0271764 6/1988 European Pat. Off. . 2557542 1/1980 Fed. Rep. of Germany . WO86/0715 12/1986 PCT Int'l Appl. . Primary Examiner-Gerald A. Michalsky Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Darby & Darby (57) ABSTRACT In connection with an electrode holder for immersion type flow-type and attachment-type measuring systems in analytical chemistry, in particular for pH, conductiv ity, oxygen and chloride measurements, or the like, comprising an outer pipe in which an inner pipe carry ing the measuring probe is supported in axially sliding relationship, and a stopcock blocking the supply of measuring agent by means of a plug of the stopcock when the inner pipe is retracted from the measuring agent it is proposed to leave the plug open on one side in the area of its passage channel and to have a remain ing rear wall of the passage channel facing the supply opening of the measuring agent.


Teenagers' unpreparedness in facing the change within him or herself, including increasing inner sexual temptation, makes him or her harder to be controlled. It's not uncommon that those conditions eventually lead to teenagers' inner conflict. The situation is worsened by the easiness in accessing inappropriate information regarding sex through printed or electronic media as well as peer roles in providing information about sex. Combined, both have significant effects in shaping teenagers' knowledge, attitude and behavior toward sex. Communication between parents and teenagers regarding sexuality has the most important and significant influence toward their sexual attitude and behavior. Effective communication between both has been identified as core strategy in endorsing responsible sexual behavior with regard to teenagers' minimum sexual experience. Through communication, parents are expected to be main source of information and educator in relation to sexuality for their teenagers. The objective of this research is to analyze the correlation between parental communication pattern and teenagers' sexual behaviors at SMA Tamansiswa Mojokerto. This research is designed as correlative analytical design of cross sectional study. Sampling technique of the research is probability sampling i.e. cluster random sampling. -----------------------------------------------------------------------* Corresponding author. E-mail address: firstname.lastname@example.com.


A numerical model for simulating the vapor spread and dispersion associated with LNG releases in the atmosphere is described. The model is based on solving the set of three-dimensional, time-dependent, conservation equations governing incompressible flows. Spatial discretization is performed via a modified Galerkin finite element method (GFEM), and time integration is carried out via the forward Euler method (pressure is computed implicitly, however). Several cost-effective techniques (including subcycling, mass lumping, and reduced Gauss-Legendre quadrature) which have been implemented are discussed. Numerical results obtained using this model are presented and compared in separate reports.


The present study aims to investigate the relation of mental health with emotional intelligence among college going girls of rural and urban area. The investigator used Emotional intelligence scale by Dr. Arun kumar and Professor Suraksha pal and mental health scale by Dr.(smt.) Kamlesh Sharma to test the emotional intelligence and mental health of the sample. The sample (N=100) 18- to 20-year-old. Undergraduate girls were taken through purposive random sampling from various degree college of Ara city and New Delhi. Correlation analysis was used to find out the relationship of variable emotional intelligence and five dimensions (self-awareness, managing emotions, maturity, empathy, social skill) of emotional intelligence with mental health. Further the t-test was applied to know the significant difference between emotional intelligence and mental health of the girls living in rural and urban area. The result indicated that there is positive relation between emotional intelligence and four dimensions of emotional intelligence (managing emotions, maturity, empathy, social skill). The relationship is negative between the self-awareness dimension of emotional intelligence and mental health. Further a significant difference was found between emotional intelligence and mental health of the girls living in rural and urban area.


An important application of holographic optical elements (HOE) is coordinate transformations (or mappings) to put data into a format that can be operated on by an optical processor. In optical coordinate transformation, a specific one-to-one mapping of pixel locations in the input plane to pixel locations in the output plane is produced. For some desired transformations, the data redistribution cannot be realized with a single continuous-phase hologram, and in these cases a multiple hologram system must be considered. The processing of spotlight synthetic aperture radar (SSAR) data is used as a sample application to illustrate the concept. The design and fabrication of the holograms for SSAR data processing is discussed and experimental results are given.


Gamow-Teller (GT) transitions for 76 Ge using QRPA methods in this article are calculated, which play an essential role in the supernovae. Three different QRPA models are used to the GT strength distributions. QRPA models namely single quasi-particle (sqp), Pyatov Method (PM) and the Schematic Model (SM). Gamow-Teller distribution, Σ B(GT) - , the centroid of energy, the width of energy and ISR are calculated by using these models. The effect of particle-particle interaction on spherical nuclei and deformed nuclei on Gamow-Teller transitions is wanted to show. Deformed Woods-Saxon potential is used in calculations of Single-particle energies and wave functions. The results are also compared with previous theoretical calculations and measured strength distributions wherever available. It is expected that the current study of GT features would be helpful and may guide to a better knowledge of the presupernova progression of massive stars.


Abstract
Our study concentrates exclusively on the domestic effective tax rate (ETR), with the purpose of finding and characterizing their financial determinants. Using data on almost 5,000 US companies between fiscal years 2003 and 2010, we use regression analysis to find that the domestic ETR is affected by company size (as measured by sales), the extent to which the company is leveraged, level of fixed assets intensity, and the state of the economy. In addition, we find that domestic ETRs are also affected by the company's level of internationality, which counterintuitively implies that the greater the company's international activity, the less domestic taxes it pays for every dollar of US income. Both financial managers and policy makers can use our findings to reduce tax liabilities domestically, and to improve corporate tax regulations. While several attempts are made in the literature to compare ETRs of corporations that reside in different geographic locations, this is the first to characterize ETR determinants.


The ability of livers to produce endogenous leukotrienes after immunological stimulation was tested with organs from rats and guinea pigs. Passive sensitization of rats in vivo with monoclonal murine antidinitrophenol‐IgE before antigen challenge in the isolated perfused liver system elicited a rapid hepatic production and biliary excretion of leukotrienes as judged by radioimmunoassay after separation of individual leukotrienes by high‐performance liquid chromatography. Within 10 min after antigen infusion, mainly leukotriene C4, but also leukotriene D4 and N‐acetyl‐leukotriene E4, appeared in the bile. The biliary excretion rate of antigen‐induced cysteinyl leukotrienes rose from <2 pmol · min−1 · (kg body mass)−1 before challenge to about 30 pmol · min−1 · (kg body mass)−1 for 20 min before it declined toward prechallenge level. Quantitatively similar hepatic production of cysteinyl leukotrienes was elicited in isolated perfused guinea pig livers challenged with ovalbumin after active sensitization of the animals with ovalbumin plus Al(OH)3. To exclude extrahepatic contributions to the observed leukotriene production, both passive sensitization with anti‐dinitrophenol‐IgE and subsequent antigen challenge were performed on isolated rat livers perfused with blood‐free medium. Such exclusively hepatic sensitization and challenge also resulted in massive production of leukotrienes. The biliary excretion rate of cysteinyl leukotrienes amounted to approximately 20 pmol · min−1 · (kg body mass)−1 during the 10 to 20 min period after antigen challenge as compared with <1 pmol · min−1 · (kg body mass)−1 before challenge. These results indicate that during anaphylaxis the liver represents a rich source of leukotrienes, and, among the cellular production sites in question, liver mast cells alone or in cooperation (e.g., with Kupffer cells) are likely candidates for such hepatic leukotriene generation. (HEPATOLOGY 1991;13:482–488.)


The paper describes a fast computational method for the numerical inversion of two-dimensional Laplace transforms (2D-NILT). The numerical procedure is basically that based on FFT algorithms (Brancik and Valsa, 1998), but it is improved significantly using an /spl epsiv/-algorithm to give precision to the result. Compared with the original method, the procedure under consideration enables the error to be decreased by a few orders. The method has been programmed and verified using the universal mathematical language Matlab.


HodgeRank on random graphs is proposed recently as an effective framework for multimedia quality assessment problem based on paired comparison methods. With a random design on graphs, it is particularly suitable for large scale crowdsourcing experiments on the Internet. However, there still lacks a systematic study about online schemes to deal with the rising streaming and massive data in crowdsourceable scenarios. To fill in this gap, we propose in this paper an online ranking/rating scheme based on stochastic approximation of HodgeRank on random graphs for Quality of Experience (QoE) evaluation, where assessors and rating pairs enter the system in a sequential or streaming way. The scheme is shown in both theory and experiments to be efficient in obtaining global ranking by exhibiting the same asymptotic performance as batch HodgeRank under a general edge-independent sampling process. Moreover, the proposed framework enables us to monitor topological changement and triangular inconsistency in real time. Among a wide spectrum of choices, two particular types of random graphs are studied in detail, i.e., Erdös-Rényi random graph and preferential attachment random graph. The former is the simplest I.I.D. (independent and identically distributed) sampling and the latter may achieve more efficient performance in ranking the top- k items due to its Rich-get-Richer property. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework on LIVE and IVC databases.


As a main way of logistics transportation, electric logistics vehicle is beneficial to logistics industry and save energy. Parameters matching and optimization method of power transmission system for electric logistics vehicle is studied in this article. Data processing rules and principles are created for CHTC-LT working condition. Working condition and genetic algorithm are used for parameters matching and transmission ratio optimization of power transmission system. Driving range of electric logistics vehicle could be improved.


About eighteen years ago I was called to see a patient, a recent arrival from Russia, whom we will call Mrs. Blankstein. She was very ill, indeed, and I found it necessary to see her every day for a month, commencing December 15. She recovered, and in due time I sent my bill. In somewhat overdue time her husband came to my office to pay it. The following was his plea: "Mr. Doctor: dat bill you zendt mein vife, he's all dright, but vone dem visits you make mein vife you makes him on a Grisdmas day, and I vandt you make me a bresent dat visit you makes mein vife ond Grisdmas day." The request was so original, coming from the source it did, so different from the usual demand of a per cent. off, that I threw off the visit, made him a "bresent" of it, instead of


We present here an algorithm for an efficient computation of factorizations of linear differential operators with power series coefficients in an exponential extension of a base field. This algorithm is based on the results presented by Mark van Hoeij on factorization of linear differential operators with coefficients in C((x)). On the positive slopes of the Newton polygon associated to the linear differential operator, if the factors of the Newton polynomial are coprime, the algorithm does not require the use of differential algebra but only Bézout's theorem.


