory and increased levels of proinflammatory markers as well as an overall higher inflammation balance score. Fitness was associated with larger retinal arteriolar and narrower venular diameters and these relationships were mediated by insulin sensitivity. We demonstrate that inflammation also mediates the relationship between fitness and retinal ...


The use of organosilanes as adhesion promoters for surface coatings, adhesives and syntactic foams is described and reviewed in the light of published work. Data are presented on the beneficial effect of silanes, when used as pretreatment primers and additives, on the bond strength of two pack epoxide and polyurethane paints applied to aluminium and mild steel. It is shown that silanes when used as additives to structural epoxide and polyurethane adhesives are less effective than when used as pretreatment primers on metals but are highly effective on glass substrates. The compressive properties of glass microballoon/epoxide syntactic foams are shown to be markedly improved by the addition of silanes.


Spraying pesticides that do not meet the rules of the incidence of poisoning
resulting impact on farmers to do with the blood cholinesterase activity. Class of
organophosphate pesticides can affect nerve function by inhibiting the enzyme
kolinesterse. The purpose of this study was to analyze the personal hygiene and
spraying associated with toxicity in a farmer spraying pesticide use on vegetables
in Kembang Kuning Cepogo District of Boyolali. The study design used is cross
sectional study. The population in this study of 40 farmers. Sampling with
exhaustive sampling of 40 farmers. Analysis of the relationship is done with
statistical analysis Fisher exact test. The results showed blood tests obtained from
respondents who poisoned a total of 33 respondents (89.2%). The risk factors that
influence pesticide poisoning (<0.05) the variable of personal hygiene and
spraying. The results of the bivariate analysis suggested a link between personal
hygiene level of pesticide poisoning in farmers in Kembang Kuning Cepogo
Boyolali District of 2016 with a value of p = 0.038. As well There is a relationship
between how spraying with pesticide poisoning rate on farmers in the village
Kembangkuning Cepogo Boyolali District of 2016 with a value of p = 0,026


The phase field equation for the simulation of dendritic growth has a history of near twenty years.The existing phase field equation was directly derived by Ginzburg-Landau equations.However,by widely used,the physical meaning of each variable in the equations is not clear.So the domestic and foreign researchers have made a lot of mistakes and interpretation.Taking the solid fraction as a phase field variables in the field,based on the thermodynamics and heat transfer theory,the solidification velocity model for metal dendrite growth in undercooled and its derivation process were given.


Campus-affair publicity is an attempt of university political system reform and a base to generalize democratic polity. This thesis expatiates on the necessity and significance of campus-affair publicity, analyzing the relationship between campus-affair publicity and following five aspects: socialism market economy, democratic polity participation, construction of policy, law and regulation, power conditioning, anti-corruption, teachers' quality.


The authors report on an unusual case of a large symptomatic focal nodular hyperplasia (FNH) of the liver with multiple well-demarcated areas of anemic infarction presenting diagnostic difficulties be


Interferon‐γ (Ifng) protects organ allografts: mouse kidney allografts lacking Ifng receptors rapidly fail with massive ischemic necrosis around days 5 to 7, reflecting microcirculation failure. We hypothesized that Ifng protects the graft by preventing perforin‐granzyme‐mediated cytotoxic damage to the microcirculation by inducing class Ia and/or Ib products. We transplanted kidney allografts lacking Ifng receptors into various knockout hosts. The necrosis/congestion phenotype did not require host B cells or IL‐4 and IL‐13 receptors, but required the T‐cell alloresponse: it did not occur if the hosts were syngeneic or T‐cell deficient. However, host perforin‐granzyme mechanisms were required: no necrosis developed if hosts lacked either perforin or granzymes A and B. The ability of Ifng to protect the allograft required donor class I products: allografts lacking class I products due to Tap1 or β2 microglobulin deficiency developed a similar necrosis‐congestion phenotype at day 7 despite Ifng receptors being present. Thus when host cytotoxic T cells infiltrate organ allografts, Ifng prevents their perforin‐granzyme mechanism from compromising the microcirculation by a mechanism requiring donor class Ia or Ib products. We propose that donor class Ia or Ib products are needed to trigger inhibitory receptors on effector T cells.


INAA, ICP‐AES and ICP‐MS were used to elementally characterise four environmental reference materials – NIST SRM 1646a (Estuarine Sediment), NIST SRM 1400 (Bone Ash), IAEA‐395 (Urban Dust) and IAEA‐450 (Algae). An analytical scheme consisting of the three methods was first applied to NIST SRM 1646a to validate the methodology because it has been extensively analysed and has certified values for many elements. With repeated analyses of NIST SRM 1646a, the accuracy and measurement repeatability of the data obtained were evaluated based on two statistical calculations (zeta‐score and Horwitz ratio) and were observed to be good enough for the analytical scheme to be applied to similar sorts of environmental/geochemical samples. Applying the same approach to NIST SRM 1400, IAEA‐395 and IAEA‐450, enabled mass fractions of 29, 38 and 28 elements to be determined, respectively. Among these results, the data for rare earth elements are of particular interest, not only for IAEA‐450 but also for the other three reference samples. The data for Pr, Gd, Dy, Ho, Er and Tm in NIST SRM 1646a are newly reported in this study. By using small test portions (< 100 mg) for NIST SRM 1646a and IAEA‐395, and recommended minimum amounts for NIST SRM 1400 and IAEA‐450, sample homogeneity was evaluated.


