We measured surface ruggedness within 12 polar craters on the Moon, six at each pole, using a variation of the Vector Ruggedness Measure (VRM*). We compare VRM* values derived within ice stability zones, where maximum surface temperatures are ≤112 K, to VRM* values from warmer surfaces where ice is not stable. Ruggedness values inside and outside of ice stability zones are statistically not from the same continuous distribution (α = 0.05). In nine of the 12 investigated craters, surfaces where ice is stable are smoother than neighboring warmer surfaces. These comparatively smooth surfaces are observed in both craters that host surface water-ice exposures and those that do not, suggesting that the presence of subsurface ice, rather than surface ice, may be responsible for the reduced surface ruggedness derived from a moving window of 3 × 3 cells applied to 120 m elevation models. Reduced ruggedness of ice stability zones is slightly greater in south polar craters and tends to correlate with enhanced hydrogen content as modeled from Lunar Prospector data. While ice stability zones may have a control on the distribution of softened topography at the lunar poles, the magnitude of this softening is small at the investigated baselines.


Susan waited in the corridor. She sat in a hard plastic chair and gazed at a watercolour print that hung on the opposite wall. She didn't expect to have to come in like this, they had called her out of the blue. The Blue: where she had been waiting for months and months, treading water in time. She tried to look the embodiment of compassion and love and responsibility, she tried to pack all this information into the way she sat in a hard plastic chair and looked at a painting of a watering can and a pot of pansies...


The type of design employed in the regression analysis known as the exploration of a response surface [1] may be logically considered as a generalization of the conventional factorial design. Thus the study of response surface methods should include some consideration of the implications of procedures developed in connection with the factorial experiment, and particularly with regard to the ideas employed in the analysis of such an experiment. In the conventional procedure for this analysis [61, the total variance is partitioned into variances associated with the effects and interactions corresponding to the individual degrees of freedom; this partitioning is based on "components" of the effects of the various factors (e.g., linear, quadratic, etc.). Since the components usually employed are suitable only for factors whose levels are equally spaced, this paper considers component-functions, which permit a generalization to any configuration of levels. A model is presented which gives the response corresponding to any point in the factor space (not necessarily a sample point) in terms of these component-functions which, in turn, depend only on the experimental levels employed. Examples are included, showing how this response may be expressed as a linear combination of the conventional effects and interactions; this representation permits interpolation along the response surface, using these effects and interactions as coefficients. Finally, it is shown that, in the general multifactor case, the transformation between the conventional effects (normal-


A comprehensive inventory of the invasive alien flora of India's fifth largest and most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, revealed 152 species from 109 genera and 44 families. Dicots represented 137 species and monocots 15 species. About 73% of these alien species were introduced from tropical America including South America, followed by tropical Africa (10.5%). Maximum number of species (30) were from the family Asteraceae, followed by Fabaceae (12 species), and then Amaranthaceae, Solanaceae and Convolvulaceae with eight species each. Herbs accounted for 128 species, shrubs 12 species, climbers 8 species, whereas trees and lianas 3 and 1 species respectively. People have found a large number of these alien species useful.


The article calls our attention to recognize again that art education has the function of encouraging one's good, enhancing one's honesty and ensuring one's virtue; and that art education has a dialectical relationship with moral, intellectual and physical education. And it then analyses the causes of lopsided views about art education as speaking of the promotion of quality education.


a cohort analysis, examining the first residents in comparison with later ones. In what ways are things different now? Social scientists try to understand such claims by examining the social conditions that may have facilitated such deterioration, rather than accepting the seemingly obvious and easier explanation of: it was 'them.' One chapter, aptly titled 'The "Good Old Days",' refers to a very different time of homogeneity and upward mobility. The original residents were almost all young white parents, bonding through school and family activities. Shared public spaces provided room to assemble, and because they were all Catholic, gatherings included holidays, celebrating their shared culture with recognised foods and similar life stories. A later chapter called, '"They're Very Nice, but ...",' highlights the more recent experience of these same people. The newest residents are not all white or Catholic (though many are, even while mislabelled as Muslim), and they do not eat the same foods, celebrate the same holidays, or have similar life stories. There are too many interesting details for a short review, but I recommend the book. It is a page-turner; high praise for a solid academic work. My main critique is that it ended so abruptly. Readers would be helped by a summary of the main points, since there are many. There were also a few points that could have been clearer. For example, the earliest residents were said to have shared ambitions, facilitating their bonds, but certainly the newer neighbours have ambitions too. Perhaps the earlier ambitions were realistic because they saw positive results, whereas today's residents see little success. Also, the authors wrote that the employers of the first residents encouraged 'restraint' along with providing home loans to get started. How was that message communicated? I wanted to hear more about those and a few other items. That said, every good book gets me thinking and leads to future research questions, which surely happened here. The little-middles (caught between the working and middle classes) make up a very important demographic in the contemporary political climate in France and elsewhere, many, but not all, moving to the right in response to their anxieties. They are clearly feeling left behind, but it is not simple. We must understand them, and this book illuminates much about their predicament.


and on basic doctrines, with only a quick notice of historical affiliations and biographical matters. An extremely lucid style carries the reader forward. Each chapter is followed by a bibliography that is comprehensive, up-to-date, and inclusive of foreign writings, yet drastically selective. Just because the interest is in doctrine, an index of subjects would have opened the way to comparative study. The index of names could have been more helpful concerning the outstanding thinkers; e.g. against Hegel's name are set ninetynine unclassified page references. The opening chapters deal with the first reactions to Kant, the three dominating German idealists, the romantics (chiefly Schleiermacher), and Schopenhauer. The author's up-to-dateness is shown by his including Marx, Engels, Stirner, and Kirkegaard in his account of the recoil from Hegel, and in his devoting the final chapter to Existentialism; and he proves his breadth of outlook by not giving a disproportionate place to Italian thinkers, not even to Croce and Gentile. Much more attention than is usual in continental histories is given to British thinkers (as early as 1927 Professor Abbagnano wrote an excellent book on English Idealism). The high importance assigned abroad to Spencer is maintained in the account of evolutionist positivism. Nietzsche, Bergson and Dewey have each a chapter. French spiritualism and German neo-criticism are adequately presented. There is an admirable chapter on the philosophy of science, from Mach through Poincar6 and Russell to the Logical Positivists. Much of the material is instructively arranged under such general headings. The period being the fullest of all in philosophical production, large omissions have had to be made, but they have been made with a fairly steady standard of what is important. The volume deserves to be noted as one of the most distinguished of its kind, and as the most up-to-date. Only a very ripe scholar could have written it.


Objective: This study was aimed to compare the effect of visuo-perceptual biofeedback sitting balance training using Balance Master in stroke patients with that of conventional sitting balance training. Method: The subjects were twenty-four stroke patients receiving rehabilitation therapy who could maintain sitting posture independently. These patients were randomly divided into a control and an experimental group. The ability of static postural balance control with the modified Clinical Test Sensory Interaction Balance (mCTSIB) and the weight bearing test was measured before and after the balance training. The ability of dynamic postural balance control was measured with the limit of stability (LOS) test and the rhythmic weight shift test. Motor assessment scale (MAS) and modified Barthel index (MBI) were also checked for measuring the effects. Results: There was significant improvement in both abilities of static and dynamic postural balance control in the experimental group that had visuo-perceptual biofeedback training using the Balance Master (p<0.05). MAS and MBI scores after the training showed a bigger increase in the experimental group than in the control group. Conclusion: The visuo-perceptual biofeedback sitting balance training using the Balance Master was considered to be more effective than the conventional training in the stroke patients.


Human health and nature find common cause in 'green prescribing'. What is the case for radically rethinking our approach to society's most challenging health problems through exposure to nature?


The purpose of the current study is to understand the lived experiences of military couples regarding the effects of war-related trauma and deployment on couple functioning. An interpretive phenomenological perspective was utilized during data analysis. This type of phenomenological perspective suggests that human phenomena can only be understood in a situated context (Packer & Addison, 1989). This is to suggest that a person's emotions, behaviors, and experiences cannot be separated from the context in which they occur. For the purpose of this study, the "context" under consideration was the Army culture and customs in which each of the participant couples was embedded. The Couple Adaptation to Traumatic Stress Model (CATS; Nelson Goff & Smith, 2005) offers a constructive step forward in systemically understanding and treating the impediments created by war-related trauma and deployment. The current study utilized the core terms included in the CATS Model (Nelson Goff & Smith, 2005) as sensitizing concepts to guide the qualitative analysis process. This includes the CATS Model couple functioning variables of attachment, satisfaction, stability, adaptability, support/nurturance, power, intimacy, communication, conflict, and roles. Using qualitative interviews from 90 participants (n = 45 couples), five themes were identified as salient, including communication, conflict management, roles, support/nurturance, and post-traumatic growth. Participants were divided into subgroups (n = 15 couples, 30 total participants) according to their scores on the Purdue Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Scale – Revised (PPTSD-R; Lauterbach & Vrana, 1996) and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS; Spanier, 1976). This subsample was selected to examine differences in themes among couples with high and low levels of marital satisfaction, as well as those with high and low levels of posttraumatic stress symptoms. Many similarities were found among the couples with high marital satisfaction and those with low levels of post-traumatic symptoms. Likewise, similarities were also discovered among the couples with lowest levels of marital satisfaction and those with highest levels of posttraumatic stress symptoms. From the current study, there is clear evidence in support of the CATS Model elements of communication, conflict, roles, support/nurturance, and satisfaction. A new contribution to the CATS Model can be made from the current study, which is the inclusion of post-traumatic growth. UNDERSTANDING THE EFFECTS OF WAR-RELATED TRAUMA AND DEPLOYMENT ON THE COUPLE RELATIONSHIP: EVIDENCE FOR THE COUPLE ADAPTATION TO TRAUMATIC STRESS (CATS) MODEL


Despite the buzz around the flipped or inverted classroom as a new trend in educational practice and research, there is a limited number of studies on its effectiveness in English as a Second Language (ESL) teaching. This paper aims at contributing to the field of flipped classroom research by examining and analyzing the outcomes of the experiment conducted at the Tomsk Polytechnic University within the course of English for Engineering. Outlining several challenges, the authors conclude on the significant benefits of the flipped classroom model in ESL teaching including an increase in students' overall performance on the course, enhancement of students' motivation and improvement of their autonomous learning skills.