The Fiftieth Gate is Holocaust memoir of high literary aspiration and complexity. Indeed it is the most accomplished example of an Australian Jewish autobiography that eschews the realism characterizing most such texts and embraces modernist narrative experimentation: not just poetry, but inventive techniques of narrative juxtaposition and transition, interleaved historical documents, innovative engagements with sociological generalizations about survivors and the experience of their children.


Abstract The safe development of landfill sites is daily increasing in importance. In this context the analysis of soil gases. especially for methane. is vital. Techniques have been developed for the sampling of such gases. and their subsequent analysis at the v.p.m. level by gas chromatography. Factors affecting the gas concentrations are considered.


This work is a summary of the postgraduate thesis carried out at the Department of Primary Education, Democritus University of Thrace, so as to explore the issue of school indiscipline from both theoretical and empirical terms. In previous years, inappropriate behaviors were dealt with severely painful means, but at present the above methods have been banned and replaced with other interventionist actions, each of which has a different degree of efficacy to the unruly child. Lately, however, greater emphasis is given on preventing incidents of disobedience, a project that depends on various factors. Finally, research was conducted on a sample of 192 primary school teachers in the prefecture of Serres, whose answers were correlated with the variable "gender".


Anthropomorphic breast phantoms are important tools for a wide range of tasks including pre-clinical validation of novel imaging techniques. In order to improve the realism in the phantoms, assessment of simulated anatomical structures is crucial. Thickness of simulated Cooper's ligaments influences the percentage of dense tissue, as well as qualitative and quantitative properties of simulated images. We introduce three methods (2-dimensional watershed, 3-dimensional watershed, and facet counting) to assess the thickness of the simulated Cooper's ligaments in the breast phantoms. For the validation of simulated phantoms, the thickness of ligaments has been measured and compared with the input thickness values. These included a total of 64 phantoms with nominal ligament thicknesses of 200, 400, 600, and 800 μm. The 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional watershed transformations were performed to obtain the median skeleton of the ligaments. In the 2-dimensional watershed, the median skeleton was found cross-section by cross-section, while the skeleton was found for the entire 3-dimensional space in the 3-dimensional watershed. The thickness was calculated by taking the ratio of the total volume of ligaments and the volume of median skeleton. In the facet counting method, the ligament thickness was estimated as a ratio between estimated ligaments' volume and average ligaments' surface area. We demonstrated that the 2-dimensional watershed technique overestimates the ligament thickness. Good agreement was found between the facet counting technique and the 3-dimensional watershed for assessing thickness. The proposed techniques are applicable for ligaments' thickness estimation on clinical breast images, provided segmentation of Cooper's ligaments has been performed.


This article looks at the various ways in which airports in Germany are addressing environmental issues. At Hamburg Airport, the article describes efforts directed at improving noise protection. The airport became the first and only airport to date in the world that has a noise protection hangar allowing engineers to conduct full power static tests on aircraft. The airport also levies landing fees based on aircraft weight and noise. Additional environment-friendly programs include usage of alternative energy sources such as hydrogen-powered trucks and natural gas as a fuel. At Munich Airport, biofuel is being used to power a large proportion of the ground services fleet. At Dusseldorf, the airport is using bio-monitoring to measure the impact of flying operations on the local flora and environment. At the future Berlin Brandenburg Airport, which involves the expansion of Schoenefeld Airport and the closure of Tegel and Tempelhof airports, "compensation and replacement" measures are being implemented to mitigate the impacts of expansion. Finally, the article relates efforts at Munich and Frankfurt airports involving an emission-linked component to take-off and landing fees.


In the oblivion of women's physical education during the 19th century, Teresa Castellanos de Mesa, fencing master and first instructor in the Spanish physical education, stood out as a heroin. From this particular position, Castellanos vindicated to Queen Isabel II's reign (1833-1868) the right for women to strengthen themselves, milestone which makes her the pioneer of the feminist vindication of the gymnastic and sport exercises in Spain.


Frictional losses within the transmission components of robotic manipulators are often modeled as a constant Coulomb friction force or/and a viscous friction force proportional to the sliding velocity. However, the variation in contact forces of lubricated surfaces of the mechanical transmission system influences the friction force. The joint temperature also has an effect on the variation of the latter. Hence, the importance of considering the parameters mentioned in the dynamic model of the robotic manipulator. This paper presents a new load and temperature-dependent model that will be subsequently identified from experimental measurements carried out on two-link robotic manipulator with different loads.


Simple Summary There are various society-specific guidelines addressing adjuvant brachytherapy (BT) after surgery for endometrial cancer (EC). However, these recommendations are not uniform. Against this background, clinicians need to make decisions despite gaps between best scientific evidence and clinical practice. We analysed decision criteria influencing the selection for adjuvant radiotherapy among European radiation oncology experts. For this, GEC-ESTRO provided 19 European radiation oncology experts on gynaecological brachytherapy for decision-making analyses. The manuscript presents patterns in decision-making among these experts and demonstrates areas of consensus/discrepancies. We also analysed dose prescription and techniques of brachytherapy. This analysis is of special value as the objective approach enabled us to obtain an unbiased description of decision-making among the specialists (the study was not aimed to create or enforce a consensus). The manuscript provides valuable insight into clinical decision-making with a high impact on treatment selection, as expected differences between experts were observed. With this manuscript we are able to visualize and quantify these. This information is relevant for interdisciplinary discussions. Abstract Background: There are various society-specific guidelines addressing adjuvant brachytherapy (BT) after surgery for endometrial cancer (EC). However, these recommendations are not uniform. Against this background, clinicians need to make decisions despite gaps between best scientific evidence and clinical practice. We explored factors influencing decision-making for adjuvant BT in clinical routine among experienced European radiation oncologists in the field of gynaecological radiotherapy (RT). We also investigated the dose and technique of BT. Methods: Nineteen European experts for gynaecological BT selected by the Groupe Européen de Curiethérapie and the European Society for Radiotherapy & Oncology provided their decision criteria and technique for postoperative RT in EC. The decision criteria were captured and converted into decision trees, and consensus and dissent were evaluated based on the objective consensus methodology. Results: The decision criteria used by the experts were tumour extension, grading, nodal status, lymphovascular invasion, and cervical stroma/vaginal invasion (yes/no). No expert recommended adjuvant BT for pT1a G1-2 EC without substantial LVSI. Eighty-four percent of experts recommended BT for pT1a G3 EC without substantial LVSI. Up to 74% of experts used adjuvant BT for pT1b LVSI-negative and pT2 G1–2 LVSI-negative disease. For 74–84% of experts, EBRT + BT was the treatment of choice for nodal-positive pT2 disease and for pT3 EC with cervical/vaginal invasion. For all other tumour stages, there was no clear consensus for adjuvant treatment. Four experts already used molecular markers for decision-making. Sixty-five percent of experts recommended fractionation regimens of 3 × 7 Gy or 4 × 5 Gy for BT as monotherapy and 2 × 5 Gy for combination with EBRT. The most commonly used applicator for BT was a vaginal cylinder; 82% recommended image-guided BT. Conclusions: There was a clear trend towards adjuvant BT for stage IA G3, stage IB, and stage II G1–2 LVSI-negative EC. Likewise, there was a non-uniform pattern for BT dose prescription but a clear trend towards 3D image-based BT. Finally, molecular characteristics were already used in daily decision-making by some experts under the pretext that upcoming trials will bring more clarity to this topic.


Within
 this study genetic parameters for hip and elbow dysplasia in German Shepherd
 Dogs were estimated. Furthermore, additional parameters for a better
 registration of elbow dysplasia were analyzed.
 Data was
 provided by the German Shepherd Breeding Association in Augsburg, Germany.
 In the
 first part of this study heritability and variance components for hip
 dysplasia (HD) in a population of 78.476 German Shepherd dogs were estimated
 using the Gibbs Sampler method. The models investigated included firstly the
 random additive genetic effects of the animal and of the mother and secondly
 the permanent environmental effect of the litter and the kennel. The sex and
 the combined effect of the litter size and percentage of examined dogs per
 litter are considered as fixed effects. Submodels were compared to the full
 model to evaluate the importance of the random maternal genetic effect and
 its influence on other model components. Heritabilities estimated in the full
 model were h² = 0.201 ± 0.015 (additive genetic animal effect) and h² = 0.052
 ± 0.006 for the additive genetic maternal effect. The direct animal and the
 maternal effects were negatively correlated genetically (ram =
 -0.48 ± 0.045). The variance of the kennel was c²zw = 0.01,
 whereas the variance of the common litter effect reached c²w =
 0.047.
 The
 genetic trend of the years 1992 to 2000 of the breeding values showed a
 significant genetic improvement with a decrease of the maternal genetic
 effect. The results lead to the conclusion that the omission of the additive
 genetic maternal effects reduce the selection response, because the additive
 genetic effect of the animal and the mother are negatively correlated.
 In the
 second part of this thesis radiographic findings of elbow joints in 1389
 German Shepherd Dogs were evaluated. The objective was to develop a procedure
 for predicting breeding values for elbow dysplasia (ED).
 The
 scoring characteristics used are related to the official ED score, which are
 raised following the present internationale set of criteria, which gives
 priority treatment to grade of osteoarthritis in the joint. In addition, two
 grading systems, system 1 by LANG et al. (1998) and system 2 by TELLHELM
 (2002) were also investigated not only to include the grading of
 osteoarthritis but particularly, the main reasons of ED: fragmented medial
 coronoid process, ununited anconeal process, osteochondrosis and non-
 congruence of the elbow articulation.
 Moreover,
 four measuring-angles were used, which were lifted of a computer-based elbow
 measuring of the X-rays. The estimation of the variance–covariance
 matrices was performed by multivariate REML procedures. The breeding values
 of animals were predicted using BLUP. Sex, age at examination, the year and
 month of birth, the examining veterinary expert, the X-ray positioning and
 the X-ray bending angle were also considered as fixed effects. The model
 included the additive genetic effect of animals, which were connected with
 the whole population by the numerator relationship matrix.
 Using the
 multivariate analyses the heritability of the official ED score was h² =
 0.109 ± 0.004, of the grading system 1 h² = 0.565 ± 0.059 and of the grading
 system 2 h² = 0.581 ± 0.059. The additive genetic correlation between ED
 score and the grading systems was highly
 positive (rg = 0.993 to 1.0)
 The
 heritability in multivariate analyses of the official ED score and the elbow
 joint angles was h² = 0.249 for the ED score. The heritability of the angle
 characteristics were altogether viewed on a high standard giving values
 between h² = 0.483 and h² = 0.730. The standard deviation of these values
 were between sh² =0.038 and sh² = 0.056.
 The
 additive genetic correlation between the individual angle of the elbow joint
 and the ED score varied from rg= -0.085 to rg = 0.296
 and therefore were quite small.
 The
 breeding values for the official ED score and for the 4 angles were
 estimated. A pedigree of 7.742 animals were used within the study. The
 multivariate breeding value considers the 4 measuring angles as indirect
 traits for official ED score. The differences between the multi- and
 univariate breeding values of ED were very small. Inclusion of the four elbow
 angles as indirect traits for ED did not influence the ranking of breeding
 values in comparison to the breeding values only using official ED score Further
 more breeding values were estimated for the scoring systems. The more
 detailed information that can be gained from the scoring systems results in
 better differentiation between the breeding values of the assessed animals.
 Especially breeding values of scoring system 2 compared to breeding values of
 the ED-assessments showed a more continuously distribution.