The Republic of Uganda is one of the five countries within the East African region. Uganda's efforts to increase land productivity are hampered by land tenure insecurity related problems. For more than ten years, Fit for Purpose Land Administration (FFPLA) pilot projects have been implemented in various parts of the country. Uganda is now in advanced stages of developing a country strategy for implementing a fit for purpose approach to land administration, to define the interventions, time and cost required to transform the existing formal (western type) land administration system into an administration system that is based on FFPLA principles. This paper reviews three case studies to investigate how lessons learnt from pilot projects informed a FFPLA country implementation strategy. The review is based on data collected during the development of the FFPLA strategy, in which the authors directly participated. The data collection methods included document review, field visits and interviews with purposively selected respondents from the pilot sites and institutions that had piloted FFPLA in Uganda. The study identified that pilot projects are beneficial in highlighting specific gaps in spatial, legal and institutional frameworks, that have potential to constrain FFPLA implementation. Pilot projects provided specific data for informed planning, programing and costing key interventions in the FFPLA country implementation strategy. The lessons learnt from the pilot projects, informed the various steps and issues considered while developing the national strategy for implementing a FFPLA approach in Uganda. On the other hand, the study identified that uncoordinated pilot projects are potential sources of inconsistencies in data and products, which may be cumbersome to harmonize at a national level. In order to implement a fit for purpose approach for land administration at a national level, it is necessary to consolidate the lessons leant from pilots into a unified country implementation strategy.


Regionalism. Regionalism and fiction. Melvin J. Vincent. Social Forces. Mar., 1936. Research. Research barriers in the south. Wilson Gee. Am. Jour. Soc. Jan., 1936. . Quantitative methods in social psychology. George A. Lundberg. Assumptions and methods in attitude measurements. Clifford Kirkpatrick. Am. Sociol. Rev. Feb., 1936. . Scientific method in the investigation of economic problems. Harold G. Moulton. Scientific Mo. Mar., 1936. Revolution. The inactive electorate and social revolution. Francis G. Wilson. Southwest Soc. Sci. Quar. Mar., 1936. Security. The functions of social insurance in relation to economic security. R. Clyde White. Social Forces. Mar., 1936. Social Sciences. The methodology of the social sciences. F. Kaufmann. Sociol. Rev. Jan., 1936. . Social theory and social action. F. Stuart Chapin. Some contributions of sociology to the guidance of society. E. A. Ross. Am. Sociol. Rev. Feb., 1936. . Economics and the social order. D. A. MacGibbon. Canadian Jour. Econ. and Pol. Sci. Feb., 1936. —. Sociological criticism under democracy. Fred R. Yoder. Sociological research and political objectives. Philip A. Parsons. Sociol. and Soc. Research. Mar.-Apr., 1936. Socialism. Left trends in the socialist party. Robert Minor. Communist. Feb., Mar., 1936. Sovereignty. The nature and limitations of sovereignty. James Quarles. Georgetown Law Jour. Nov., 1935. . La souverainetfi et la police internationale. H. E. Nicolas Politis. New Commonwealth Quar. Mar., 1936. State Theory. The state in theory and practice. Max Radin. N. Y. Univ. Law Quar. Rev. Mar., 1936. . Staat und Staatengesellschaft. Giorgio Del Vecchio. Rev. Int. Th6orie Droit. Vol. 10, no. 1. 1936. . Staatsidee und Wirtschaftsrecht. Hermann Haemmerle. Zeit. f. Gesamte Staatswissenschaft. Vol. 96, no. 2. 1936. Teaching. The idea of probability and the teaching of politics. C. Gordon Post. Social Studies. Apr., 1936. Technology and Government. Technology and governmental change. William Fielding Ogburn. Jour. Business. Jan., 1936.


DOI: 10.1002/anie.201705459 In this Communication, the minimum thickness of the jellium slab (to allow for high doping) was set at d = 4 b, which is incorrect. In fact, d = 3 b is the correct thickness limit: it is computationally convergent, is reasonably larger than the covalent diameter of boron (1.74 b), and the calculations with d = 3 b still avoid spurious occupancy of the vacuum states even at doping as high as q = 0.5–1 e/atom. Importantly, for q +0.5 e/ atom, the v1/3 honeycomb sheet emerges as the ground state (Figure 1). Furthermore, at q = 1 e/atom the honeycomb borophene becomes isoelectronic to graphene and Dirac cones appear at the Fermi level (Figure 1c, inset). This honeycomb structure is the same as that of the boron lattice responsible for superconductivity in MgB2.