In the known bottle closures pressure hedges in the form of wires, cords and metal deformations are connected to the bottle necks. In natural cork closure plugs, the sealing swelling of the cork by means of the permanent humidification is achieved by the Flussigkeitsgut. The opening of the respective one-way fasteners requires tools and partially great expense. The new multi-blanking plugs of two simple plastic parts should make it possible to close commercial bottles without the use of fuses in a simple manner and conduct the opening without tools simply by hand pressure. The inserted in the extension of a bottle neck sack-shaped plastic conical plug (b), which is formed by expandable longitudinal curvatures and inner wedge-shaped retaining webs effected using form-fitting penetration of the plastic molding plug (a) for all occurring CO


Polycaprolactone (PCL) and Nafion blends were prepared in the presence of 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (3-APTEOS) by a sol–gel reaction. The presence of 3-APTEOS allowed the preparation of macroscopically homogeneous self-supported films of PCL/Nafion blends in a wider composition range. The thermal properties of the blends were evaluated by thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry. The thermal stability of the blends decreased as the Nafion content increased. The reduction of the thermal stability of PCL in the presence of Nafion was confirmed with Fourier transform infrared/photoacoustic spectroscopy, and it was attributed to the possible hydrolysis of PCL caused by the reaction with the SO3H acid groups of Nafion. An opposite effect on the thermal stability of the blends was caused by the addition of 3-APTEOS. The increase in the thermal stability of the blends with the increase in the 3-APTEOS content was assigned to the neutralization of the acid groups of Nafion by the formation of an ionic complex. The differential scanning calorimetry results showed that PCL and Nafion were immiscible. The degree of crystallinity of PCL slightly increased with an increase in the Nafion content, whereas the melting temperature remained basically unchanged. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 92: 3701–3709, 2004


In this work solar drying tests with direct radiation and its mathematical modeling to evaluate the kinetics of cashew-nut (Anacardium occidentale L.) drying comparing their efficiency concerned to natural solar drying board are presented. The experiments were performed using fruit slices with 1 cm and 2 cm of thickness, obtaining its water content versus time. Using a direct solar radiation dryer, the drying time was lower than that of natural drying board, therefore adding value to products. Diffusivity values obtained from water sliced fruits were similar to other data available in the literature. The dried products had good organoleptic properties, aroma, color and crunchy texture.


AbstractIn recent years, concerns about traffic congestion and human health have led to programs that encourage bicycle use. To aid bicycle planners and city engineers in providing useful facilitie...


The article provides scientific data on the study of optimal norms and timing of leaf feeding in the care of young lemon seedlings in the open field. The care of young lemon seedlings in the open field focuses on the rapid growth of branches, enlargement of leaf surface and leaf activity. Due to the additional nutrition of the leaves, the growth and development of young lemon seedlings is accelerated, the leaf surface is cleaned of dust, which has a positive effect on the metabolism of the leaves, the process of respiration and photosynthesis in the leaves. As a result, young lemon seedlings grow well in the short term and are formed as seedlings ready for planting in the main area.
KEYWORDS: lemon, seedling, seedling, twig, leaf surface, open area, air temperature, relative humidity, fertilizer, suspension, photosynthesis.


Eye blinking artifacts make electroencephalographic (EEG) elucidation as well as examination more difficult. In this paper, eye blinking artifacts are removed from cognitive EEG records by means of ICA. The blinks of eyes approximately at all times coincide with the event-related potentials (ERP) due to the experiment's design, generating ICA difficulties. To build a new data set, we combined spontaneous blink data with sole tryout ERP data. According to our findings, applying ICA to the combined data set results in a more logical separation, making EEG interpretation and analysis easier.


Herein is a study of the soft sputtering method, gas cluster ion sputtering (GCIS), and its effects on the atomic, morphologic, and band structure properties of polyaniline (PAni) as studied with X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry, atomic force microscopy, and scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS). The GCIS source used was a 1000 argon atom cluster with 4 keV energy, which resulted in a sputter yield of 3.4 ± 0.2 × 10−3 nm3 per argon atom. Soft ion sputtering reduced the sample by explicitly removing the oxidized contaminants as determined by surface sensitive techniques: XPS and Time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS). By the use of STS we found that by removing the oxidized components, an overall shift of electronic states occurred, transitioning the states closer to the Fermi edge by 0.3 V.


The objective of this study was to identify the differences for the sub-constructs of educational beliefs and passion for teaching among 409 preservice teachers from Malaysia and China. Results demonstrated that Malaysian preservice teachers scored the highest mean for traditionalism whereas the Chinese preservice teachers obtained the highest mean for romanticism. As for passion, the Malaysian and Chinese preservice teachers reported the highest mean in harmonious passion. Findings reported as for educational beliefs, the mean of two countries in their traditionalism and progressivism was significantly different. Preservice teachers from Malaysia reported higher mean than those from China in both cases. Regarding passion for teaching, the differences were only found in obsessive passion where Malaysian pre-service teachers reported the higher mean.


A serious and troublesome complication of endoscopic intrarenal operation is bleeding from an injured vessel. To diminish the risk of such injury, the operator must know and recall the spatial position of the intrarenal vascular structures and their anatomic relations with the collecting system. The analysis of 82 three-dimensional endocasts of the kidney collecting system together with the intrarenal arteries and 52 endocasts of the collecting system with the veins showed that the segmental and the interlobar branches of the renal artery as well as the major intrarenal tributaries of the renal vein are in close relation with the anterior and posterior surfaces of the major caliceal infundibula as well as of the necks of the minor calices. Considering that the circumference of an infundibulum is composed of four quadrants, the infundibular incision must be done in the superior or inferior quadrant, because in general, these areas are free of large vessels. Contrariwise, the posterior and, mainly, the ante...


Multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) were functionalized by a free-radical reaction of vinyltriethoxysilane and were blended with poly(urea urethane) (PUU) containing poly(dimethylsiloxane) as a soft segment. PUU was end-capped with aminopropyltriethoxysilane (A-silane) or phenyltriethoxysilane (P-silane).A-silane-end-capped PUU was covalently bonded to functionalized MWNTs, whereas P-silane-end-capped PUU was noncovalently bonded to pristine MWNTs by a π–π interaction. Fourier transform infrared, Raman spectra, and thermogravimetric analysis confirmed the functionalization of MWNTs. The results showed that the optimal reaction time of the functionalization of MWNT was 8 h, and the organic content of the modified carbon nanotubes reached 35.22%. Solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance and dynamic mechanical analysis were used to investigate the molecular structure and molecular mobility of the carbon-nanotube/PUU nanocomposites. A-silane PUU covalently bonded to MWNTs showed a considerable reduction in the molecular motion of the soft segment, which led to the glass-transition temperature decreasing from −117 to −127 °C as MWNTs were incorporated. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 43: 6084–6094, 2005


In recent years, growth in traditional deposit funding sources has failed to match the growth in assets at many banks. These funding shortfalls are raising a number of important concerns, including whether community banks will have to curtail lending to small businesses, farmers, and other local customers. This article takes a look at bank funding trends and their implications for community banks. The article also examines possible explanations for the trends, such as strong loan demand, shifts in household financial portfolios, new competition, comparative returns on other financial instruments, and changing demographics in community banking markets. The final section of the article then explores the options and strategies community banks can use to address their funding challenges.


In many instances, reflections within antenna test ranges constitute the largest single component within the facility-level error budget [1]. For some time, a frequency domain measurement and post-processing technique named Mathematical Absorber Reflection Suppression (MARS) has been successfully used to reduce range multi-path effects within spherical near-field and far-field antenna measurement systems [2, 3, 4]. More recently, a related technique has been developed for use with cylindrical near-field antenna measurement systems [5, 6]. This paper provides an introduction to the measurement technique and novel probe pattern corrected near-field to far-field transform algorithm. It then presents the most recent results of an ongoing validation campaign detailing a number of the most recent advances which are found to yield improvements comparable to those attained with the corresponding spherical MARS technique. The results are discussed and conclusions presented.