We examined the effect of treatment with intraventricular injection of a decoy oligonucleotide that binds and inhibits nuclear factor‐κB on cytokine expression, ICAM‐1 expression, neutrophil recruitment, apoptosis, and tissue injury in a model of neonatal hypoxic‐ischemic cerebral injury with varying degrees of hypoxia. We found a reduction of interleukin‐1β, tumor necrosis factor‐α, soluble ICAM‐1, neutrophil counts, and activity after 2 hr of hypoxia, but not with 90 min of hypoxia. By contrast, a significant reduction of apoptosis was seen in animals treated after 90 min of hypoxia but not in those treated after 2 hr of hypoxia. Overall evidence of an inflammatory response was sparse, with low levels of ICAM‐1 expression and neutrophil recruitment even in the more severe hypoxic ischemic injury. It is likely that the decoy oligonucleotide affects cerebral injury and apoptosis not through suppression of downstream elements of the inflammatory response but through other mechanisms, one of which is the reduction of transcription and synthesis of cytokines, which are known to affect other responses to cellular injury. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.


In experimental areas of the Territorial Research Station of Sugarcane an experiment was developed in 2010, in order to know the individual effect and intera...


Bilibili video website has grown into a giant video platform. With the anime culture that can attract the younger generation, Bilibili has built a large-scale user creation platform. To stimulate users' creative inspiration, Bilibili issued several plans to provide corresponding rewards for the content produced by video creators, attracting more and more people to participate in the creative party. In this context, many excellent works were born, but at the same time, there are also works with mixed qualities in the video, i.e., "low-innovation" works. "Low-innovation" works hinder personal development and have a bad impact on the production climate of the platform. First, this paper uses the principal component analysis algorithm to pre-process the user data of Bilibili to improve the efficiency of the algorithm. Based on the K-means clustering algorithm, it analyzes and identifies "low-innovation" users. According to the analysis results, it sets different incentive plans for different types of user groups and plays a positive role in the video quality of Bilibili.


A novel SVM meta classifier based sport video classification algorithm is presented to bridge the low level feature and high level semantic feature.Domain knowledge rules are exploited to extract features semantically.Meta classifiers classify the video clips with combination strategies.The experimental results showed that the algorithm can be used in almost all sports video classification,and have better performance than other non-semantic associate classification algorithms with an accuracy attaining 92.23%.


- The design of flexible, cheap, and reconfigurable front-ends is a challenging task in terms of the RF transceiver electronics. Many requirements to the analogue components can be met by today's technologies, however, this may not always be practical except for measurements and prototyping. This paper addresses RF impairments in wideband cognitive radios, especially non-linear distortions in the receiver. Receiver non-linearities affect the reliability of spectrum sensing, a key issue in spectrum awareness. Here, the focus is on mitigation of non-linear distortions using "Feedforward Technique". We present experimental work studying the effects of non-linear distortions and analysing the performance of a typical wideband software defined receiver. A feed-forward mitigation algorithm with an adaptive filter has been implemented and applied to real measurement data for cleaning the baseband spectrum of distortion products. The results obtained show that a significant suppression of distortion products can be achieved.


In this paper, an improved gravitational search algorithm, revolving gravitational search algorithm (RGSA) is proposed. RGSA optimizes the selection of in GSA by importing revolving operator, lets agents not included in have opportunity to influence other agents' movement. RGSA could further exploit potential districts and strengthen the ability of exploration than GSA. Experiments confirm the high efficiency of RGSA. Keywords—gravitational search algorithm; exploration; exploitation; revolving operator


The author examines major economic agents, the procedures and characteristics of their interaction, as well as factors which exert their influence on the operation of a company amidst a market system with due account for today's globalization trends. Moreover the author analyses macroeconomic policy factors and their influence upon operation of companies, and examines the interaction of processes and phenomena of random nature which enhance an economic agent's activities.


In mid-2010, I created an on-line course in Audio Description (in addition to establishing America's first ongoing college course in Audio Description, based at Montgomery College in Montgomery County, MD (suburban Washington, DC). Simultaneously, Dr. Francisco Lima (blind from birth) of the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (Recife, Brazil) was building a college-level on-line curriculum for the study of Audio Description. Aiming to contribute to Dr. Lima's on-line audio-description course, This paper/multi-media presentation will focus on how my on-line course was developed, the challenges of building an engaging on-line audio description curriculum and the planning of each lesson. The session will emphasize the practicalities of teaching this material on-line and its application for the employment of audio describers. With the establishment of a mandate for description on broadcast description in the United States (and mandates at various stages of development in a range of countries), wider opportunities for employment exist and will increase—it suggests positive ramifications for training programs and the teaching of audio description worldwide.
In addition to contributing with Dr. Lima's course, this paper also intends to establish the basis for a joint training sometime in the near future, when I will join Dr. Lima in Recife for an in-person presentation and review of student final exams/practica in audio description.


A novel Pillar phase change memory based on fully integrated test arrays in 180nm CMOS technology has been successfully fabricated. A current-confining Pillar structure leads to a self-heating at the center of the chalcogenide layer, and needs only one additional mask level for its fabrication. Switching characteristics with write currents less than 900muA at 75nm diameter and multilevel operation are reported


Trends in migration to the city of Ciechanow, Poland, from 1976 to 1987 are analyzed. The author finds that a "majority of population settling in this centre came from rural areas, and the percent share of this subpopulation in the total number of migrants grew from 62.8% in 1976 to over 80% in 1987." Consideration is given to changes in age distribution and family characteristics among migrants. (SUMMARY IN ENG AND RUS)


This paper starts with circular packaging, combined with the characteristics of low-carbon supply chain, expounds that circular packaging includes circular outer packaging and circular inner packaging, analyzes its application bottleneck in low-carbon supply chain, and puts forward suggestions to promote the application from multiple angles, hoping to play a certain role in promoting the development of low-carbon supply chain for logistics enterprises, governments and social organizations.


A series of copolymers with varying content of porphyrin units was prepared by copolymerization of 5-(4-acrylamidophenyl)-10,15,20-triphenylporphyrin with N-isopropylacrylamide. Zn-containing analog of one of the copolymers was also synthesized. It was established that the intensities of some absorption bands of a porphyrin chromophore markedly change upon polymerization. It was shown that the absorption properties of the aqueous solutions of the resulting polymers gradually change near LCST of N-isopropylacrylamide, whereas the fluorescence polarization sharply increases upon phase transition.


When reasoning with description logic (DL) knowledge bases (KBs), performance is of critical concern in real applications, especially when these KBs contain a large number of axioms. To improve the performance, axiom absorption has been proven to be one of the most effective optimization techniques. The well-known algorithms for axiom absorption, however, still heavily depend on the order and the format of the axioms occurring in KBs. In addition, in many cases, there exist some restrictions in these algorithms which prevent axioms from being absorbed. The design of absorption algorithms for optimal reasoning is still an open problem. In this paper, we propose some new algorithms to absorb axioms in a KB to improve the reasoning performance. The experimental tests we conducted are mostly based on synthetic benchmarks derived from common cases found in real KBs. The experimental evaluation demonstrates a significant runtime improvement.


The value of lithium carbonate as an adjunctive treatment of resistant schizophrenia was tested in a 4‐week clinical trial using a single‐blind, randomized, consent design. Treatment and control groups were drawn from a population of detained patients in an English special (maximum security) hospital. The 2 groups were comparable in terms of age, sex, severity of symptoms, length of hospitalization and concurrent neuroleptic dosage. The addition of lithium carbonate to the treatment regimen did not result in symptomatic improvement in patients completing the treatment protocol. The ethical and practical difficulties raised by the trial are discussed.


We report a fabrication-tolerant and broad-band polarization rotator implemented on the SiN platform. Numerical studies predict approximately 99.7% polarization conversion efficiency for a device length of 185 micrometres. Preliminary experimental work suggests 90% conversion efficiency across the 1520-1620 nm waveband.