This paper presents the production of secondary metabolites with pharmaceutical and alimentary interest from plantain waste used as substrate in a solid stat...


A system and method for treating human nails afflicted with fungus, discoloration, or which are unusually thick is now disclosed. The system comprises a hydrogel moist pad or pad, a treatment agent comprising a metallic colloidal suspension having antifungal activity in an aqueous environment, and an adhesive for securing the hydrogel and treatment agent to a nail in need of such treatment. A method and regimen for treatment of the nail is also disclosed.


In order to make clear the effects of low oxygen concentration treatment for comparatively long period on NAR, RLGR, LAR, RGR and ΔWT in C3-plant, the experiment was conducted. Material used was two row barley (Hordeum vulgare L.). Seedlings, about 2.4 leaf stage, were grown for 10 and 20 days in a specially devised growth chamber equipped water culture facilities, at 2.5% O2-0.03% CO2(low oxygen concentration) and 2l% O2-O.O3% CO2 (normal air, control), and light intensity of 45Klx at 20°C leaf temperature under a regime of 10 hr light and 14 hr darkness. And yet, plants at low oxygen concentration were grown under normal air for darkness as same as cotrol ones. The experimental results obtained are summarized as follows: 1. NAR, LAR, RLGR, RGR and ΔWT in plants at low oxygen concentration were 132, 85, 93, 113 and 122% to control plants during 1-10 days, and 119, 75, 93, 92 and 110% during 10-20 days, respectively. 2. From the begining to the end of the experiment, NAR in plants at low oxygen concentration was still greater than that of normal air. This result suggests that the photorespiration of the plant was suppressed at low oxygen concentration throughout the experiment. 3. RGR in plants at low oxygen concentration was lesser than that of normal air during 10-20 days, while the former was greater than the latter during 1-1O days. It can be explained that RGR decreased because of greater decrease in LAR at low oxygen concentration during 10-20 days. 4. It was seemed that ΔWT in plants at low oxygen concentration was greater than that of normal air throughout the experiment, although there was not significant due to the insufficient numbers of experimental plants and so forth. ΔWT in plants at low oxygen concentration, however, will be overcom by that of normal air after longer duration at least more than 20days, because RGR decreased with prolonging of the duration of low oxygen concentration. 5. From the above stated results and previous reports1'2), effects of oxygen concentration on the growth of C3-plants may be shown schematically as fig.3


This paper, while acknowledging the communal factors, diversity of religious and cultural lifestyles, language differences, socioeconomic differences, and the serious polarisation that divides the different races of Zimbabwe and South Africa, attempts to address the problem of securing equal educational opportunities for all. As it is a known fact that pupils cannot reach their full development when denied equal educational opportunities, and, since all pupils in these two societies basically have the freedom to be educated, attempts to eradicate inequalities in educational provision based on racial, socioeconomic and religious grounds which were created during the apartheid era are made. Suggestions are also made on how to identify these disparities. The need for further investigation on what best methods could be applied in order to eradicate them is also recommended.


Kapok-husk ash containing + 28% potassium can be used as raw material of potassium-phosphatefertilizer. In this research, kapok-husk ash is mixed with phosphate powder by granulation process toproduce potassium-phosphate fertilizer. Operation variables are granulation time (4, 7, 10 minutes),kapok-husk content (3, 5, 7, 9 %-w/w), and adhesive liquid type (phosphoric acid solution andaquadest). The result shows that the increasing granulation time is proportional to fertilizer yield;the increasing kapok-husk ash content is proportional to potassium content, but inverselyproportional to phosphate content in fertilizer; and phosphoric acid solution is better than aquadestas adhesive liquid referred to fertilizer yield.


SUMMARY. A flow‐cytometric method was developed to determine the number of molecules of IgG bound to D‐positive red blood cells (RBC) when sensitized with low plasma concentrations of IgG anti‐D in the presence of an excess of D‐negative RBC. D‐positive RBC were infused into 12 D‐negative male volunteers 2 days after intramuscular injection of monoclonal anti‐D (BRAD‐3, IgG3 or BRAD‐5, IgG1). Blood samples were taken immediately before, 3 min and 3 h after injection of the RBC, incubated for 1 h at 37°C, washed, then incubated sequentially with FITC‐conjugated anti‐IgG, IgM monoclonal anti‐D, biotin‐conjugated anti‐IgM, and R‐phycoerythrin‐conjugated streptavidin. To prepare a standard curve, O R1R2 RBC were incubated in duplicate with varying dilutions of BRAD‐3 or BRAD‐5, and RBC from one set were mixed with an excess of D‐negative RBC (1:100) and labelled as above, while cell‐bound IgG on the other set was quantified by ELISA. The test samples and standards were analysed by flow cytometry and the mean channel (FITC) fluorescence was plotted against molecules IgG/cell, from which the sensitization level of D‐positive RBC in the test samples was determined. The use of IgM anti‐D enhanced the discrimination between D‐positive and D‐negative RBC, especially when fewer than about 3000 molecules IgG/cell were bound. The assay was sensitive to about 1000 molecules IgG/cell. The sensitization levels of the D‐positive RBC in samples taken 3 h after injection were found to be in the range 1500‐10,000 molecules IgG anti‐D per cell.