In this study, optical microscopy and micro-Raman spectroscopy were used to determine the chemical compositions of the materials used in the preparatory and pictorial layers of wall paintings from four different sites of the Roman Empire of first to second century AD. The use of UV excitation for the Raman work for the study of the preparatory layers made it possible to overcome the problems of fluorescence. The fresco technique, revealed by the presence of calcite in the Greek and Roman samples, was not used for the Gallo–Roman works. The studies indicated that the same compounds were used for red and green pigments throughout the Roman Empire: red ocher (hematite) and green earths (celadonite, in the case of the Gallo–Roman fragments). It is shown that the impact of the atmosphere on the sample surface is very important, because the only fragments to have suffered identifiable deterioration are those from the 'open-air humid room' in Kenchreai. The presence of gypsum in these samples in the absence of pigment indicates the implication of SO2 in the deterioration and makes it possible to suggest that the pigments in the pictorial layer can serve as a protection for the calcite preparatory layers. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


ABSTRACT There has been a growing interest in open innovation strategy as a mechanism to face obstacles in innovative projects in the last three decades. These studies reveal that companies perceiving knowledge and skill shortages prioritise collaboration with universities and public research institutions rather than with other partners. However, most studies addressing the link between collaboration and innovation barriers are conducted in high-income countries. Drawing on the concepts of cognitive distance and absorptive capacities, we propose an analytical framework that challenges the suitability of this finding in the context of less developed economies. We provide evidence supporting this framework's implications using the case of Colombian manufacturing firms. The resulting underutilisation of knowledge by firms in the context of emerging economies, as a consequence of their cognitive distance from universities and public research institutions, has important policy implications. GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT


Named Entity Recognition (NER) systems allow complex concepts extraction and text mining from Natural Language documents. Actually, NER systems based on Deep Learning (DL) approaches are able to reach state-of-the-art performances when applied to general domain texts. On the other hand, the performances of these systems decrease when they are applied to texts that belong to specific domains, such as the biomedical one. In particular, Biomedical NER (B-NER) is a crucial task for the automatic analysis of medical documents, such as Electronic Health Records (EHRs), in order to support the work of physicians and researchers. Thus, new approaches are required to boost B-NER systems performances. In this paper we analyze the behaviour of a B-NER DL architecture specifically devoted to Italian EHRs, focusing on the contribution of different Word Embeddings (WEs) models used as input text representation layer. The achieved results show the substantial contribution of WEs trained on a closed domain corpus exclusively formed by documents belonging to the biomedical domain. The resulting improvements are comparable with the ones obtained using the most recent and complex neural language models, such as ELMo or BERT, which have a much higher computational complexity if compared with classic WEs approach.


The effect of thermal activation on NiW/Al2O3 catalyst in their oxide, reduced and sulfided forms has been studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD), differential thermal analysis (DTA), diffusion reflectance spectroscopy (DTS), infrared spectroscopy (IR), Raman spectroscopy (RS), electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and magnetic susceptibility measurements.

Thermal activation in oxygen results in production of many species of the mono-, di-, and polymeric type. Upon activation in hydrogen they are partially reduced, whereas upon sulfiding number of oxide ions are replaced by sulfide ones. Among others, formation of dithiotungstenates was proved, yet neither the exchange of hydroxyl groups for the thiol ones nor the exchange of bridge oxide ions for sulphur ions was indicated.

The simultanous reduction and sulfiding process do not affect the spinel subsurface structure. With respect to the surface species, the catalyst's support takes on a stabilizing function.


A field experiment was conducted during the winter (rabi) seasons of 2014–15 and 2015–16 at New Delhi, to evaluate the effects of cropping systems and nutrient sources on yield attributes, yields and economics of wheat [Triticum aestivum (L.) emend. Fiori & Paol]. Of the tested cropping systems, direct-seeded basmati rice (DSBR) (Oryza sativa L.)-wheat-mungbean [Vigna radiata (L.) R. Wilczek] system exhibited the highest values of yield attributes, viz. effective tillers, grains/spike and 1, 000-seed weight which led to the highest grain yield (4.44 t/ha) and wheat equivalent yield (WEY) (11.7 t/ha). Among the nutrient sources, application of 50% recommended dose of fertilizers (RDF) + 25% recommended dose of nitrogen (RDN) through vermicompost (VC) + bio-fertilizer resulted in the highest yield attributes, grain (4.76 t/ha) and straw (6.86 t/ha) yields and gross returns (105.07 × 103/ha) followed by 50% RDF + 25% RDN through leaf compost (LC) + bio-fertilizer. A strong positive correlation (r2 = 0.69–0.97) was also observed between yield attributes (effective tillers/m2 and grains/spike) and yield of wheat. The uptake of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) in grain and straw of wheat remained statistically identical in DSBR-wheat-fallow and DSBR-wheat-mungbean systems. Application of 50% RDF + 25% RDN-VC + bio-fertilizer registered significantly the highest uptake of N, P and K in both grain and straw of wheat and found on a par with 50% RDF + 25% RDN-LC + bio-fertilizer and 100% RDF. On the basis of net returns an application of 100% RDF was found superior to all the treatments. Therefore, DSBR-wheat-mungbean cropping system in conjunction with 50% RDF + 25% RDN-VC + bio-fertilizer or 50% RDF + 25% RDN-LC + bio-fertilizer significantly improved the yield attributes, leading to higher productivity and profitability of wheat over the control.


Conventional literature in strategic management posits that unrelated diversification is negatively related to firm performance. In transition economies like China,however,external market is less effective due to institutional voids. Unrelated diversification can compensate for the voids by creating internal market in the firm. We adopt institutional perspective in this paper. Through empirical analysis of 425 largest 500 Chinese firms in 2004,we find that unrelated diversification is positively related to firm performance. We also find that POEs are more unrelatedly diversified than SOEs,and unrelated diversification contributes more to POEs′ performance than to SOEs′ performance.


THE BACKGROUND As long ago as 1859, Del-Vesco reported an apparent cluster of anencephalic births in Italy. An examination of the recent literature shows that clusters of births with lesions of the central nervous system are still being described (Polman, 1951; Pleydell, 1960; Boris, Blumberg, Feldman and Sellers, 1963; Spellman, 1969; Flynt, 1970) although the evidence never appears to have been subjected to statistical analysis. It has frequently been noted that the incidence of anencephalus, spina bifida, and hydrocephalus varies not only with year (Leck and Rogers, 1967; Rogers, 1969; MacMahon and Yen, 1971, among many others) but also with month of conception (Record, 1961; Laurence, Carter, and David, 1968; Elwood and MacKenzie, 1971) and area of residence of the mother (Penrose, 1957; Edwards, 1958; Stevenson, Johnston Stewart, and Golding, 1966). When the dates of birth of infants who were stillborn or who died soon after birth with a malformation of the central nervous system in the city of Glasgow were compared with the names and addresses of the mothers, it became apparent that there was some subjective evidence for clustering of cases in both space and time. For example, a case of spina bifida was born in January 1965 and exactly nine months later a further case was delivered to another womnan residing in the same house, and in another house a case of hydrocephalus was born in October 1964 and one of anencephalus just one month later. In addition, there were examples of women living in adjacent houses on the same street having infants with defects of the central nervous system within a very short time of one another. It


A new type of light-contact electroreflectance(LCER) spectroscopy technique was proposed.The measurement of the modulation spectroscopy can be simplified by using this method.The structure of the sample holder was presented in detail.The required amplitude of modulation voltage can be largely reduced by comparing with that of CER and the mechanism is analyzed qualitatively.The experimental results in InGaAs/GaAs quantum well samples by using LCER technique are presented and indicate the high spectral sensitivity and high spectral resolution of LCER.Compared with the experimental results of photoreflectance(PR),it is shown that both spectra of LCER and PR coincide with each other and the experimental results are not influenced by the light contact between the surface of the sample and the electrode.It is concluded that LCER is an effective and convenient method for the study of semiconductor materials and semiconductor quantum wells.


ABSTRACT : Historically, Arabic learning in Indonesia made a significant progress at the end of 19 90s to the beginning of 20 00s . This study was according to the importance of " Nahwu " and presence of the subject which exclusively taught about " Nahwu " after educational institutions effectively taught their students about Arabic subject itself. This situation happened in several universities in Indonesia with an Arabic language program, w h ether it is an educational program or Arabic literature program. The main purposes of this study were: knowing about " Nahwu " learning contents in several universities ; finding out " Nahwu " learning implementations in several universities ; and knowing " Nahwu " learning character of value progress in several universities. This study has been implemented in several universities in Indonesia which had subject curriculum of " Nahwu " learning. The sample of this study was taken by using the purposive sampling method. Based on any considerations from the time, academic , and curriculum concerns, the sample was taken from several universities which stand on Java, they were: UPI (Indonesia University of Education) in Bandung , UI (University of Indonesia) in Jakarta , UIN (State Islamic University) Syarif Hidayatullah in Jakarta , UIN Sunan Gunung Djati in Bandung , UGM (Gadjah Mada University) in Yogyakarta , UNPAD (Padjadjaran University) in Bandung, and UNINUS (Archipelago Islamic University) in Bandung . The result of this study was about basic concept of " Nahwu " learning contents , which were taught in university and " Nahwu " learning in university included the character of value based learning. KEY WORDS: Nahwu ; University ; Character ; Value ; Arabic L earning . About the Authors: Dr. H. Agus Salam Rahmat is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Arabic Language Education, Faculty of Language and Literature Education UPI (Indonesia University of Education), Jalan Dr. Setiabudhi No.229 Bandung 40154, West Java, Indonesia. Prof. Dr. H. Maman Abdu r rahman is Head of Study Program of Arabic Language Education SPs UPI (School of Postgraduate, Indonesia University of Education) in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. For academic interests, the authors are able to be contacted via their e-mails at: email@example.com and firstname.lastname@example.com How to cite this article? Rahmat, Agus Salam & Maman Abdurrahman. (2017). "Analysis of N ahwu Learning Progress in Indonesian Universities Based on the Character of Value Concerns" in TAWARIKH: International Journal for Historical Studies , Vol.8(2) April, pp.189-202. Bandung, Indonesia: Minda Masagi Press and UIN SGD Bandung, ISSN 2085-0980. Chronicle of the article: Accepted (January 28, 2017); Revised (March 2, 2017); and Published (April 28, 2017).