A guide to the Physician Assistant resources available at Bethel University Library Introduction and explanation of how to use this guide


The proposed localization algorithm first generates clusters and a spanning tree consisting of cluster heads,and then the cluster head computes local coordinates of all member nodes in the cluster. Finally,it generates a global coordinate of all nodes through the above spanning tree. Analysis and simulation show that the proposed algorithm has higher cover rate and precision of localization,lower network traffic,less time consumption,and higher scalability than the existing SDGPSN.


Summary Short statement: Field and chamber studies show a decline in leaf hydraulic conductance as soybean leaves age that is independent of decreases in soil moisture.


The article deals with the features of impolite responses of YouTube Arab viewers of political TV talk shows.
 YouTube comments are written discourse of live commentary, a new genre of computer-mediated communication. Based on data from
 comments of Arabic viewers of political TV talk shows on YouTube, the article argues that impolite responses appear to be a common
 feature in Arabic comments in political talk shows on YouTube. Identity and power are reconsidered in this paper as variables that
 trigger impoliteness in Arabic online responses in political talk shows on YouTube. It argues that obscuring identity online
 incites the use of conventionalized impoliteness to exercise power on the TV presenter or the TV episode's guest. The article also
 shows how communication variables such as context, commentator's identity and models of communication influence the realization of
 impolite responses in those online interactions. The study draws on Spencer-Oatey
 (2007) to correlate identity, power, and impoliteness. It also utilized Culpeper's
 (2011) bottom-up model of impoliteness triggers.


The symbolic computation language, Maple, is used tospecify and simulate the performance of time-varying substitution cipher systems known as rotor machines, the most famous examples of which are the ENIGMA machines used by Germany during World War II. A mathematical model is presented, initially for a one-rotor machine. The direct implementation of this model in Maple provides a prototype system from which more efficient implementations are derived via a process of program transformation. The one-rotor system is then generalized to an N -rotor system. The paper provides a tutorial on the application of symbolic computation to a problem of interest to students of mathematics and of computer science.


Various reasons suggested to cause high performance concrete cracks were investigated, such as external and internal constraints, thermal deformation and creep. Firstly, the real temperature and stress fields simulated were suggested, and then the reasons for cracking and engineer measures for prevention from cracking in high performance concrete were analyzed. The main concept and characteristic of the measures are that the cracking prevention of concrete is a complicated comprehensive problem to be solved by application of combination with different measures in time under construction. The results show that the key economical measures for the prevention are the internal cooling water pipes and external superficial heat preservation. Moreover, the quasi real-time tracking observation, inversion, and feedback analysis under construction are also very necessarily, especially for projects using high performance concrete under severe conditions.


![Figure][1]

Muscle tissue in which the alternative NF-κB pathway is switched on (left) harbors more, longer mitochondria than does control muscle (right).

Marathon runners should give NF-κB a hand. [Bakkar et al.][2] show that the transcription factor pushes muscles to make more


We report the preparation of high-quality single crystal of Bi$_2$Se$_3$, a well-known topological insulator and its Ti-doped compositions using Bridgeman technique. Prepared single crystals were characterized by x-ray diffraction (XRD) to check the crystalline structure and energy dispersive analysis of x-rays for composition analysis. The XRD data of Ti-doped compounds show a small shift with respect to normal Bi$_2$Se$_3$ indicating changes in the lattice parameters while the structure type remained unchanged; this also establishes that Ti goes to the intended substitution sites. All the above analysis establishes successful preparation of these crystals with high quality using Bridgman technique. We carried out x-ray photo-emission spectroscopy to study the composition via investigating the core level spectra. Bi$_2$Se$_3$ spectra exhibit sharp and distinct features for the core levels and absence of impurity features. The core level spectra of the Ti-doped sample exhibit distinct signal due to Ti core levels. The analysis of the spectral features reveal signature of plasmon excitation and final state satellites; a signature of finite electron correlation effect in the electronic structure.


The present invention discloses a method for video display, a video server, a terminal device and a video system, belonging to the technical field of network. The method comprising: a video server receives a download request, the download request carries the display unit information of the respective channels corresponding to the fragment data address and slice data corresponds; the display unit information of the video server in accordance with sliced data corresponding to the respective channels corresponding to fragments were combined into one video stream data; a video server transmitting the integrated video stream to the terminal device, so that the terminal device displays the combined video stream. In the present invention, without adding additional equipment at the video server, while achieving the object can be displayed in a mosaic pattern on a terminal device according to a user's setting, i.e., to achieve the personalization of playback.


Content-centric networks (CCNs) are becoming the next generation of Internet communication technology for presenting a contents-based communication method from within the existing Internet paradigm to efficiently utilize the vast amount of information on the Internet. Accordingly, CCNs concentrate on the communication purpose, which defines everything on the Internet under the concept of "content" and uses all that information, unlike existing Internet communications technology, which concentrates on the communication procedure to and from the address of the host. A CCN communicates with "Interest packets" and "Data packets," where an Interest packet is used by a customer to request contents, and the Data packet is used to respond to the customer with the content from the publisher. In the routing procedure for a CCN, the Interest packet is transmitted to neighbor routers in order to obtain the data. In this routing method, finding the data is preceded by sending the Interest packet. Thus, CCNs have the characteristic of unidirectional transmission when tracing the path of the Interest packet. Due to this characteristic, a CCN has low load-balancing with increases in data traffic. And a CCN has increasing packet delay times because it cannot distribute the traffic when returning Data packets. To resolve these problems, we propose a cluster-based path-relocation routing protocol to support load-balancing in content-centric networks.


Objectives: To describe action for leprosy control through health education and case active search among school age children in a public school in the municipality of Ananindeua, Para state. Methods: This is a descriptive study conducted in a public school including elementary school students. In October and November 2010, lectures on leprosy and other skin lesions were given in this school and then screening was performed with students that presented skin spots. From the total of 532 students involved, 55 were identified as suspected to leprosy. These students were taken to dermatological appointment including clinical examination and application of socio-demographic questionnaire. Results: The face (49%) and upper limbs (45%) were the main body areas presenting lesions. In most of the cases investigated, pityriasis alba (42%) and pityriasis versicolor (31%) were diagnosed. However, one case of leprosy (2%) was also found, in tuberculoid clinical form. Conclusion: Considering the scope of the study, the number of leprosy cases found is significant and confirms the high detection rate of leprosy in children under age 15 in the city. Epidemiological surveillance actions should be intensified in order to detect the disease in its early stage, contributing to enhancement in social participation by reducing the disease-related stigma.


A number of mortgage prepayment models require a specification of the mortgage rate process. In 2006, Citigroup published its MOATS model where the prepayment model was based on the endogenously defined mortgage rate process. MOATS was based on the "End of Finance" (EOF) assumption, which stated that the term for a new mortgage is 30 years or the rest of time until EOF (assumed to be in sixty years "from now"), whatever is less. This article shows that MOATS gives a sufficient approximation to the "real" endogenous mortgage rate (i.e., without the EOF assumption). Next, we show a number of techniques to significantly reduce the high computational price of MOATS (which is very high even for one stochastic factor). Some of these techniques require practically no coding effort if the original MOATS is already implemented. The result is based on our simple and transparent generalized formulation of the MOATS model which is not tied to a specific numerical method. In particular, in our model set-up Monte Carlo methods can be used as well.


The culture fluid of lactobacillus was added into the liquid substrate of E.coli at different concentration.The growth of E.coli was restrained to different extent.Further research was carried out on the anti-bacteria mechanism of the lactobacillus.The culture fluid of lactobacillus was centrifuged.The mycelium of lactobacillus precipitation and the supernatant were added into the E.coli culture.The result showed that while the mycelium of lactobacillu didn't showed any bacteriostatic effect,the extracellular metabolites in the supernatant had obvious bacteriostatic effect which arose from lactic acid produce by lactobacillus and other unknown anti-bacteria substance.


Objective To evaluate the safety,efficacy and morbidity of electrovaporization of superficial bladder tumor(TVBT) on superficial bladder tumor(TCC).Methods TVBT was performed in 51 patients with superficial bladder carcinoma;8 of them transurethral electrovaporization of the prostate(TVP) was carried out simultaneously for concomitant BPH,after operation carry out bladder infusion of MMC and BCG.Results The tumor was resected in one-stage for all 51 patients.The mean operative time was 28 minutes in simple TVBT group,and 85.5 minutes in the group performing both TVBT and TVP.The mean duration of an indwelling urethral catheter was 3 days.All 51 patients were followed for 1~5 years,and the recurrence rate was 25.5%(14/51).Conclusion TVBT has the characteristic of less blood loss,clear vision,easy manipulation.TVBT is a simple,effective and safe surgery for the treatment of superficial bladder tumor.


According to the five year blueprint for Nursing Education in Queensland (Board of Nursing Studies, 1993) midwifery is to be moved into the tertiary sector. In 1994 Queensland University of Technology became the second Queensland university to initiate a tertiary-based midwifery program. As part of the approach to teaching a clinical log was developed, with a specific focus on the clinical practice aspect of the students learning, while recognising that clinical practice and theory are interwoven in reality. It was intended to be a portable, easily understood adjunct to the learning of student midwives in a new Graduate Diploma in Nursing (midwifery) course.


Using the Fractal Geometry in Signal processing has been extended nowadays. They have found several applications in signal detection and recognitions. They use the chaotic feature of the noise and clutter and try to distinguish between the noise, clutter and the desired target. Recent works show that lots of clutters like sea and ground clutters have fractal behavior so this kind of approach to the signal detection has been extended these days. In this paper we have used the Box-Counts of a signal rather than the Fractal dimension of a signal as will be defined later in the text. By applying the new defined concept we have developed different methods of signal detection. We use the correlation coefficient of the Box-Count and the time domain range for different ranges. By using the difference in the behavior of these coefficients when we have or don't have a target, we can set statistics from these variables and set up some detectors to determine whether the received signal contains a target or not just by comparing the statistics with some thresholds. One of the applications of the method is in high resolution radars. The received signal contains the Range Profile of the target which is unknown in our point of view. So using matched filters cannot be such helpful. In this paper the proposed detectors can act much better the common detectors of these signals. We have shown the advantage of the new methods. They bring us about 3 db increases in SNR.