Diazinon is a pesticide that is commonly used in the rice fields of northern Iran The harmful effect of Diazinon and two anionic detergents were determined on Rutilus frisii kutum, individually and together on a laboratory scale. Fish were adapted to laboratory circumstances, distributed species wise in 500 litre tanks. Experiments were performed according to the TCR standard procedures. The LC50- 96 h was 0.34 mg/l for Diazinon. The LC50- 96 h in same species fingerlings were 4.69 and 12.24 mg/l under liquid and powder detergents, respectively. The LC50- 96 h were 7.27 and 0.9 mg/l for a mixture of Diazinon and liquid detergent and a mixture of Diazinon and powder detergent, respectively. The result showed that the toxicity of the mixture of Diazinon and powder detergent was greater than other mixtures. Generally, the detergent concentration toxicity rate (LC50- 96 h) in the ecosystem is less than the laboratory scale, but detergent can mix with some chemicals in the ecosystem and become stronger. The mortality rate will increase under this condition.


The objective of this research is to obtain the VP1 protein with high activity of FMDV serotype A.The recombinant expression vector pET-A-vp1 was constructed by cloning vp1 gene which was amplified by PCR into the prokaryotic expression plasmid pET28a from pMD19A-T-vp1.The E.coli BL21(DE3)bacteria which contained recombinant plasmid pET-A-vp1 were induced by IPTG.SDS-PAGE showed that VP1 protein was expressed in the form of inclusion body,and its molecular weight is about 29ku.Based on optimizing IPTG concentration and expression time,the largest amount of expression of VP1 protein was induced by 0.3 mmol/L IPTG for 6 hours at 37 ℃.Western-Blot analysis showed that the expression of VP1 protein can be specific recognized by positive serum of FMDV serotype A.After purification by washing inclusion and refolding VP1 by urea concentration gradient dialysis,ELISA test showed that VP1 had a high activity.


A compact Bluetooth/Ultrawideband (UWB) dual- band planar antenna with quadruple band-notch characteristics is presented. The proposed structure consists of a UWB semi-elliptical planar monopole, attached to an approximate trapezoidal spiral for 2.45-GHz Bluetooth application. The proposed antenna utilizes rectangular resonant spiral structures for rejection of quadruple frequency bands, i.e., WiMAX (3.3-3.6 GHz), WLAN (5.15-5.35, 5.725-5.825 GHz), and ITU 8 GHz. These resonant spirals are capacitively coupled with the microstrip feedline. The band-notch characteristics are controlled by changing the effective length of the spirals along with coupling gaps between the feedline and the spirals. The proposed antenna also achieves sharp reduction in the gain and efficiency at all the notch frequencies. However , at the passbands, the gain and radiation efficiency are almost stable. A good agreement between the simulated and measured results shows that the proposed antenna with surface dimensions of 24 × 17 mm2 is suitable for Bluetooth/UWB dual-band applications.


opacity is any 6-minute period during which the average opacity, as measured by the continuous monitoring system, exceeds the opacity level determined under § 61.163(c)(3) or the opacity level redetermined under § 61.163(d). (3) Ensure that any semiannual report of excess opacity required by paragraph (f)(2) of this section is postmarked by the thirtieth day following the end of the 6-month period and includes the following information: (i) The magnitude of excess opacity, any conversion factor(s) used, and the date and time of commencement and completion of each occurrence of excess opacity. (ii) Specific identification of each occurrence of excess opacity that occurs during startups, shutdowns, and malfunctions of the source. (iii) The date and time identifying each period during which the continuous monitoring system was inoperative, except for zero and span checks, and the nature of the system repairs or adjustments.


The kinetics of the oxidation of U(III) by Co(III) was studied in perchlorate media. The rate law of the reaction was found to be given by the expression -d[Co(III)]/dt = k1 [Co(III)][U(III)]. The value of k1 was determined as (1.12 ± 0.1) x 106 M-1 sec-1 at 20°C and ionic strength of 2.00 and was found to be independent of acid concentration at constant ionic strength. The temperature dependence of the reaction was studied in the range 11 to 31°C, and the values of ΔH2+ and ΔS2+ were determined as 2.00 ± 0.25 kcal mole-1 and -25.6 ± 0.8 cal deg-1 mole-1, respectively. In common with many other reactions of Co(III), the rate constant of this reaction is much lower than expected from the very high ΔG0 value and plausible reasons for this observation are discussed.