We present a novel approach for the user experience and usability methodology procedure evaluation, shown in an example of the user experience and usability study of an interactive HbbTV application. A special questionnaire, partly based on the NASA TLX standard test is presented. The concept has been successfully implemented in several field trials of the SEE TV-WEB project and very positive feedback was gained.Â


The objective of the study was to estimate herd-basis energy status (ES) using body condition scoring (BCS) and shortened metabolic profiles in multiparous clinically healthy dairy cows and to evaluate if such profiles can be informative in herd investigation to indicate on metabolic herd problems. A total of 180 Holstein cows from commercial herd were clinically examined and assigned to one of 3 equal groups: dry cows (15 days before expected calving), puerperal (10 days after calving) and cows at day 60 of lactation. Blood were sampled and analyzed for total protein, albumin, urea nitrogen (UN), β-hydroxybutyrate (BHBA), glucose and total bilirubin. Liver samples by percutaneous biopsies were obtained at puerperal period and tested for lipid content. The cows had a mean BCS of 3.92±0.03 at dry period, 3.08 ± 0.03 at puerperal period and 2.82 ± 0.02 at day 60 of lactation. Average total protein, albumin and glucose concentrations were within the physiological range, whereas UN was higher than physiologically accepted, at all examined periods. BHBA levels increased after calving and 61.66% of puerperal cows had BHBA levels above 1 mmol/L. Average total bilirubin concentration after calving was higher than recommended. Concentrations of UN, BHBA and total bilirubin were positively correlated, whereas concentrations of total protein and glucose were negatively correlated with fatty liver degree. Albumin concentration was not correlated with fatty liver degree. In conclusion, although clinically healthy the examined cows were not in adequate ES during the transition period. Consequently, 55% of the cows had moderate to severe fatty liver. A sufficient number of highly significant correlations suggest that employed metabolic profiles may offer an indirect means of estimation energy status on a herd basis.

Key words: Cow, energy status, metabolic profile, body condition score.


ABSTRACT Stress can be perceived as a response to threats situations (either physical or psychological) caused by individual inability  to overcome existing threats within his/her environment. Job stress is the result of interaction between an individual (i.e. a worker) and his/her occupation. The objective of this study to identify the factor affecting tojob stress by the divers at PT. X. This study applied cross-sectional design conducted by observing the divers at PT. X. The population of this study was all divers working at PT. X. Data was analyzed by Spearman Correlation Test, Pearson Correlation Test, and Chi-square Test. The results of this study is strong correlation between personality type and job stress (as indicated by correlation coefficient 0.645). The divers' age (correlation coefficient -0.283), educational level (correlation coefficient -0.220), years of service/experience (correlation coefficient -0.158), length of diving session (correlation coefficient 0.083), and threats of marine animal attack (correlation coefficient 0.156) had lower correlation with job stress. While the divers residence might also affect their job stress (as indicated by correlation coefficient 0.539). Keywords: job stress, diver


DNA damage and repair processes are key cellular phenomena that are being intensely studied because of their implications in the onset and therapy of cancer. This chapter introduces a general dynamic model of gene expression, and proposes a genetic network modeling framework based on the interconnection of a continuous-time model and a hybrid model. This strategy is applied to a network built around the p53 gene and protein, which detects DNA damage and activates the downstream nucleotide excision repair (NER) network, which carries out the actual repair tasks. Then, two different parameter identification techniques are presented for the proposed models. One is based on a least squares procedure, which treats the signals provided by a high gain observer; the other one is based on a Mixed Extended Kalman Filter. Prior to the estimation phase, identifiability and sensitivity analyses are used to determine which parameters can be and/or should be estimated. The procedures are tested and compared by means of data obtained by in silico experiments. DOI: 10.4018/978-1-60960-491-2.ch021


A Japanese urushi1 helmet and crest from the 16th century were prepared for exhibition at the Royal Armouries Museum. Both objects presented complex issues concerning cleaning for aesthetic reasons and the restoration of missing areas. To assess the degree of lacquer deterioration and to develop an appropriate cleaning solution a number or low-tech analytical methods, including UV light and pH measurement were used. One side of the crest was partially missing and Japanese and Western restoration techniques were researched in order to develop ideas for loss compensation. The fragile condition of the lacquer and thin, fl exible nature of the object found that contemporary Japanese and common Western methods of restoration were inappropriate. Instead, a detachable, self-supporting painted mild steel sheet was used to recreate the crest's silhouette.


Since 2012 we have been teaching agile development and model-based development (MBD) in undergraduate courses at King's College London. In this paper we analyse the results of practical courseworks in agile MBD, taken from 2013-14 and 2014-15. We identify the factors which have contributed to the success or failure of students to apply theoretical knowledge to these practical problems, and we consider how educational techniques can be improved in this area.


Study Objective The Meyer Pediatric Hospital in Florence, Italy recently implemented the single provider model of emergency medicine. Prior to these changes, patients were triaged to a paediatric surgeon or paediatrician based on the complaint. The authors assess the outcomes of patients evaluated by surgeons prior to this change and compare them with those of patients seen by emergency physicians. Methods A retrospective, cohort study was performed reviewing patients seen in the emergency department between 2005 and 2008 for the three most common surgical complaints encountered before the systems change: head trauma, testicular pain and abdominal pain. Outcomes include misdiagnoses, consultation rates, dispositions, imaging, interventions and surgeries. Results A total of 2415 patient visits were included. Emergency physicians saw more patients (1388 vs 1027) and obtained more consultations (25.6% vs 8.1%) than surgeons. Patients triaged directly to surgeons were more likely to be admitted to the hospital (10.3% vs 7.6%), undergo urgent interventions (9.5% vs 6.7%), undergo surgery (8.0% vs 4.8%), have more radiographic images to evaluate head trauma (12.1% vs 5.3%), be misdiagnosed (1.0% vs 0.3%) and have more plain films for abdominal pain (3.1% vs 1.3%). There is an overall trend towards fewer missed diagnoses by emergency physicians (0.3% vs 0.9%), but this difference is only statistically significant in the abdominal pain subset analysis (p=0.032, combined data p=0.052). Conclusions The single provider model of emergency medicine where emergency physicians manage all patients presenting to the emergency department appears to be a safe and efficient model of emergency medical care.


The aim of this study was to assess genome size variation and multivariate morphometric analyses to ascertain cytotype distribution patterns and the morphological differentiation within the Ranunculus parnassifolius group in the Pyrenees and the Alps. Although divergences in nuclear DNA content among different species within a genus are widely acknowledged, intraspecific variation is still a somewhat controversial issue. Holoploid and monoploid genome sizes (C- and Cx-values) were determined using propidium iodide flow cytometry in 125 plants of R. parnassifolius s.l. distributed across four European countries. Three different DNA ploidy levels were revealed in the study area: diploid (2n ∼ 2x, 57.14%), triploid (2n ∼ 3x, 1.19%), and tetraploid (2n ∼ 4x, 41.67%). The mean population 2C-values ranged from 8.15 pg in diploids to 14.80 pg in tetraploids, representing a ratio of 1 : 1.8. Marked intraspecific/interpopulation differences in nuclear DNA content were found. Diploid populations prevail in the Pyrenees, although tetraploid cytotypes were reported throughout the distribution area. In general, mixed-cytotype populations were not found. The Spearman correlation coefficient did not reveal significant correlations between genome size and altitude, longitude, or latitude. Morphometric analyses and cluster analyses based on genome size variation revealed the presence of three major groups, which exhibited a particular biogeographical pattern. A new cytotype, DNA triploid, was found for the first time. Tetraploid populations showed constant nuclear DNA levels, whereas diploid populations from the Pyrenees, in which introgressive hybridization is suggested as a presumable trigger for genome size variation, did not. Scenarios for the evolution of geographical parthenogenesis in R. parnassifolius s.l. are discussed. Finally, the different levels of effectiveness between plant and animal reference standards are analysed. © 2010 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 101, 251–271.


This paper presents a method to identify the bolt joints dynamic parameters based on partially measured frequency response functions (FRFs) and demonstrates its application in machine tools. Basic formulas are derived to identify the joint dynamic properties based on the substructuring method and an algorithm to estimate the unmeasured FRFs is also developed. The identification avoids direct inverse calculation to the frequency response function matrix, and its validity is demonstrated by comparing the simulated and measured FRFs of the assembled free-free steel beams with a bolt joint. An approach is put forward to apply the identification in machine tools by constructing structures assembled of substructures and joint structures to substitute the bolt joints in machine tools and assuring the contact conditions unchanged. The identification of the bed-column bolt joint in a vertical machining center is provided to describe the application procedure and show the feasibility of the proposed approach.