Editor in Chief Gabriel Taubin introduces two new editorial board members, Scott Owen and Cindy Grimm. Gitta Domik introduces her new Education department, coedited with Scott Owen.


The present invention relates to a semiconductor device having a semiconductor material with a pn junction, wherein the semiconductor material to the semiconductor material inherent electronic band gap additionally comprises a photonic band gap. In particular, the present invention relates to a solar cell, comprising or consisting of a photonic band gap comprising semiconductor material.


A laser-diode-pumped high-repetition rate zigzag slab Nd:YAG laser MOPA system is developed as a pump source of a high average power Ti:sapphire ultrashort pulse CPA laser. The green laser pulse with the average power Ti:sapphire ultrashort pulse CPA laser. The green laser pulse with the average of 135 W is produced by using a directly bonded KTP crystal and a KTP crystal at the pule repetition rate of 100 Hz. The pulse duration of green laser is around 70 ns and the average output power stability is within ± 1%.


Summary form only given. Quantifying connectivity among fish populations remains a significant hurdle in fisheries management, the design of marine reserves, and the assessment of essential fish habitat. Determining larval trajectories and natal origins of marine fish is challenging because of difficulties in conducting mark-recapture studies in marine systems. We are developing techniques that utilize stable isotope and trace element signatures in otoliths (ear stones) as natural markers in marine fishes. Laboratory studies confirmed that the composition of otolith aragonite is related to physico-chemical properties of ambient waters. We are now applying the technique to determine population structure of weakfish (Cynoscion regalis), and to examine larval dispersal pathways of coral reef fishes. In the weakfish study, we have used geochemical signatures in adult otoliths (parameterized by groundtruthed signatures from two annual cohorts of juvenile weakfish) to retrospectively determine natal origins of spawning weakfish collected from 5 major estuaries along the US east coast. We found much more population structure, as evidenced by natal homing, than was implicated by genetic approaches. We suspect that such behavior may be much more common in marine fishes than is currently assumed, and believe that there is an urgent need to acknowledge spatial context in the management of marine fish populations.


Based on a general bound on the distance error between a uniform Doo-Sabin surface and its control polyhedron, an exponential error bound independent of the subdivision process is presented in this paper. Using the exponential bound, one can predict the depth of recursive subdivision of the Doo-Sabin surface within any user-specified error tolerance.


Over a period of twenty years a small number of patients, thirty-one, have been seen who suffered injuries of the infraclavicular brachial plexus as a direct result of skeletal injury in the region of the shoulder joint. Except for isolated circumflex nerve injuries the prognosis is generally good whatever part of the plexus is damaged. The treatment is conservative and its two most important features are prevention of stiffness of joints and the control, by regular galvanic stimulation, of denervation atrophy of muscle during the often prolonged period before recovery becomes apparent.


PREFACE Nonlinear Dispersive Waves Numerical Simulations of Singular Solutions of Nonlinear Schrodinger Equations Xiao-Ping Wang Numerical Solution of the Nonlinear Helmholtz Equation G. Fibich and S. Tsynkov Theory and Numerical Analysis of Boussinesq Systems: A Review V.A. Dougalis and D.E. Mitsotakis The Helmholtz Equation and its Paraxial Approximations in Underwater Acoustics Finite Element Discretization of the Helmholtz Equation in an Underwater Acoustic Waveguide D.A. Mitsoudis, N.A. Kampanis, and V.A. Dougalis Parabolic Equation Techniques in Underwater Acoustics D.J. Thomson and G.H. Brooke Numerical Solution of the Parabolic Equation in Range-Dependent Waveguides V.A. Dougalis, N.A. Kampanis, F. Sturm, and G.E. Zouraris Exact Boundary Conditions for Acoustic PE Modeling over an N2-Linear Half-Space T.W. Dawson, G.H. Brooke, and D.J. Thomson Numerical Methods for Elastic Wave Propagation Introduction and Orientation P. Joly The Mathematical Model for Elastic Wave Propagation P. Joly Finite Element Methods with Continuous Displacement P. Joly Finite Element Methods with Discontinuous Displacement P. Joly and C. Tsogka Fictitious Domains Methods for Wave Diffraction P. Joly and C. Tsogka Space-Time Mesh Refinement Methods G. Derveaux, P. Joly, and J. Rodriguez Numerical Methods for Treating Unbounded Media P. Joly and C. Tsogka Waves in Compressible Flows High-Order Accurate Space Discretization Methods for Computational Fluid Dynamics J.A. Ekaterinaris Governing Equations J.A. Ekaterinaris High-Order Finite-Difference Schemes J.A. Ekaterinaris ENO and WENO Schemes J.A. Ekaterinaris The Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) Method J.A. Ekaterinaris INDEX


Chemical vapor deposition, one of major carbon nanotube synthesis techniques, has demonstrated great promise for substrate-based carbon nanotube device applications. To understand carbon nanotube growth mechanisms for achieving controllable synthesis, thereby producing carbon nanotubes with consistent and predefined behavior for materializing their highly touted properties, it is imperative to develop a methodology to create nanocatalyst systems controllably with great tunability. In this paper, a comparative study of polystyrene-b-poly(4-vinyl pyridine) versus polystyrene-b-poly(2-vinyl pyridine) as templates for creating nanocatalysts is presented. Creating uniform and periodically ordered nanocatalyst arrays with tunable size and spacing is demonstrated. A scaling relationship between nanocatalyst spacing and polystyrene block length for polystyrene-b-poly(2-vinyl pyridine) is elicited. The potential of synthesizing nanocatalysts with adjustable composition is discussed. The ability to tailor nanocatal...


The field of rural revitalization has always been the focus of the supervision of audit institutions. At the first meeting of the Central Audit Committee, the General Secretary stressed that we should adhere to strengthening audit through science and technology. Since we strengthened the construction of audit informatization, the concentration and integration of audit data have been continuously strengthened, providing significant development opportunities for big data audit in the new era. With the continuous progress of poverty alleviation and rural revitalization strategy, big data technology has been widely used in audit work, and plays an irreplaceable role in special audit. The field of rural revitalization has always been the focus of audit supervision. With the continuous progress of poverty alleviation and rural revitalization strategy, big data technology has been widely used in audit work, and plays an irreplaceable role in special audit.


Early enteral nutrition, especially with immune-modulating formulas, has been shown to improve outcomes in critically ill patients. Early nutrient delivery supports organ function and recovery from illness and modulates inflammation and organ injury. Misconceptions regarding gastrointestinal function and alterations in gastrointestinal function during illness impede early enteral feeding. Bowel sounds, elevated gastric residuals, failure to pass flatus, and diarrhea are not contraindications to enteral nutritional support. Most critically ill patients can be fed into the stomach with minimal risk for aspiration. Promotility agents aid in gastric feeding. When gastric feeding is not possible, most patients will tolerate small intestinal feeding. Because spontaneous passage of feeding tubes into the small bowel in critically ill patients is rare, most feeding tubes can be positioned into the small bowel with blind bedside placement by the clinician (ie, physician, nurse, nutritionist). When such procedures are not successful, x-ray guided or endoscopic placement of feeding tubes into the small bowel are recommended. Occasionally, small bowel feeding tubes will need to be placed surgically.


Objective To discuss the effect of extremities warm bath in H1N1 Influenza for children patients with continuous high fever.Methods 174 children patients with continuous high fever were randomly divided into control group and observation group,in which conventional physical cooling with cooling of drug and the extremities warm bath and physical cooling were applied respectively.The effect of two cooling methods after 30 minutes,60 minutes and 120 minutes were observed and analyzed.Result There was statistical significance of different cooling effect(P0.01).Cooling effect in observation group was better than that of control group.Conclusion Extremities warm bath is a safe,convenient and effective cooling method for children patients with H1N1 Influenza and continuous high fever and can reduce drug adverse effects.


This article has been retracted by IOP Publishing following an allegation that this article may contain verbatim overlap with other published work and tortured phrases [2]. IOP Publishing has investigated in line with the COPE guidelines and have found the article contains significant similarities to the source without citation and agree this article should be retracted. The authors neither agree nor disagree to this retraction. [1] Geetha Narayanan Kannaiyan, Bridjesh Pappula and Ragavi Veerubommu, 2021, A Review on Graph Theory in Network and Artificial Intelligence RoAI [2] https://pubpeer.com/publications/7BCA47DCD561D9402C168C512C6944 Retraction published: 19 December 2022


This article discusses a conversation with the author and Estée Klar, the founder of dis assembly, Klar's autistic son, Adam Wolfond, mentors Chris Martin, Ellen Bleiwas, and Jessamyn Polson. dis assembly is a neurodiverse art collective for creation and relation in Toronto, Canada. Because public education in Canada typically does not provide supported/facilitated communication for non-speaking autists, this collective is ground-breaking in its experimental work with neurodivergent people. dis assembly highlights the need to honor the autistic ritualized use of objects and the environment as a valid and significant art form. The collective, therefore, re-imagines new forms of art, communication, interdependency, relationship, and community.


Because of the friction and damping effect between the interfaces, when the bolted structure bears the axial load, there will be no interface dislocation and only axial reciprocating tension and pressure, so it is difficult to have fretting fatigue and wear. Only under the tangential load, the interface will be staggered and the peaks and valleys between the micro-convex bodies will be alternately rubbed. After repeated cycles, the interface will generate sliding and adhesion areas of micro-fatigue and wear. Therefore, this paper conducts an in-depth study on the influence of bolt relaxation on surface fretting fatigue and wear. The relationship between tightening torque and clamping force, design and implementation of tangential relaxation experiment and acquisition and analysis of 3d surface topography are studied.