Background: We evaluated the efficacy of Cord Blood Platelet Gel (CBPG) in the regenerative reconstruction of the nasal septal tissue of a preterm infant undergoing non-invasive ventilation. Methods: A CBPC treatment was used to enhance the regeneration of the nasal septum of a premature patient in an experimental way, evaluating the efficacy described in the literature (selective bibliographic search in PubMed) of the use of blood products for non-transfusion purposes. Results: A partial but satisfactory regeneration of the patient's nasal septum was observed. Using the free NIH Image J online software, we were able to calculate the regenerated surface (about 83% of the destroyed cartilage). Conclusions: The use of platelet gel has been a promising alternative to surgical treatment in patients with severe damage to the nasal septum.


The elution profile of 115 Cd-treated and 113 Sn-treated extracts, run on Sephadex G-100 showed that soluble proteins were bound to cadmium and tin. Most of the cadmium-protein in Anabaena flos-aquae occurred on exposure to high cadmium concentrations (0.5 and 1.0 μg/ml). The molecular weights of these proteins were between 23 and 26 kD. Tin-binding protein occurred at low tin concentrations (5 and 10 μg/ml), and the molecular weight was >70,000 kD. The protein (70 kD) was associated with protein-bearing soluble pigments or the phycobiliproteins. Proteins of molecular weights of 22 to 33 kD were bound to metallothionine-like compounds.


Potential applications of robots in private and public human spaces have prompted the design of so-called "social robots" that can interact with humans in social settings and potentially cause humans to attach to the robots. The focus of this article is an analysis of possible benefits and challenges arising from such human-robot attachment as reported in the HRI literature, followed by guidelines for the use and the design of robots that might elicit attachment bonds. We start by analyzing the potential benefits for humans becoming attached to robots, which might include increased natural interaction, effectiveness and acceptance of the robot, social companionship, and well-being for the human. Turning to the potential risks associated with human-robot attachment, we discuss the possibly suboptimal use of the robot in the most benign cases, but also the potential formation of unidirectional emotional bonds, and the potential for deception and subconscious influence of the robot on the person in more severe cases. The upshot of the analysis then is a recommendation to reconceptualize relationships with social robots in an attempt to retain potential benefits of human-robot attachment, while mitigating (to the extent possible) its downsides.


sive at the initial stage of the design of the geothermal field (namely, the depth, number and dis-tance between wells). For the experimental deter-mination of thermal characteristics, a mobile au-tonomous heat source (electric boiler) is used to completely saturate the volume of soil surrounding the well with a soil heat exchanger, while simulta-neously monitoring power parameters, coolant flow rate, its temperature and its stabilization time in the supply and return pipelines. This study proposes a mathematical model for determining the thermal characteristics of a soil massif in different horizontal flat sections of a borehole of a heat exchanger. The model is based on the method of reproducing temperature field indicators in a continuous medium according to the principle of thermoelectric analogy and takes into account the non-uniformity of the drop in the temperature level of the coolant along the length of the heat exchanger pipelines. This approach can signif-icantly simplify the process of determining the rate of energy extraction from the well, reducing the labor costs of engineers in the design of the geothermal field. _______________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________


Gives a brief overview of a national survey conducted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food of the diets of 488 infants aged 6 to 12 months from Britain. Presents selected information on the amounts of foods eaten by older infants and the nutrients obtained from them, and explores the adequacy of the infants′ diet.


Gas electron multipliers (GEMs), which have square-shaped micro-holes, have been realized by using a deep-etch X-ray lithographic technique or LIGA process. In order to understand the operation of such a gas avalanche microdetector, we have performed electric field simulations by using three-dimensional finite-element methods. The most important electrical characteristic, the gas avalanche gain, of the LIGA-processed GEM has been measured with regards to two-different charge-collection geometries, open and closed GEM geometries. The measurement results for the gas avalanche gain over a wide range of thicknesses are presented. Other electrical characteristics, such as the pulse-height spectra and the time stability, are also presented.


Why should poets choose to repeat concrete sounds or abstract structures when conveying their poetic messages? After all, it would seem that repetition tends to slow down comprehension and require greater cognitive effort. The key to understanding the rationale behind these poetic devices is the communicative principle of relevance proposed by Sperber and Wilson: interlocutors communicate on the assumption that what is being said is relevant in the communicative context. But how things are said is also relevant: poets create patterns for pragmatic, communicative reasons. Poetic devices also promote affective states, which cannot be reduced to cognitive ones.


Station 7.1 was the first XAFS station to operate at the Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS) starting in 1981. A major upgrade of 7.1 has been taking place aimed towards a multidimensional XAFS and single crystal facility for 3d elements (Ca to Zn). The optical upgrade included a collimating mirror and QuEXAFS monochromator, also a highly compact and rapid count-rate multi-element solid state detector has been designed, built and recently commissioned. A stopped-flow system is commissioned and a diffractometer stage is planned. The necessary analytical tools for 3D XAFS refinement using crystallographic data as the starting 3D model have been developed for solution XAFS.