The retained possessive construction is derived by the possessor's raising.The matrix verb is extended by Bec,Asp and Caus in the construction.Caus can be realized as'ba'and Bec selects as a cause a DP made by apossessor and a possessee.The possessor can be raised in Chinese when the D is not realized as'de'.The different retained possessive constructions can be derived by the possessor's raising in different positions.The asymmetries between the possessor and the possessee made the construction show some idiosyncrasies in replacement and constituent extraction.


The sorption-application therapy is of great medico-prophylactic significance in treatment of military trauma. The medical effect can be obtained but when using sorbents maintaining the active mechanism of debridement of the wounds. On the basis of the complex laboratory investigation of properties of the sorption materials and their ultrastructure conclusions are made of prerequisites for their use in treatment of purulent wounds. It was shown that the curative-prophylactic effectiveness can be provided by sorbents on the basis of water-swollen polymers (Gelevin, Cellosorb, Gelecel) and carbohydrate materials.


The frequent occurrence of comorbidities in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) suggests that they may share pathobiological processes and/or risk factors. To explore these possibilities we compared the clinical diseasome and the molecular diseasome of 5447 COPD patients hospitalised because of an exacerbation of the disease. The clinical diseasome is a network representation of the relationships between diseases, in which diseases are connected if they co-occur more than expected at random; in the molecular diseasome, diseases are linked if they share associated genes or interaction between proteins. The results showed that about half of the disease pairs identified in the clinical diseasome had a biological counterpart in the molecular diseasome, particularly those related to inflammation and vascular tone regulation. Interestingly, the clinical diseasome of these patients appears independent of age, cumulative smoking exposure or severity of airflow limitation. These results support the existence of shared molecular mechanisms among comorbidities in COPD. Half of the comorbidities observed in COPD patients hospitalised by an exacerbation share common molecular mechanisms http://ow.ly/PDiGg


ABSTRACT The key of ratio enhancement (RE) is to synthesize a low-resolution panchromatic image. The grey-level distortion of the synthesized low-resolution image can distort a fused image. To tackle this problem, we propose a pansharpening method based on total least-squares regression and ratio enhancement (TLSR-RE). This method can correct the grey-level distortion in the low-resolution panchromatic synthetic image for different ground objects. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and normalized difference water index (NDWI) are adopted to classify the pixels into different classes. Then, we employe total least squares (TLS) regression to obtain the error-free panchromatic and multispectral image of each class. The low-resolution panchromatic image is synthesized by weighted summation of the error-free multispectral image. In addition, the grey-level distorted pixels are extracted for further correction. Finally, the multispectral image is sharpened by the ratio enhancement method. The experimental results reveal that the proposed algorithm achieves high-fidelity in spatial details and spectrum.


The 3D numerical model of InGaAs quantum dot solar cell is developed and presented in this paper. The device characteristics are examined based on the exact potential and energy profile of the quantum dot obtained from the solution of 3D Poisson and Schrodinger equations using Homotopy decomposition method. The QD current is estimated by considering the QD parameters and the results obtained show that the QD current is strongly influenced by quantum dot density and applied voltage. The characteristics of the quantum dot solar cell such as photocurrent, spectral response, recombination rate for the quantum wavelength and QD layers are obtained for various device parameters. The numerical simulation results exhibit the strength of the proposed model.


We investigate an approach for enabling a reinforcement learning agent to learn about dangerous states or constraints from stop-feedback preventing the agent from taking any further, potentially dangerous, actions. Such feedback could be provided by human supervisors overseeing the RL agent's behavior while carrying out some complex tasks. To enable the RL agent to learn from the supervisor's feedback, we propose a probabilistic model for approximating how the supervisor's feedback could have been generated and consider a Bayesian approach for inferring dangerous states. We evaluated our approach using an OpenAI Safety Gym environment and demonstrated that our agent can effectively infer the imposed safety constraints. Furthermore, we conducted a user study to validate our human-inspired feedback model and to obtain insights into the human provision of stop-feedback


Squamous cell carcinoma is a highly unusual form of gallbladder carcinoma. A detailed case study of this rare disease discovered in a patient sent for a diagnostic sonographic examination is presented. Possibilities for an etiology that is not well defined are explored. Common precursors for gallbladder cancer are discussed along with treatment options for a disease with a grim prognosis. A sonographer's guide to scanning a mass found in the gallbladder includes a differential diagnosis for various types of masses.


Background Black people have been used in a variety of training situations over the decades. The nature of the involvement has ranged from ad hoc interviewing (if not interrogation) of representatives of the Black Communities, to much more structured training situations. Over that time, some organizations have developed their approach to the use of community-based trainers and training methods generally. Changes have, on the whole, been for the better. However, such organizations are very much in the minority. Course organizers continue to use lay Black people in a piecemeal and, I would argue, unethical way. There is a tremendous amount of goodwill amongst lay Black community activists. Such commitment to help the police and other services is frequently misguided by the willingness to get involved on almost any terms. By the same token, course organizers take such a privilege for granted and thereby abuse the goodwill. It is difficult to address this problem because by their very nature, lay people are not organized, recognized, or given any status. Similarly, trainers tend to see the lay input as an added bonus or of peripheral interest and therefore give little thought or attention to the issue. A typical situation it what I would describe as the local grocer-syndrome. Training organizers might call the Black grocer to provide a short presentation on "Asians" or "West Indians". Worse still, the trainer might invite her or him to a "lively debate" in other words, the lion's den! This article reflects on past experience and proposes how to move forward in what is a very difficult and nebulous issue to grasp. Getting professional trainers together is easy; arranging a partnership between large organizations and a constantly changing pool of community trainers represents a real challenge


The temperature field and stress field of boiler, especially at its connectors of drum downcomers,is analysed under start-stop and changing load operation.On the basis of FEA,the real-time temperature and stress field and fatigue life of boiler at various operating conditions is calculated.The calculating results accord with the practical condition and fulfill the requirement of online inspecting.In this paper,a realizing method based on RTPM is presented to efficiently utilize PI real-time database.


This study attempted to define expertise in cardiorespiratory physiotherapy to inform future development of the speciality. A Delphi technique was used to elicit clinicians' perceptions of expert cardiorespiratory practice. There was good consensus within and between groups on category selection, which provided a framework for exploration of tacit skills under categories supplied by respondents.


Based on the precipitation and temperature data of the 12 meteorological stations in the "Three-River Headwaters" region and the observed runoff data of Zhimenda in the headwater sub-region of the Yangtze River, Tangnaihai in the headwater sub-region of the Yellow River and Changdu in the headwater sub-region of the Lancang River during the period 1965-2004, this paper analyses the trends of precipitation, temperature, runoff depth and carries out significance tests by means of Mann-Kendall-Sneyers sequential trend test. Makkink model is applied to calculate the potential evaporation. The runoff model driven by precipitation and potential evaporation is developed and the influence on runoff by climate change is simulated under different scenarios. Results show that during the period 1965-2004 the temperature of the "Three-River Headwaters" region is increasing, the runoff of the three hydrological stations is decreasing and both of them had abrupt changes in 1994, while no significant trend changes happen to the precipitation. The runoff model suggests that the precipitation has a positive effect on the runoff depth, while the potential evaporation plays a negative role. The influence of the potential evaporation on the runoff depth of the Lancang River is found to be the significant in the three rivers; and that of the Yellow River is the least. The result of the scenarios analysis indicates that although the precipitation and the potential evaporation have positive and negative effects on runoff relatively, fluctuated characteristics of individual effect on the runoff depth in specific situations are represented.


The article considers the economic aspects of constructing high-rise buildings in the world and in Russia. Data on the number of high-rise buildings in Russian cities with a million population are presented. It is proved that interest in high-rise construction in Russia has been formed only in Moscow and partly in St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg. The analysis showed that the reason for this is the expensiveness of high-rise construction. According to the enlarged macro-calculation, the cost of building 1 m 2 of the area of the Federation Towers complex (Moscow City) is about 2710 $/m 2 . Practically a possibility of return on investments in the foreseeable time interval exists only in Moscow. For the regions of Russia this task is rather complicated. Population density in regional Russian cities is quite low, business entities do not have the necessary financial resources for investing in high-rise construction, and investments from abroad absent.


Abstract: The paper summarizes the flrst results of an identiflcation of sleepystate of drivers using a complex set of outputs from simulated driving. The drivinginformation, such as deviation from the centerline of the road and the steeringwheel position as well as two-point EEG, was used. The process consists of thepreprocessing of data, in fact a transformation into a form proper for classiflcation,and a classiflcation into one of two classes, i.e. wakefulness and drowsiness. Therewere two groups of drivers submitted to tests, the wakeful ones, and the driversafter serious sleep deprivation. We found that it is possible to distinguish thesegroups using an appropriate classifler with some rather substantial error, whichcan possibly be tackled by using an apt methodology.Key words: Wakefulness, drowsiness, sleepy state of drivers, classiflcation,driving simulationReceived: September 6, 2010Revised and accepted: December 13, 2010 1. Introduction Driver's drowsiness is a very dangerous phenomenon causing approximately sevenper cent of all car accidents. But it is impossible to give an absolutely precise num-ber of these cases because reasons for such road accidents may also be classifledas \inattentiveness to primary driving tasks". Drowsiness is analyzed or identifledby a lot of approaches based on EEG analysis ([1]) and other psycho-physiologicalmeasures, often also on analysis of driver's responses while controlling the car. Re-cently there has also been a noticeable progress in face analysis ([2]). However, forpractical applications the main problem lies in distinguishing between the driver'swakeful and drowsy state in the car or truck.