Based on the evidence of risk to both patients and residents, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) made the largest reform to medical training in 2003 when it enforced a limitation in cumulative duty hours for residents.  It has now been over a year since a 2010 revision directed further restrictions and regulations.  These revisions have revolutionized how physicians are trained, inspiring creativity in the pursuit to deliver quality education in less time.  In fact, variability in creation of schedules within the confines of ACGME guidelines is often used as a recruitment tool.  Many programs were forced to dramatically restructure from traditional long call schedules, to shift work requiring increased number of patient handoffs. The change to shifts for residents prompted the legitimate concerns that the decreased continuity would lead to a loss of sense of ownership of patients and that fewer hours would lead to a loss of educational opportunities.  The impact of changing duty hour requirements has posed different challenges to different specialties and at different levels of care.


In this paper, for determining recognition target class problem in inaccurate or imprecise environments, we designed triangular fuzzy number pattern recognition algorithm based on closeness degree. Firstly, the attribute values of each standard test set and the sample set are converted into triangular fuzzy numbers. Secondly, the EW-type closeness formula is used to calculate closeness degree between the attributes of each standard set and sample set, and establish the relative closeness degree matrix. Thirdly, the target identification of class model is determined based on the relative closeness degree matrix. By identifying 20 kinds of perfume test data sets with the tag to verify the validity and rationality of the proposed algorithm. Keywords—EW-type closeness degree; triangular fuzzy numbers; relative approach degree; pattern recognition


Microfinance institutions can play vital role in giving solution this poverty problem especially in developing countries like Sri Lanka. Microfinance Institutions generally provides savings, credit facilities and some other services like providing education, technology, insurance etc. Experience shows that microfinance can help the poor to increase income, build viable businesses, and reduce their vulnerability to external shocks. It can also be a powerful instrument for self-empowerment by enabling the poor, to become economic agents of change. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) provide credit facilities to poor with no collateral or having a minimum security. Therefore the recovery of loans is at a higher risk to maintain the sustainability of the MFIs. So that it is important to analyze to whom the credit facility is given, for what purpose and returns earned from that program as well as the recoverability of the loan. Therefore this research focus on the qualities between genders about micro financing expectations to identify better gender to focus on developing these habits. Sample units were selected from the District of Kurunegala and the sample comprised 150 individuals who are currently engage in microfinance credit scheme and 50 individuals who are about to start their Microfinance projects. Equal number of men and women were included in the sample. Primary and secondary were collected from the borrowers and MFIs using a questionnaire, interviews and institutional records to analyze the attitude towards credit scheme, their repayment habit, saving patterns and the performance of microfinance projects. In this study, the researcher assesses the performance of men & women in microfinance credit schemes to find out whether men or women will achieve the microfinance goals favorable manner. The research finding shows a favorable impact of achieving microfinance goals by women rather than men. Women show a good record of repayment of loans, increase of their savings and earn more capital return than men.


Making use of quasar spectra from LAMOST, in the spectral data around the Mg ii emission lines, research described in this paper has detected 217 Mg ii narrow absorption lines (NALs) with Wrλ2796≥3σw and Wrλ2803≥2σw in a redshift range of 0.4554 ≤ z abs ≤ 2.1110. For quasars observed by both LAMOST and SDSS, we find that 135 Mg ii NALs were obviously observed in the LAMOST spectra, 347 Mg ii NALs were were apparent in the SDSS spectra, and 132 Mg ii NALs were clearly present in both the SDSS and LAMOST spectra. The missed Mg ii NALs are likely ascribed to low signal-to-noise ratios of corresponding spectra. Among the Mg ii NALs obviously observed in SDSS or LAMOST spectra, eight Mg ii NALs were significantly changed with |ΔWrλ2796|≥3σw in time intervals of Δ MJD/(1 + z em) = 359 – 2819 d.


Effect of bean genotypes, insecticides, and natural products on the control of Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) biotype B (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) and Caliothrips phaseoli (Hood) (Thysanoptera: Thripidae). The influence of bean genotypes associated with neem oil as insecticide was evaluated to control B. tabaci (Gennadius) biotype B and C. phaseoli (Hood) during the wet season sowing. The experimental design used was the randomized block arrangement in a 4x4x3 factorial scheme, represented by genotypes, neem oil and insecticides respectively, with three replications. The genotypes Carioca, IAC Harmonia, IAC Centauro and Perola were used. The evaluations were done at 14 and 42 days after seedling emergence, by counting B. tabaci biotype B eggs and nymphs and C. phaseoli nymphs in the genotypes leaf. Conclusion: The B. tabaci biotype B eggs and nymphs number were smaller in IAC Centauro and higher in IAC Harmonia. The tested genotypes were similarly infested by C. phaseoli. IAC Centauro and IAC Harmonia genotypes associated with neem oil (highlighting the full dose - 1%) provided lower number of whitefly eggs and thrips nymphs. Neem oil at the full dose also reduced whitefly nymph number. In the tested genotypes the insecticide provided reduction in the number of whitefly eggs and nymphs as well in the thrips nymphs, with increase in the recommend dose.


The turn towards an openly competitive relationship between the United States and China today carries acute consequences for U.S. policy toward North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea or DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea or ROK). The military and economic requirements of enacting such a policy of competition with China complicates U.S. policy with its ally South Korea, as it exacerbates three core dilemmas that the ROK contends with regarding China. These dilemmas compel choices for a U.S. ally that must increasingly become zero-sum in nature where Seoul must make choices that alienate its patron ally or its neighbor. This article draws out propositions for how changes in U.S.-China relations impacts strategy on both sides of the Korean peninsula. The primary finding is that changes in the independent variable (U.S.-China relations) have opposing impacts on South Korean and North Korean strategic thinking (dependent variable). What might be considered opportunities afforded by U.S.-China relations to South Korea are seen as threats by North Korea. Conversely opportunities created by U.S.-China relations for North Korea register as threats for South Korea.


The present peer-to-peer trust models are too coarse and lack ability of synthesizing the feedback. This paper presents a new fine-grained trust model for P2P networks based on grey relation. The peers are divided into different regions according to interest and speciality,and the direct trust is gained by colligating the evaluation for all attributes of one service. A memory factor is introduced to describe the characteristic that trust trail off along with time. The grey relation is used to measure the accurateness of feedback. Analysis and experiments show that compared with existing models,the proposed model evaluates peer's trust value more accurately and it has better capability to resist the attack by the dynamic malice peers and peer's dishonest feedback.


Point forecasts can be interpreted as functionals (i.e., point summaries) of predictive distributions under a given directive. For example, if the directive consists of a quadratic loss function, the optimal point forecast is the mean of the predictive distribution. Knowing which functional was reported by the forecaster allows proper interpretation, evaluation, testing, and comparison of point forecasts. However, the directive under which point forecasts were produced is often unknown or it was nonexistant in the first place, meaning that the forecaster only implicitly reported a certain functional of the distribution representing the forecast uncertainty. Here we consider this situation of unknown directives, and we propose to estimate the unknown functional, which might vary over time as a function of certain state variables, using generalized method of moments. Focusing on two classes of flexible functionals, quantiles and expectiles, we show that our estimators are identifiable, consistent, and asymptotically normal. Using simulated data, we demonstrate that our approach is flexible, nicely interpretable, and more accurate than existing approaches. We also show that the GDP Greenbook forecasts of the Federal Reserve can be interpreted as evolving quantiles depending on the current growth rate. Interpreting point forecasts as functionals of predictive distributions allows us to incorporate results from the literature on probabilistic forecasts: We describe an approach for constructing density forecasts from a set of point forecasts. As example, we construct an improved GDP mean forecast.


Abstract Various methods based on Student t variates have been suggested and used for obtaining simultaneous confidence intervals for several means, or for several contrasts among means. Determination of an overall confidence level for such intervals involves evaluating the probability mass of a multivariate t distribution over a hypercube centered at the origin, with sides paralleling the coordinate planes, or obtaining bounds for this probability mass. Since such distributions involve many nuisance parameters, an impossible number of tables would be necessary in order to make exact confidence intervals. In the virtual absence of tables, approximations and bounds become important. In this paper, an attempt has been made to investigate the adequacy of certain suggested approximations [2], [5], [8] by computing the exact distributions for some particular cases. These exact distributions have been compared with approximations. This paper is concerned with two-sided confidence intervals, rather than one-side...


The Cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy system using a diode laser was applied to the plasma plume diagnostics. An absorption line of ArI at 842.46 nm in an argon plasma torch plume (750W, 3slm) was targeted. Using cavity mirrors with more than 99.95% reflectance, the sensitivity was successfully enhanced by three orders of magnitude compared with the conventional single-pass laser absorption spectroscopy. The number density of 6.6 x 10m of absorbing particles, argon 4s[3/2] was detected.


Purpose

A numerical study on the aerodynamic noise generation of a high efficiency propeller is carried out.

Design/methodology/approach

Three-dimensional numerical simulation based on Reynolds averaged N-S model is performed to obtain the aerodynamic performance of the propeller. Then, the result of the aerodynamic analysis is given as input of the acoustic calculation. The sound is calculated using the Farassat 1A which was derived from Ffowcs Williams–Hawkings equation and is compared with the measurements.

Findings

Moreover, the fan is modified for noise reduction by changing its geometrical parameters such as span, chord length and torsion angle.

Originality/value

The variation trend of aerodynamic and acoustic are compared and discussed for different modification tasks. Some meaningful conclusions are drawn on the noise reduction of propeller.