An Ms 6.2 earthquake occrred on January 10, 1998, in Zhangbei-Shangyi region, Hebei Province. It has important significance to study focal mechanism of the earthquake for all studies of seisndcities in souree area and Huabei region, and tectonic movements and geodynamics processes. We estimared focal mechanism of the earthquak using mantle waves' waveform fitting method and P wave's first motion signs, and obtained that the earthquak formed a thrust fault. Sevetal venical component records of P wave's train on Broad Band channel(BHZ) are provided.


To make students from techers universities gain educational background as well as keep disctinctive educational characters,the writer expounds on the cultivation goal,the cultivation system,the course plan,practice,etc.and also carries out some beneficial practice.


The first reliable investigation of the specific heats of gases was made by Regnault, who in an elaborate series of experiments measured the specific heats of several gases at constant pressure by the method of mixtures. This method, which in modified forms has been employed by nearly all subsequent observers, presents great difficulties when applied to gases, and further, it only gives the mean values of the specific heats over large ranges of temperature, and it is consequently not well adapted to the detection of small variations of the specific heat with temperature. During the period in which I was at the Royal College of Science, London, Prof. Callendar suggested that I should make some measurements of the specific heats of air and carbon dioxide by the continuous electric method, which is particularly well adapted to the measurements of specific heats over small ranges of temperature. I should like to take this opportunity of expressing my deepest thanks to Prof. Callendar for his advice and encouragement throughout the work. (2) Outline o f the Method .—A constant stream of gas is passed through a tube G F, fig. 1, to be presently described, into a jacket J, which surrounds a central tube AB. The gas passes into the tube AB at the temperature of the jacket, and is there heated by an electric current passing through a platinum coil P, the rise in temperature being measured by two platinum thermometers, K and H, used differentially. If C is the electric current, E the potential difference between the ends of the heating coil, Q the mass of gas which flows through the apparatus per second, δ θ the rise in temperature of the gas, J the mechanical equivalent of heat, and S the specific heat of the gas at constant pressure, then neglecting for the present the heating effect of the leads of the heating coil, we have, when the temperature conditions of the different parts of the apparatus have become steady,


In this paper, a number of test problems for deforming three-dimensional bodies, made of solid and porous materials, are solved on the basis of the method for solving nonlinear problems of the mechanics of a deformable solid body based on defining relations connecting the increments of true stresses and strains within the framework of the finite-element discretization of the computational domain. A good agreement between the calculation results and the known solutions was noted, and some detected patterns of deformation of bodies made of porous material were noted.


The Upper Ordovician–Lower Silurian Wufeng–Longmaxi (O3w-S1l) shale is widely distributed in the Xishui area, north Guizhou, China. However, the potential and characteristics of shale gases in the Xishui area are not well evaluated, which has limited the exploration of shale gas in this area. In this study, we collected 14 fresh core samples of Wufeng–Longmaxi Formations from Well XK-3 and conducted gas desorption experiments to evaluate the potential of shale gas resources in the Xishui area. After analyzing the chemical and isotopic composition of desorption gases, the origin and genesis of the shale gas were systematically studied. Our results show that the volume of desorption gases varies from 2.14 m3/t to 6.01 m3/t, with a mean value of 4.12 m3/t, showing great potential for shale gas in this area. The positive correlation between total organic carbon (TOC) and desorption gas volume indicates that organic matter provides the main pore volume for shale gas preservation. The desorption gases are very dry, which are mainly composed of methane (99.64‰–99.74%) with a very low content of ethane, and no nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide are detected. Based on geochemical diagrams, the desorption gases are identified as oil-associated thermogenic gases. The carbon isotopic values of methane and ethane display reversal distribution, due to the mixing of primary gases from kerogen cracking and the secondary gases from retained oil cracking and further possible cracking of heavy gaseous hydrocarbons (C3H8—C5H12) at higher thermal maturity (Ro > 2.00%). After comparing with Jiaoshiba, Changning, Weiyuan, and Dingshan areas, the carbon isotopic values of shale gases of Wufeng–Longmaxi shale also show different features at different areas, which are mainly controlled by the thermal maturity levels of the shale.