The Korteweg-de Vries equation (KdV) and various generalized, most often semi- linear versions have been studied for about 50 years. Here, the focus is made on a quasi-linear generalization of the KdV equation, which has a fairly general Hamil- tonian structure. This paper presents a local in time well-posedness result, that is existence and uniqueness of a solution and its continuity with respect to the initial data. The proof is based on the derivation of energy estimates, the major inter- est being the method used to get them. The goal is to make use of the structural properties of the equation, namely the skew-symmetry of the leading order term, and then to control subprincipal terms using suitable gauges as introduced by Lim & Ponce (SIAM J. Math. Anal., 2002) and developed later by Kenig, Ponce & Vega (Invent. Math., 2004) and S. Benzoni-Gavage, R. Danchin & S. Descombes (Electron. J. Diff. Eq., 2006). The existence of a solution is obtained as a limit from regularized parabolic problems. Uniqueness and continuity with respect to the initial data are proven using a Bona-Smith regularization technique.


This paper describes the incorporation of nanotextured black silicon as an optical absorbing material into silicon-based micro-opto-elecromechanical systems devices to reduce stray light and increase optical contrast during imaging. Black silicon is created through a maskless dry etch process and characterized for two different etch conditions, a cold etch performed at 0°C and a cryogenic etch performed at -110°C. We measure specular reflection at visible wavelengths to be less than .001% at near normal incidence for both processes, while the total diffuse scatter is less than 3% and 1% for the cold and cryogenic processes, respectively. These surfaces exhibit less reflectivity and lower scatter than black velvet paint used to coat optical baffles, and compare favorably with other methods to produce black surfaces from nanotextured silicon or using carbon nanotubes. We illustrate the use of this material by integrating a black silicon aperture around the perimeter of a deformable focus-control mirror. Imaging results show a significant improvement in contrast and image fidelity due to the effective reduction in stray light achieved with the self-aligned black aperture. Introduction Silicon-based micro-opto-electromechanical systems (MOEMS) devices have wide spread applications for optical imaging and display [1] that include beam scanning devices [2] for imaging [3], information display [4], printing [5], and laser marking [6], and focus control devices for cameras with agile electronic focus [7-13] and zoom capability [14-16]. 151 In most systems, and critically important for imaging and display systems, it is necessary to limit the light illumination solely to the active optical regions. Stray reflections and scattering from surrounding regions should be suppressed to avoid double images or other artifacts including background haze. These unwanted reflections have traditionally been avoided by implementing an external diaphragm with an aperture to limit the optical path to only the desired portion of the optical surface. This, however, relies on accurate alignment of this external aperture to the original device, which may be challenging if not impossible for ultra-miniature optical systems. We propose a new approach to this problem that incorporates a self-aligned integrated aperture made from a light absorbing material called black silicon to prevent unwanted reflections from regions that are not part of the active optical surface. Black silicon is created by etching the exposed silicon surface into densely packed micro/nano silicon pillars. Light incident onto this surface layer is efficiently absorbed, therefore giving it a black appearance [17-19]. While black silicon has received considerable attention for use as an antireflection layer [20, 21] as well as for its interesting photoelectric applications [17, 22-24], it has so far not been incorporated for use as a flocking material within a MOEMS imaging system. However, we find that it has excellent optical absorption properties and is inherently compatible with silicon MOEMS processing, making this a highly useful new application for the material. Current methods for creating black silicon include dry etching [20, 25-27], wet etching [22, 28] laser treatment [29] and chemical vapor deposition (CVD) [18]. Because dry etching can produce strongly absorbing layers and is particularly compatible with MOEMS fabrication, we developed two, simple, single step, self-masked dry etch black 152 silicon recipes. Both etches are performed at reduced temperature using a mixture of SF6 and O2, as has been reported by several others [27, 30-32]. The "cold etch" keeps the sample at 0°C, while the "cryogenic etch" keeps the sample at -110°C. We have measured the reflectivity and backscatter from surfaces created with these two recipes, finding both to be extremely low and thus a good material for an optical baffle. The paper also shows that the reflectivity and scattering of the developed black silicon surfaces compares favorably to other nano-structured absorbers and conventional optical paint coatings. Finally, we demonstrate the integration of the black silicon layer into a MOEMS fabrication process, creating a self-aligned aperture around an electrostatic deformable mirror, and show the consequent improvement in the quality of images made using this properly masked variable focus device. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first experimental demonstration of imaging enhancement through the utilization of a black silicon integrated aperture [33]. Materials and Methods The formation of black silicon through dry etching is a relatively well-known process. In general, the formation of the dense array of pillars that form black silicon begins when micro masking, either from lithography or spontaneous deposition during plasma etching, is present on the silicon surface and anisotropic etching conditions exist [31, 34, 35]. A common way to achieve anisotropic etching of silicon is to utilize the cryogenic etch properties of SF6 [30. 31, 36, 37]. In this section, we describe a recipe for creating self-masked single step black silicon at cryogenic temperature, and an adjusted recipe operating closer to room temperature for compatible integration onto a MOEMS 153 electrostatic deformable mirror. The Oxford Plasmalab System 100 ICP etcher was used for all dry etching processes described in this paper. Initial black silicon formation experiments were based on etch results reported by Sainiemi et al. [25]. New, single side polished 525μm p-type <100> silicon wafers were employed. No dedicated cleaning was performed other than using pressurized nitrogen to remove any stray debris. The newly developed maskless recipe, which is shown in Table 1, was optimized for the Oxford Plasmalab System 100 ICP etcher. With this process, the surface of a polished silicon wafer would become velvet black after 7 minutes of cryogenic etching, shown in Fig. 1. Table 1. Cryogenic Black Silicon Recipe ICP Power (W) Bias Power (W) SF6 (sccm) O2 (sccm) Temp. (°C) Pressure Duration 700 3 38 22 -110 9mtorr 7minutes 154 Fig. 1. Comparison of black silicon wafers made using the cryogenic etch and the 0°C etch. Both photos were captured under identical conditions (lighting, location, camera settings). (a) Cryogenic black silicon. (b) 0°C black silicon. The surface texture of the 0°C black silicon wafer appears visually to be rougher. The specular reflectivity of this surface was characterized at two wavelengths, using a 633nm and a 477nm laser. The specular reflection could be visually isolated from the diffuse scatter from near-normal to grazing incidence. A silicon photodiode based power meter with a 6mm diameter aperture was used to capture the power in the reflected specular beam when the angle of incidence of the incident beam was scanned from 2 to 82 degrees. The power meter sensor was located approximately 40cm from the wafer surface. The specular reflectivity measurements were collected at both wavelengths. The power in the specular reflected beam was normalized by the total incident power to calculate the reflectivity. The diffuse laser scatter of this surface was also characterized. Like the previous specular reflection measurements, a 633nm laser and a 477nm laser were used. The laser illuminated the surface at normal incidence while the small aperture power meter was used to collect the power in the diffused laser scatter as a function of viewing angle. The distance between the power meter and the point of incidence on the wafer remained constant. The approximate solid angle (Ω) of the light collected by the power meter could be calculated with the diameter of power meter entrance aperture (D) and the distance from the scatter source (R) using the relationship 2 2 4 D R    . The bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) of the scattered light is determined using the power detected by the power meter (PD), the solid angle of the power meter (Ω), the cosine of the scatter angle and the incident power (PI) using Eq. (1) [38].


elementary reactions with plausible reactive inter mediates, which is adequate to explain observations. This aspect of kinetics and mechanisms is extremely important and is often all that is needed. A quite different aspect of the science is that of quantitative mech anisms. One attempts to get the rates of the separate elementary steps, and the numerical values for the rate factors, A and E of the Arrhenius equation4 k = A exp (-E/RT) 1. Spectra, structure, and thermodynamic data are obtained for the fr ee radica l and other intermediates wherever possible. This emphasis on numbers is based on the assumption that for elementary reactions, data are transferable from one system to another; for example, rate factors for an elementary reac tion found in the photolysis of acetone may be used to characterize the same elementary reaction in the decomposition of ethane, or in an internal com bustion engine, or in a flame, or wherever it is found. Trotman-Dickenso n (1) has treated gas kinetics almost entirely from this point of view and has presented extensive tables of values of rate factors for results through 1954. When there are sufficient lists of rate factors, bond energies, and free radical structures, the problem of reaction mechanisms largely will be reduced to looking up all appropriate entries in a handbook. This state of affairs is still far in the future, although below a few definite cases will be pointed out. A third field of experimental kinetics is apparent: the investigator singles out some system, perhaps one worked on several times b'efore, in which one or more elementary reaction rates can be separated out or measured directly. Carefully, quan titative data are obtained to test theories of reaction rates. Great care is exerted to exclude effects of side reactions, surface reactions, or other spurious effects. In the field of qualitative mechanisms, the investi gator may be primarily interested in the substances; in the third field, the substances are of no interest; concern is with the phenomenon. The second field serves both the first and the third: quantitative considerations are the 1 The survey of the li terature perta ining to this review was conc lu ded in Decembe r.


Background: Concurrent thyroid cancer and hyperthyroidism is a rare finding. The frequency of this association is very variable. A rare case of papillary thyroid cancer associated with hyperthyroidism is described here.