The causes of diverse, high realization percentages are the Hospital Sewage, and no appropriate therapy for contaminant elimination has been examined. These pollutants and their complicated properties are immune to the laboratory's wastewater treatment plant (WWTPs). In other sentences, certain dynamic chemicals cannot be eliminated by traditional therapy. Environmental chemical contaminants can pose significant threats to global water supplies. In recent times, the wastewater created from medical services, healthcare facilities and laboratories has become more involved with the atmosphere researchers. A Sustainable Control Strategy for Detecting Activated Toxins (SCS-DAT) model is proposed in this research. For three things - traditional drainage features, major priority drug products, and microbiota studies - this analysis picked several multi-speciality facilities with non-identical pre-treatments. The research review assesses innovative processes' effectiveness for disposing of these three components from treated wastewater before being released into a hazardous water Sewage treatment plant (STP). Regarding the test findings, these two procedures effectively lowered the standard and medication variable of direct and indirect approaches in two out of three treatment methods, MBR and CW, excluding microbe restoration, by following stages. These two substances were found. The results showed 100% ibuprofen, carbamazepine, and frusemide reduction, while CW suggested that ofloxacin was 100% eliminated. The medicines' degradation demonstrated two accelerated oxidation variations, ozonation (O3) and peroxisome (O3-H2O2). pH, O3 availability, time of touch and H2O2 quantities are the main operating variables in AOP. Centred on medicinal products efficacy, traditional O3 treatment is more effective than integrating O3- H2O2 therapy. Therefore, the study proved that MBR combined with ozone proven an ideal technology for the chemical treatment of treated wastewater among several innovations.


In this paper we extend to non-compact Riemannian manifolds with boundary the use of two important tools in the geometric analysis of compact spaces, namely, the weak maximum principle for subharmonic functions and the integration by parts. The first one is a new form of the classical Ahlfors maximum principle whereas the second one is a version for manifolds with boundary of the so called Kelvin-Nevanlinna-Royden criterion of parabolicity. In fact, we will show that the validity of non-compact versions of these tools serve as a characterization of the Neumann parabolicity of the space.
The motivation underlying this study is to obtain new information on the geometry of graphs with prescribed mean curvature inside a Riemannian product of the type $N\times\mathbb{R}$. In this direction two kind of results will be presented: height estimates for constant mean curvature graphs parametrized over unbounded domains in a complete manifold and slice type results for graphs whose superlevel sets have finite volume.


Over the years, legislative and administrative changes taken by Venezuelan governments to address piracy issues have presented a mix of advances and obstacles. Unfortunately, Venezuela's efforts to fight copyright piracy have declined in the last two years. Budget reductions and changes in staff responsibility adversely affecting Venezuela's anti-piracy brigade COMANPI, once the model for the region, have undermined its ability to take action. The National Guard (Guardia Nacional) has attempted to fill this gap by conducting anti-piracy actions in conjunction with industry. An overburdened special intellectual property rights prosecutor and consistent and pervasive problems with the judiciary, particularly in criminal cases, continue to result in lengthy delays and the failure to impose penalties and civil remedies at levels sufficient to deter piracy. Border measures need to be improved to intercept infringing product. Longtime problems with customs duties on computer software remain unresolved. Piracy losses remain high. Sadly, economic instability in Venezuela also appears to be adding incentives to steal copyrighted materials. IIPA recommends that Venezuela remain on the Special 301 Watch List.


Severe combined immunodeficiency is caused by critical genetic defects affecting the immune system. Early diagnosis and intervention are essential for preventing life-threatening infections, end-organ damage, and complications. Newborn screening for severe combined immunodeficiency is currently rolled out across many provinces and territories across Canada. The SickKids Newborn Screening Centre in Toronto, Ontario, is a quaternary referral centre that has evaluated SCID newborn screen-positive infants since the program's introduction in 2013. Here, we provide updated algorithms for clinical investigation and follow-up of infants with an initial positive screen.


Northwestern India, and particularly Gujarat, played a crucial role in the history of the ancient world by building connections with various Indian Ocean regions. These included the Persian Gulf, southern Arabia, the Red Sea, and the Horn of Africa on one side, and southern India, Sri Lanka, and Southeast Asia on the other. Gujarat benefited from its agricultural potential and acted as a hub for various areas. This explains both its own success and the constant efforts by regional powers to control it. This chapter attempts to demonstrate the ways in which Gujarat proved able to assert its power and gradually become a major actor in exchanges in and around the Indian Ocean: exchanges that have connections to religious networks and places.


Abstract The model of two-fluid, axisymmetric, ambipolar magnetized plasma detachment from thruster guide fields is extended to include plasmas with non-zero injection angular velocity profiles. Certain plasma injection angular velocity profiles are shown to narrow the plasma plume, thereby increasing exhaust efficiency. As an example, we consider a magnetic guide field arising from a simple current ring and demonstrate plasma injection schemes that more than double the fraction of useful exhaust aperture area, more than halve the exhaust plume angle, and enhance magnetized plasma detachment.


In this study,adaptability of litchi to shading as well as the interaction effects of girdling and shading were examined using 12-year-old'Heiye'litch(iLitchi chinensis Sonn'.Heiye')trees. Within the same tree,shoots were treated with girdling,shading and their combination with ungirdled and exposed shoots as the control. Shoot length,leaf gas exchange and chlorophyll fluorescence were measured at determined dates after the treatments. The results showed that the shoot growth and leaf photosynthesis were significantly inhibited by both shading and girdling treatments , while the mechanisms of photosynthesis inhibition of these two treatments seemed different. Girdling treatment significantly lowered leaf chlorophyll content as well as photosynthetic rate with the occurrence of chronic photoinhibition,an indicator of photosystemⅡ(PSⅡ)damage. In shading treatment,F v /F m maintained normal but shaded leaves had a lower photosynthetic rate measured even with the same artificial light compared with the control. The reduction of photosynthesis was therefore chiefly due to the impairment of dark reaction. Interestingly,shading significantly alleviated damage on light reaction system caused by girdling.


Transport policy makers, planners and operators around the world are faced with declining budgets along with demanding customers expecting smoothly operating multimodal systems supported by real-time travel information. There continues to be an ever growing source of data and information regarding travel times, travel speeds, modal options, weather, incidents and asset conditions to support planning, modeling and operations of systems. However, high-level decision makers responsible for funding and project decisions do not always have the tools and resources they need to make optimal use of all the new data available to them. This paper presents challenges, best case examples and provides ideas for the future of institutional and technical tools and processes for data to optimize transport systems through exploration of the following topics: (1) Common public and new private sector data sources for planning and policy; (2) Role of Data in Performance Management; (3) Impetus for data integration and transformation to support decision making; (4) New paradigms for data acquisition; (5) Technical challenges such as location referencing, ownership/cost of data or ensuring integrated data is relevant and useful; (6) Data governance techniques to ensure data can be shared and integrated; (7) Integration/fusing/visualization tools; (8) Opportunities to enhance data programs through technologies and collaborations. Several examples of successful transport planning and operations data integration practice using a variety of tools and methods from around the United States are included. European transport agencies will benefit from this paper by gaining insight into methods and ideas for integrating, collecting and harmonizing data. Discussion regarding sharing resources and research between Europe and North America to advance the state of the practice in turning data into information is certainly a benefit to all.


The application of energy saving technique of building dwelling houses in Zhongyuan oilfield is studied from the aspects of energy saving designing for dwelling area and for building enclosure as well Measures for specific application are suggested, of which target is obvious, technique is advanced with high manageability It is worth referring for designing energy saving dwelling buildings in oilfields


The application in agricultural fields of pig slurry composting biofiltraton amending smell and nutrient unevenness, it is important for the appropriate nitrogen nutrient management to promote the availability of the crops and to minimize the risk of adversely environmental effects. The objective of this study was to determine the application rates of the preplant pig slurry composting biofiltration for red pepper(Capsicum annuum L.) by considering the yield response and the fruit quality such as sugar, capsaicinoid content. Red peppers were grown on plastic film ground under five different pig slurry(PS) application rates and mineral fertilizer(MF 100%) as a control. The effects of a single application of five different doses of PS: PS 0%(no kg N ), PS 50%(51.5 kg N ), PS 75%(77.3 kg N ), PS 100%(103 kg N ) and PS 125%(129 kg N ) were compared with the recommended mineral treatment(103 kg N ) in the pre-planting. The sidedressing N application(87 kg N ) was applied to the mineral fertilizer in all treatments. Red peppers were harvested at the mature red stage through five times from 72 days after transplanting(DAT) to 133 DAT. The results indicated that the yield of red pepper was increased with the increase of the N application rates from PS 0% to PS 100%. The highest yield was obtained in PS 100% by 20,843 kg , although there were no significant differences in yield among PS 100, PS 125% and MF 100%. In addition, The contents of soluble sugar and capsaicinoids were not significantly different in all treatments. Accordingly, fertilization recommendations of red pepper to substitute PS for the mineral fertilizer were considered to PS 100%.


The characteristics and performances of DFE,pre-DFE and post-DFE are compared in detail in wireless communication.The simulation results of the three equalization schemes of FMT system in AWGN and Rayleigh are shown.


A RANDOMISED controlled intervention study of the effect on the uptake of measles vaccine of directly mailed health education material was carried out. The study population was 13-month-old children living in north and west Belfast where measles immunisation levels are very low. Parents of half the children were posted a copy of the Health Education Council's leaflet Measles is Misery plus a covering letter. Six months after intervention the immunisa tion status of both intervention and control groups was ascertained. No significant difference in vaccine uptake was found. Possible reasons for this finding are discussed, and alternative approaches suggested.