¢!0 P (N(t + ¢) i N(t) = 1jxt) ¢ where xt corresponds to pre vious spiking activity, fN(?)g t=0 , as well as any latent environmental stimuli. Most point process models are parametric as they are often efficiently computable, the parameters may be related back to physiological and/or environmental factors, and they have nice asymptotic properties when '(tjxt) lies in the assumed parametric class [1]. However, if '(tjxt) does not lie in the assumed class, misleading inferences can arise. Nonparametric methods are attractive due to fewer assumptions, but very few efficient methods for estimating '(tjxt) are known. We propose a computationally efficient method for nonparametric maximum likelihood estimation when '(tjxt) is assumed to be Lipschitz continuous [2]. We are given neural spiking activity observations fNig M=1 once every ¢ = 1 ms that result from fxig M=1 , known stimuli and the neuron's own spiking history. ^ 'i is the estimate of '(tjxt) at millisecond i. We minimize the negative log likelihood of the point process subject to the Lipschitz continuity constraints: min ^ ' M X i=1


The application of Mossbauer spectroscopy and the perturbed angular correlation technique to the investigation of diffusion phenomena and of the distribution of hydrogen near substitutional probes in metal hydrides is discussed for three cases: Both Mossbauer spectroscopy and perturbed angular correlations were used to study NbH* by means of "Ru probes, /J-PdH, was studied by 181Ta perturbed angular correlations, and the quasielastic Mossbauer absorption of 57Fe was used to study diffusion phenomena in VH, and VD,.


SUMMARY The abduction of a parent's child by the other parent can be an extremely heart-wrenching experience. Not only are the child's whereabouts and safety placed in doubt, the searching parent's life is thrown into turmoil. This case example describes the impact that the long-term abduction of a mother's son had on the mother's ability to maintain a relationship as a member of a new couple.


Next to continuous outcomes, counts, binary and binomial outcomes take a prominent place in applied modeling and the corresponding methodological literature. It is common to place such models within the generalized linear modeling (GLM) framework. One of the main reasons for extending this family is the accommodation of hierarchical structure in the data, stemming from clustering in the data which, in turn, may result from repeatedly measuring the outcome, for various members of the same family. The correlation resulting from the clustering is often accommodated through the inclusion of random subject-specific effects. Though not always, one conventionally assumes such random effects to be normally distributed. The repeated structure can be also accommodated by allowing a working correlation structure which leads to Generalized estimation equations. This study starts from the broad class of generalized linear models, accommodating clustering through a set of subject specific random effects. The methodology is applied to a longitudinal binary data from the south western Infants Longitudinal Growth Study.


Objective: Retrospective studies show that interruption of CPR for shocks and long pre-shock pauses for ventricular fibrillation (VF) have a negative association with shock success and survival. Guidelines changes in 2005 eliminated long post-shock pauses. We tested a new AED protocol that also eliminated long pre-shock pauses and increased CPR for patients with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) and VF. Materials and Methods: In a per-patient randomized controlled trial, patients with OHCA with shockable initial rhythm were treated with two AED protocols. In the control protocol (A), based on Guidelines 2000, no CPR was given during analysis of the heart rhythm and charging. Rhythm analysis followed every shock, followed by a pulse check or if needed a second (200J) or third (360J) shock. If no pulse was detected, CPR was resumed immediately for 1 min. In the study protocol (B), a modification of the Guidelines 2005, a 15 second period of CPR during and after charging was added to the voice prompts, no pulse check, no rhythm analysis after a single shock, followed by CPR for 2 minutes. In both protocols, C:V ratio was 30:2. Results: In 1043 OHCA patients were connected to an AED and resuscitation started, 415 were included in the final analysis. Study patients (n=202) had short pre- and postshock pauses, received more CPR and fewer shocks than control patients (n=213) (Table). VF was terminated after the first shock in similar proportions (A:87% vs. B:89%; P=0.61). No significant difference was found in survival to hospital admission (A:64% vs. B:61%; P=0.66) and survival to discharge (A: 37% vs. study: 41%; P=0.48). Conclusion: An AED protocol with a period of CPR immediately before the shock and shortened pre- and postshock pauses, increased overall hands-on time and more compressions delivered, but did not increase the percentage of patients in which VF was terminated after the first shock, survival to hospital admission or survival to discharge.


The integrated proton-deuteron scattering cross section σ for transversely polarized protons (Py p ) and tensor polarized deuterons (Pxz ) constitutes a null test signal for time- reversal invariance violating but P-parity conserving effects. This cross section will be measured at COSY. Using the generalized optical theorem and Glauber theory we study the null-test observable σ for different types of T-odd P-even NN-interactions.The formalism includes full spin dependence of elementary pN-amplitudes and S- and D-components of the deuteron wave function.


In this paper, we design a network examination management information system using JSP. This system simulates each link of examination in school, possess various kinds of functions. It is convenient, perfect, steady and flexible.


In this paper a hardware-software abandoned object detection vision system implemented in the Zynq SoC (System on Chip) device is presented. First, the solution was implemented in C++ and run as a bare metal application on the ARM processor core of the Zynq (using floating and fixed-point computations). For the target video stream 1280 χ 720 @ 50 fps (74.25 MHz pixel clock) it reached only 2 fps. Therefore, to speed-up the application, it was decided to move some of the image processing and analysis operations to the programmable logic. This allowed to obtain real-time image processing i.e. 50 fps, with power consumption of less than 4W.


MALA is an uncommon but potentially fatal complication. Incidence has been estimated to be 9 per 100,000 person-years of exposure. Mortality with MALA has been reported to be 45%. MALA after colonoscopy due to bowel preparation with polyethylene glycol has not been reported. To the best of the knowledge of the authors of this letter, this is the first case reported in literature. Accumulation of metformin can occur in individuals with renal impairment as it is excreted from the kidney. According to National Clinical Guidelines and American Diabetes Association consensus, metformin should be discontinued in individuals whose serum creatinine is greater than 1.5 mg/dL and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) is less than 30 mL/min per 1.73 m. It is worthwhile to calculate creatinine clearance (CrCl) or eGFR in elderly adults, especially those who have low muscle mass because creatinine production is low in these individuals. In the woman discussed in this letter, baseline serum creatinine was within the normal range. CrCl calculated using the Cockcroft-Gault equation was 34.61 mL/min and eGFR using the Modification of Diet in Renal Disease (MDRD) study equation was 58.35 mL/min per 1.73 m. According to the above guidelines, metformin was safe in this woman, but she was on a high dose of metformin, amounting to 3 g/d. Circulatory compromise can trigger the development of MALA. Being isomotic in nature, polyethylene glycol causes minimal fluid shift across colonic membrane, but recent studies have shown that polyethylene glycol is associated with risk of acute renal failure. Fatal dehydration has also been reported, arising through the interaction of multiple factors. Previous studies could not show an obvious relationship between dose of metformin and risk of MALA. The authors of the current letter believe that the potential culprit in acute renal failure and MALA in this woman was dehydration after bowel preparation for colonoscopy. Nausea and vomiting, a well-known side effect of polyethylene glycol, worsened the dehydration process. The above factors resulted in low effective circulatory volume and tissue hypoperfusion. The interplay of the above factors resulted in acute renal failure and MALA in this older woman with satisfactory baseline renal function. This case illustrates an important principle in managing older adults. Although objective parameters suggested that it was safe for this woman to take metformin, the presence of unexpected coexisting conditions can lead to dehydration, renal failure, and ultimately MALA. Because older adults are prone to iatrogenesis because of poor organ function and low reserve, clinicians need to pay particular attention whenn ordering investigations and prescribing drugs. Clinicians should beware of MALA in procedures that could lead to dehydration in older adults. Wang Chun Kwok, MBBS Department of Medicine, Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong SAR, China


We live in a rapidly changing world and keeping abreast of technology and evolving "best practices" can be challenging. Even with our instant digital access and social networking, assessing where we stand with regard to our adoption of newer trends can be daunting. With that caveat in the forefront, here are four topics in obstetrics and gynecology that we believe merit your attention.


The invention discloses a fingerprint recognition access control system. The fingerprint recognition access control system comprises a fingerprint input module, a fingerprint verification module, an electric control lock module and a liquid crystal display module, wherein the fingerprint input module comprises a fingerprint camera and a storage unit; fingerprint pictures captured by the fingerprint camera are stored into the storage unit; the fingerprint verification module comprises a fingerprint comparison unit and a fingerprint recognition unit; the electric control lock module relates to input of a username and a password; the liquid crystal display module comprises a liquid crystal display; the fingerprint input module, the fingerprint verification module and the liquid crystal display module are connected with the electric control lock module. In the mode, the fingerprint recognition access control system provided by the invention is simple to operate, consumes shorter time in operation, is compatible with password input and fingerprint recognition, and has a high accuracy degree.


Urinary Tract Infections (UTI) are considered a cause of medical consultation in primary care, which often leads to start an empirical treatment until we have the results of microbiological studies; therefore it is necessary to search for a timely diagnosis especially for pregnant women because it is a high risk infection that, without being treated in a timely manner may cause abortions in pregnant women[1]. Therefore the development to create the simulation of a diagnosis of UTI is analized, these are tested in different training methods used in Neural Lab[2], all the results were verified using a neural network program developed in Matlab. Finally, a user interface was developed in Microsoft Visual Studio to classify patients based on their symptoms and test results of urine.


This paper addresses the problem of robust speech recognition in noisy conditions in the framework of hidden Markov models (HMMs) and missing feature imputation techniques. It presents a new statistical approach to the detection and estimation of unreliable features based on a probabilistic measure and Gaussian mixture model (GMM) representing clean speech distribution. In the estimation process, the GMM is compensated using parameters of the statistical model of additive background noise. The GMM means are used to estimate the clean speech features. The GMM imputed values and the noisy signal are combined proportionally to a probabilistic reliability measure to estimate the clean speech. The reliability measure allows us to avoid to use a hard decision threshold to decompose the data into reliable and unreliable features and consequently reduces the risk of missclassification. GMM based technique is less complex than the corresponding HMM based estimation and gives similar improvement in the recognition performance. Once unreliable features are replaced by the estimated clean speech features, the entire set of spectral features is transformed to the MFCC (Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficient) feature domain. The MFCCs which are characterized by a higher baseline recognition rate are used for final recognition using continuous density hidden Markov models (CDHMMs) with diagonal covariance matrices.