Objective To analyze the experience of the cause,diagnosis and treatment of hypogastrium and pelvic cavity surgery urinary organs injuries.Methods Retrospective analysis was used to analyze the hypogastric and pelvic surgery complicated with urinary organs injury clinical data of 33 cases.Results 33 patients have been repaired surgery successfully,including early repair of 31 cases,2 cases in Ⅱ phase.All cases were followed up for 6-24 months,there are 2 cases of effusion,renal function decline in the injured side,because of ureteral injury in time for more than 2 weeks.The remaining cases are good prognosis,no other complications.Conclusion Full preoperative preparation and intraoperative careful operation can prevent urinary organ damage occurring in the hypogastric and pelvic surgery.Intraoperative timely detection and repairing urinary organs injuries are the key to influence the prognosis.

Key words:
Hypogastrium;  Pelvic cavity;  Urinary system;  Injuries;  Treatment


This dissertation examines White House administration China policies in the United States in the years from 1941 to 1963. This timeframe and the crossing over from the wartime presidencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman to the Cold War presi


Intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH) is a subtype of stroke with high morbidity and mortality,which threatens the people′s health severely as the common disease and frequentlly occurring illness.The mechanisms underlying ICH-induced brain injury have become better understood during the past decade.Experimental investigations have indicated that thrombin formation,red blood cell lysis,and iron toxicity play a major role in ICH-induced injury,furthermore,these mechanisms may provide new therapeutic targets.This article reviews the role of thrombin and iron in ICH-induced injury.


Soil and water contaminants have an impact on ecosystems, agricultural productivity, groundwater, and human health. Therefore, it is necessary to develop new technologies to treat pollution, one of these techniques is the use of nanomaterials (NMs). This study aimed to evaluate the efficiency of bentonite nano‐sheet structure (n‐Be), hydroxyapatite nanoparticles (HapNP), and their nano‐composite (n‐Be/HapNC) on immobilizing nickel (Ni), copper (Cu), and lead (Pb) in peanut‐cultivated soil. The prepared materials were characterized by X‐ray powder diffraction, atomic force microscopy, surface area, and Fourier transform infrared. Eight levels of material were used T1 (bentonite, 1 t ha−1), T2 (hydroxyapatite, 1 t ha−1), T3 (HapNPs, 50 kg ha−1), T4 (HapNPs, 100 kg ha−1), T5 (n‐Be, 50 kg ha−1), T6 (n‐Be, 100 kg ha−1), T7 (n‐Be/HapNC, 50 kg ha−1), and T8 (n‐Be/HapNC, 100 kg ha−1). The results indicated that the available Ni, Cu, and Pb showed a significant decline in the treated soil, in comparison to untreated. Levels of Ni exhibited a decrease in the following order: T8 < T6 < T7 < T5. Similar patterns were observed for Cu and Pb levels, where treatment T8 exhibited the greatest decline compared to the control. Uptake of heavy metals (HM) by peanut components (leaves, stems, and seeds) showed significant declines for the treatments, compared to the control. Treatment (n‐Be/HapNC, 100 kg ha−1) showed the lowest transfer coefficient of Ni (0.53) and Cu (0.048) compared to control (0.71 and 0.097), respectively. Treatments of NMs significantly exhibited increases in fresh weight, pods, and seeds, compared to the control. From all findings, it is obtained that nano‐forms of such materials can immobilize HM in contaminated soil, enhance its characteristics, decrease HM‐uptake by plants, and are considered good immobilizers for HM in soil. These materials play a role in treating contaminated soil and thus making it suitable for agriculture.


This chapter calls for a reorientation of research aims in the field of environment and communication towards the social roles of media in liberal democratic societies and the relationship between media(ted) discourses, power and democratic politics. More specifically, the risk conflicts-perspective is put forward as an analytical framework which allows to draw conclusions on the contribution of public discourse(s) to facilitating democratic debate. Drawing from the literature on agonistic democracy and post-politics, a politicization of academic discourse is found to be a primary factor in accommodating research designs to reveal processes of de/politicization in public discourse.


Introduction This discussion is a qualitative treatment of a topic that is usually treated rigorously and quantitatively in engineering textbooks. This discussion is intended for the general audience of nonspecialists and will attempt to convey the main ideas behind aerodynamics of spheres in a qualitative manner, with a minimum number of mathematical equations. As the Latin roots of the word imply, aerodynamics deals with the dynamic flow of air (or any gas that acts like air) when in proximity to a solid body. Aerodynamics is a special subset of the more general topic of fluid dynamics. The significant distinction between air and more generic fluids is that air is a compressible fluid, whereas other fluids such as water may not be. As a compressible fluid, the density of air may vary from point to point in space as it interacts with a solid body and flows around it.


In this paper, we propose a flux observer design for induction motors. We consider Park's model of induction motors in the /spl alpha/-/spl beta/ frame, and we assume that the angular speed and the stator currents are measured. The proposed flux observer is an extension (to the multi-output case) of the improved high-gain observer given previously by Busawon et al. (1999). Simulation results are presented to highlight the performance of the observer.


The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) conducted a goat value chain analysis in three districts of Uttarakhand, a state in northern India, during December 2011 to February 2012 to inform key public and private stakeholders on the constraints and opportunities of production and marketing in the sector. This paper presents the key findings of the study. A long urban value chain was studied at Dehradun, the state capital, while two medium rural value chains were investigated in Tehri and Nainital districts. Results show that irrespective of location, length of the chain and number of actors involved, the price achieved by goat farmers is more than 70 % of the consumer price which is higher than milk (65 %), potatoes (58 %), onions (46 %) and tomatoes (25 %) indicating that middle level agents were not exploitative. Across all goat value chains butchers receive the highest margin along the value chain (15%), due to their comparatively higher expenses, in comparison to wholesale traders (10%) and retail traders (5 %). Farmers sell 2-3 animals per month, while wholesale traders handle about 500 animals, retaining INR 150 000 as margin. Further, the local hill goat keepers are not able to benefit greatly from market demand as 90 % of the traded goats are sourced from the plains of neighbouring states. Production is constrained by feed shortages, high kid mortality and the pricing of animals without weighing. Marketing constraints include butchers' lack of knowledge on hygienic and sanitary practices as well as the loss of animal weight after purchase because of health issues. Both traders and butchers face credit issues. Wholesalers in particular are challenged by an inadequate number of animals, improper facilities for buying and selling, high transportation costs and corruption. Consumers in the urban chain reveal that butchers sell chevon adulterated with mutton as consumers prefer chevon. Lastly, rural consumers prefer black goats and report a shortage, especially for religious sacrifices. It can be concluded that breeding strategies targeted at consumer preferences, improved health care, credit provision, improved buyer-seller platforms, training on and introduction of hygienic slaughtering facilities with an appropriate support frame-work and an efficient collaboration between relevant stakeholders will enable the emergence of sustainable and efficient goat value chains in hill areas.


In June 1987, an important international Workshop was held in Vilnius. Lithuanian SSR on the topic, "Ecological Sustainability of Regional Development". The number of participants was 65, coming from nine countries.

Many of the papers dealt with ecological-economic assessment methods used in East European countries for regional development planning. Some of the ideas were quite new to environmental planners from Western Europe, and are of great interest to them. This is one kind of service that IIASA provides very well -- bringing people together and bridging language barriers in the East-West context. IIASA is pleased to be associated with the 1987 Workshop and with these Proceedings.


Chapter 1 Foreword by John Brademas Chapter 2 Preface by Michael Johnston Chapter 3 Part I: The Social Setting: Corruption, Experience, and Response: Civil Society Mobilized Against Corruption: Russia and Ukraine: Louise Shelley Contributions, Covenants, and Corruption: Politicians and Society in Japan: Susan Pharr St Chapter 4 Part II: Building a Reform Presence: Leadership, Participation, and Incentives: The Big Picture: Building a Sustainable Reform: Movement Against Corruption in Africa: Sahr J. Kpundeh Language, Culture, and Reform in Hong Kong: Jenny C.Y. C Chapter 5 Part III: Data and Research Resources: Guide to Locating the Literature on Corruption: Mary Jane Walsh Chapter 6 Index Chapter 7 About the Contributors


It is shown that a Pareto optimal and continuous single-valued choice function defined on the compact convex subsets of the positive orthant of the n-dimensional Euclidean space maximizes a real-valued function if and only if it satisfies the independence of irrelevant alternatives condition if n=2, and the strong axiom of revealed preference otherwise. The results can be applied to consumer demand theory to deal with nonlinear budget sets, and to bargaining game theory to generalize the Nash bargaining solution.


Modular power conversion offers many technical and economic advantages as long as power sharing between modules is maintained. Power sharing through decentralized control (requiring no communication between modules and no central controller) offers the greatest flexibility. A droop-less decentralized control strategy has recently been demonstrated to achieve modular power sharing by incorporating nonlinearity in the integrator term in the control loop. This paper experimentally investigates the application of this control to input-parallel-output-parallel (IPOP) converters with buck output stages. It is found that converters with voltage-source-like characteristics at dc (such as voltage-mode CCM buck converters) require special consideration compared to other converters. The paper also explores the effect of this control on transient response. These features are demonstrated experimentally for voltage-mode and current-mode buck converters, including the effects of module-to-module variability.


Preoperative planning combined with image-guidance has shown promise towards increasing the accuracy of liver resection procedures. The purpose of this study was to validate one such preoperative planning tool for four patients undergoing hepatic resection. Preoperative computed tomography (CT) images acquired before surgery were used to identify tumor margins and to plan the surgical approach for resection of these tumors. Surgery was then performed with intraoperative digitization data acquire by an FDA approved image-guided liver surgery system (Pathfinder Therapeutics, Inc., Nashville, TN). Within 5-7 days after surgery, post-operative CT image volumes were acquired. Registration of data within a common coordinate reference was achieved and preoperative plans were compared to the postoperative volumes. Semi-quantitative comparisons are presented in this work and preliminary results indicate that significant liver regeneration/hypertrophy in the postoperative CT images may be present post-operatively. This could challenge pre/post operative CT volume change comparisons as a means to evaluate the accuracy of preoperative surgical plans.