Case: A 49-year-old male presented to the authors' outpatient clinic with complaints of a painless left-sided anterior neck swelling that had persisted for the past 8 months. He also reported weight loss for the same duration. The anterolateral swelling was non-tender, asymmetrical, mobile, and rubbery.

Investigations: Biochemical analysis confirmed hyperthyroidism. Ultrasound examination of the neck showed a well-defined, solid, and cystic lesion in the left lobe and isthmus of thyroid gland. The solid portion had few specks of calcification. A radioactive thyroid scan showed increased tracer uptake in the left lobe. Papillary carcinoma of thyroid origin was discovered after fine-needle aspiration of the left anterior cervical lymph node. After preparation, a total thyroidectomy was done. Examination of histopathology confirmed papillary thyroid carcinoma.

Treatment: Following radioactive thyroid ablation, the patient was started on suppressive doses of thyroxine daily.

Conclusion: Although thyroid cancer with hyperthyroidism is a rare finding, it should not be disregarded. To avoid missing this unusual yet uncommon discovery, a detailed history and physical examination should be performed, as well as all required investigations.


The "caretakers of the Presidential im age" are defined as the Presidential press secretaries since 1945 and the recently cre ated position of Director of Communica tions for the Executive Branch. Their main duties have concerned enhancement of the Presidential image and concomitant strengthening of his political stance, most directly vis-a-vis the general public through the mass media but also in relation to Con gress and the federal bureaucracy.


Immobilization of molybdenum(VI) oxychloride to the surface of perfluorinated ion-exchange polymer "Nafion"via an ion exchange method was carried out for the first time. The prepared Nafion immobilized molybdenum(VI) oxychloride catalyst was used for the direct synthesis of nitrones via one-pot condensation/oxidation of primary amines with aldehydes using solid urea-hydrogen peroxide (UHP) as oxidant under very mild reaction conditions. The developed polymer immobilized catalyst showed better activity than its analogous homogeneous catalyst with the added benefits of facile recovery and recyclability of the catalyst without leaching and loss in catalytic activity.


The article considers the mechanism and moving forces of realization of the strategy aimed at the transition to a new (innovation) type of economic growth. According to the author, the main condition of such transition is overcoming socialization of economic life that has been historically formed in Russia. The developed institutions of the civil society that reflects the strategic economic interest of national entrepreneurship are the moving force of this overcoming.


Ramsey's conjecture implies that a market economy tends toward a politically impossible form of extreme inequality (with "the thrifty enjoying bliss and the improvident at the subsistence level"). Because political actions are not systematic, but arbitrary or random, the combination of market and political forces leads to instability, sometimes full-fledged crisis. I show how the mechanisms of debt relief, redistribution and the uncertainty related to them could boil down to a discount rate shock for an aggregate representative agent. Furthermore, to make this shock possible into a simple Real Business Cycle (RBC) model, I propose a two-capital setup, which provides an improved solution to the interest-rate-inelasticity issue than the usual investment adjustment costs. Finally, I show the model's generality by adding wage rigidity and inflation. Considering the simplicity of the general equilibrium model, results provide rich narratives for recessions.


The widely used embedded impulse pilot for channel estimation of orthogonal time frequency space modulation (OTFS) has a prohibitively large peak to average power ratio (PAPR). Hence, in this paper, we propose a novel embedded pilot with cyclic prefix (PCP) that has a significantly reduced PAPR compared to the impulse pilot. This is achieved by spreading the pilot power along the delay dimension using a constant amplitude Zadoff-Chu (ZC) sequence with a cyclic prefix (CP). We analytically derive upper bound PAPR expressions for the impulse pilot and the proposed PCP. Together with our numerical results, these upper bounds attest the significant PAPR improvement that is achieved by PCP. We also develop a two-stage channel estimation technique with a superior performance to the threshold-based channel estimation for the impulse pilot. At the first stage, the channel is estimated by a linear estimator under the assumption of the channel being locally linear time invariant over each time-slot within the OTFS block. Taking advantage of the benefits that are offered by the CP in our proposed pilot structure, we develop a low complexity least squares based estimator for implementation of the first stage. At the second stage, we use the channel estimate from the first stage and the generalized complex exponential basis expansion model (GCE-BEM) to accurately estimate the full channel. Finally, we numerically analyse and show the superior estimation performance of our proposed channel estimator for PCP to the threshold-based estimator for the impulse pilot.


The faculty governance system, initially implemented in Peking University by its president Cai Yuanpei in the late 1910s, served the purpose of preventing abuse of power by the university president as well as encouraging professors' active participation in university administration. The system was supplemented and firmly established by Mei Yiqi during the period from 1926 to 1937, when he was serving as both the provost and the president at Tsinghua University. He further enforced the faculty governance system during the second Sino-Japanese war in National Southwest Associated University, where he worked as the president of the executive committee. Mei Yiqi's ardent support for the system is attributed to his belief that independence of academics from the government or the administration should be respected, and accordingly professors, rather than students or administrators, should play a central role in a university. In his book Da Xue Yi Jie, he compared a university to a pond, the professors to big fish, and the students to small fish. He believed that the ideal education in a university should be conducted in the same manner as the movement of a school of fish in a pond, in which small fish follow big fish. Consequently, under Received (March 20, 2017), Review Result (April 3, 2017) Accepted (April 10, 2017), Published (May 31, 2017) 1 461-701 Dept. of Oriental Language and Litierature, Gachon Univ., 1342 Seongnam-daero, Sujeong-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, Korea email: firstname.lastname@example.com A Study on University Management System of Mei Yiqi Copyright c 2017 HSST 358 the faculty governance system, professors could freely educate their students and do researches under little pressure, creating an autonomous yet efficient educational environment.


It is with great interest that we read the article in the July 1995 issue of theArchivesby Somach et al 1 concerning fatal cutaneous necrosis mimicking calciphylaxis in a patient with type 1 primary hyperoxaluria. This case is remarkable for several reasons. First, this case shows that no clear distinction is often made between livedo reticularis and livedo racemosa. Livedo reticularis is a fine, regular netlike patterning of the skin, usually arising after the extremities have been exposed to cold and clearing after they have been warmed. The classic example is seen in cutis marmorata, but numerous neurohumoral and blood viscosity disturbances such as polyglobulia, cold agglutinin disease, and paraproteinemia may also display this symptom. 2 In contrast, the skin in livedo racemosa displays an irregular netlike pattern with broken circular segments resulting in a seemingly larger pattern that persists when the skin is warmed. The classic example


Cocrystals of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) are an attractive therapeutic alternative to salt formations. However, due to the molecular scale processes involved, the earliest stages of cocrystal formation remain poorly understood. In this paper, some light is shed on the thermodynamics and kinetics of co-crystallization. Importantly, to mimic the molecular scale processes of cocrystal formation, we use 2D Monte Carlo simulations and a computational model with short-range attraction and a mixture of two types of patchy particles (PPs) monomers. Each type possesses four patches, grouped in two by two, and each couple of patches is characterized by its specific placement on the circumference of the monomer and corresponding patch strength (a strong and narrow or weak and wide interaction). The spatial placement of the patches on both PPs monomers (alternating periodically through 60 and 120 degrees and vice versa) selected by us shows the emergence of both rhombohedral (metastable) and trihexagonal (stable) Kagome-like structures. The Kagome-like structures are preceded by formation of two types of trimers involving strong bonds only, or mixed trimers of strong and weak bonds, the later serving as building blocks for the finally generated Kagome patchy cocrystal, after prolonged simulation times. The step-by step process governing the cocrystal formation is discussed in detail, concerning the temperature interval, concentrations of PPs, the specific patch geometry and patch anisotropy as well. It is to be hoped that an understanding of the mechanisms of co-crystallization can help to control practical cocrystal synthesis and the possible phase transformations.


The invention discloses an angle measuring device of a wind power propeller system. The angle measuring device of the wind power propeller system comprises a hub which comprises a hub internal toothed ring, wherein an absolute value encoder is arranged inside the hub, the absolute value encoder is connected with a master control system, a photoelectric switch is further arranged in the hub, wherein the photoelectric switch just faces the internal toothed face of the hub internal toothed ring and the photoelectric switch is connected with the master control system through the absolute value encoder. By using the photoelectric switch, the angle measuring device of the wind power propeller system can achieve a redundant function of an encoder group and meanwhile reduce use cost.


..A comparison of kinetic models for dispersion polymerization of MMA and styrene in supercritical C02 is presented. The limiting case of solution polymerization, as a simplified case, was also addressed. Calculation of the partition of components between the continuous and dispersed phases was emphasized. '~Gerimental data for the solution and dispersion polymerizations of styrene and MMA, using different types of stabilizers, were used to guide the study. Although all the models analyzed can be considered as "adequate" in representing the behavior of the system, some of their strengths and drawbacks have been highlighted.


Double-zeta Slater type fits to the radial, relativistic and nonrelativistic Hartree-Fock functions are given for the neutral atoms Th, Pa, U, Np, Pu, and Am. An application on uranyl indicates increased U(5f..pi..)-O(2p..pi..) bonding, compared to earlier relativistic single-zeta or nonrelativistic multiple-zeta calculations. The current understanding of bonding of uranyl is discussed. A possible CI mechanism for obtaining an eventual t/sub lg/ highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO) for UF/sub 6/, instead of a t/sub lu/ one, is pointed out.


Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides) is an epiphyte which absorbs nutrients and water from air and rainfall. Spanish moss has threadlike leaves with a length of 2.5-7.5 cm and a rough surface which makes it suitable for atmospheric monitoring. T. usneoides, after pre-treatment with distilled water, was exposed to Ag-NPs through two spraying cycles (Ag-T1, Ag-T2) of a suspension at 1000 mg L -1 in a special greenhouse. Five replicates of treated and untreated plants were harvested, air dried and finely milled. 250 mg were weighted in PTFE vessels and mineralized in microwave oven (Start D 1200, Milestone) with HNO3 Suprapure (Merck, Germany) and H2O2. The mineralized solution was brought to 20 mL with Milli-Q water. The major and trace elements were determined by ICP-OES (Arcos, Ametek). Some samples of leaves were placed in formalin 10% for analysis with ESEM-EDS.


Lovejoy et al. (2009) have shown by adopting a new correction method for flight observation data that a universal scaling law consistent with an anisotropic turbulence theory is established for much wider scale than hitherto. Lindborg et al. (2010), in turn, argue that their data correction method is fundamentally flawed. Lovejoy et al.'s new contribution here constitutes their further efforts to answer these criticisms.


Every litigator uses narratives in his or her work. Yet many may not recognize the extent of their use of narrative or the creative ways in which they can deploy narratives. Without an examination of how people tell and understand stories, lawyers may be missing opportunities to convince others of their clients' positions. One way to demonstrate how stories change depending on the facts a lawyer emphasizes and a lawyer's theory of the case would be to take a story known to all and to "retell" it as a criminal defense lawyer might. The Biblical narrative of Eve is just such a story.' Eve has long been advanced as a prototypical woman. There have been allegations to the effect that Eve was ignorant and easily duped into eating an apple2 by a wily serpent. She then used her feminine wiles to seduce her husband, Adam, into eating the fruit as well. In so doing, Eve is said to have brought about the fall of humanity. Men in Western culture have used this story for millennia to explain and justify the subservient position of females in society. They have claimed that women, like Eve, are easily duped into committing wrongful acts and should therefore be under tight control of their husbands or fathers. Many also view women as dangerous temptresses who will lead men into wrongdoing.4 To


Objective To investigate the source of CD147 expressing cells in joint and its corelation with rheumatoid arthritis (RA),and to study the expression of CD147 on different cells of peripheral blood and joint fluid of RA patients and normal health controls.Methods The expression rate and intensity of CD147 on lymphocyte (CD3 +T),monocyte (CD14 + Mo) and neutrophils (N) of 10 active RA patients before and after treatment and 10 normal health controls′ peripheral blood and synovial fluid were studied by bicolor immunofluorescence flow cytometry.Results ① Compared with normal control,the expression intensity of CD147 on CD3 + T and CD14 + Mo were higher (P0.01)and the expression rate had no significant difference.② IFN-γ increased the expression of CD147 on normal control peripheral cells but had no effect on RA.③The expression intensity of CD147 on synovial fluid cells was higher than that on peripheral cells and lymphocytes had higher expression rate.Conclusion Most of the inflammatory cells in RA express CD147,indicating that CD147 may play an important role in the RA pathology.


The toughening mechanisms of rubber-dispersed polymer alloys were investigated with respect to two factors: (i) characteristic ratio, C∞, as a measure of chain flexibility of the polymer matrix and (ii) the rubber particle size in high impact polystyrene/poly(2,6-dimethyl- 1,4-phenylene ether) blend systems. Measurements of the specific gravity, synchrotron radiation small angle X-ray scattering (SR-SAXS) tests, and finite element analysis were carried out to gain understanding of plastic deformation (crazing and shear yielding) of these materials. Shear yielding was found to be enhanced when the C∞ value of the matrix polymer was relatively low and the rubber particles were small (submicron). From these results, we presumed the impact energy absorption mechanisms to be governed by these two factors.


The paper is devoted to the development of a technical solution, patented in Russia, for monitoring the quality of single frequency networks to provide reliable and uninterrupted TV and radio broadcasting in DVB-T2 standard on the territory of Russia. The proposed client-server architecture of the monitoring platform uses the necessary hardware, including bit error rate sensors based on programmable receivers combined with single-board microcomputers, implemented on SoC (System-on-Chip) processors.


Tourism-sport-nature trinomial is booming today, combining the interests of individuals traveling outside their usual environment, health and body and finally get away from urban centers and enjoy natural surroundings. The number of activities involved is very large, depending on the desired physical intensity and the means chosen to practice (land, water or air). That is why tourism destinations that meet the requirements for active tourism offer this pose as an alternative to increase or even focus their tourism. In this paper the case of A Baixa Limia (Ourense) is analyzed, destination featuring an endowment of natural resources, making it ideal for hosting this type of tourism. Therefore, after highlighting the presence in the region of the key factors for the development of active tourism, evidence obtained is presented through detailed interviews with professionals and local experts on various aspects characterizing the active tourism in the region: supply, demand and impact and future prospects. From the results it follows that A Baixa Limia has many resources to become a destination reference for practicing active tourism, although missing operators of this potential; besides, public-private cooperation is still insufficient and need to work on an attractive complementary offer to allow a complete experience by tourists. Palabras clave: turismo active; naturaleza; deporte; desarrollo; A Baixa Limia.


An assay method for separately measuring the metabolites of vitamin D2 and D3 is investigated. Seven-week-old Wistar male rats were orally administered 200-20, 000IU of either vitamin D2 or D3 on alternate days for 12 days. The blood plasma was extracted with either methanol-chloroform for 25-OH-D and 24, 25-(OH)2-D, or dichloro-methane for 1α, 25-(OH)2-D. Each extract was applied separately to Sephadex LH-20 columns and then to high pressure liquid chromatog-raphy (HPLC). On HPLC each D2 metabolite appeared to be eluted in the region just prior to the respective D3 metabolite. 25-OH-D3, 24, 25-(OH)2-D3, and metabolites presumed to be 25-OH-D2 and 24, 25-(OH)2-D2 were measured separately by a competitive protein binding assay using rachitic rat plasma. 1α, 25-(OH)2-D3 and a metabolite suspected to be 1α, 25-(OH)2-D2 were determined by Eisman's radioreceptor assay. When the rats were given graded amounts of D3 for 12 days, plasma levels of 25-OH-D3 and 24, 25-(OH)2-D3 increased in proportion to the dose levels of D3, while those of 1α, 25-(OH)2-D3 remained unchanged. The plasma levels of 24, 25-(OH)2-D3 correlated closely with those of 25-OH-D3 (γ=0.978). Hypercalcemia induced by high doses of D3 appeared to be due to the increase of 25-OH-D3 rather than to 1α, 25-(OH)2-D3.


Reaction of cynoacetic acid hydrazide (1) with thiophene-2- carboxaldehyde, phthalic anhydride, 5- bromosalicylaldehyde and 2-hydroxyacetophenone yielded the corresponding hydrazone derivative (2), phthalazin- 1,4-diones (5) and salicylaldazine derivatives (10a-b). Pyrazolo[5-,1-a] pyrimidinone (4) was prepared via the reaction of hydrazone (2) with malononitrile in the presence of triethyl amine. Bromination and hydrazonylsis of phthalazin-1,4-diones derivative (5) with bromine and hydrazine hydrate gave the corresponding 2-(bromo cyanomethyl ) carbonyl phthalazin-1,4- dione (6) and phthalazin-1,4-dione (8). The electron impact mass spectra of both of the above some series of compounds have also recorded and their fragmentation pattern are discussed.


By building the partition matrix of resource which affects the competitive advantage of firms,this paper firstly brings forward the concept of shared resource based on the phenomenon of industrial clusters.By regarded as the fourth kind of resources,the shared resource is beyond the dichotomy of the firm's resources used usually by RBV.Secondly,based on the reference of related theoretical studies,especially the analytical method of RBV,the paper illustrates the characteristics of shared resources and the mail points of the SRBV(shared resource-based view).Then,through analyzing the idiosyncrasy of shared resources,the SRBV of competitive advantages of firms in cluster is expounded.At last,the paper summarizes briefly and indicates the future further research avenue.


Background: With no effective screening tool, ovarian cancer survivors often suffer from unpleasant treatment-related side effects that influence quality of life. Increased physical activity has been associated with lower depression scores in ovarian cancer survivors. However, to date, no randomized controlled trial assessing the effect of exercise on depression has been conducted in this population. The Women's Activity and Lifestyle Study in Connecticut (WALC) was a randomized trial examining the impact of exercise vs. attention-control on quality of life, body composition, and cancer biomarkers in ovarian cancer survivors. This analysis examined the effect of exercise on depression scores. Methods: We enrolled 144 physically inactive (< 90 minutes per week of exercise) ovarian cancer survivors who had been diagnosed within the past 4 years and completed initial chemotherapy into a six-month randomized controlled trial. Women randomized to the exercise intervention arm (n = 74) received 25 weekly phone calls from a certified cancer exercise trainer and were counseled on increasing their physical activity to 150 minutes per week of home-based aerobic exercise. Women randomized to the attention-control arm (n = 70) also received 25 weekly phone calls to discuss relevant health topics. Depression symptomatology was measured via the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) at baseline and six-months. Student's t-test and generalized linear models were used to compare changes in depression from baseline to six-months between the two arms. Results: All baseline characteristics were similar between the two arms. Adherence to both the exercise intervention and attendance to the weekly calls was outstanding with women on the exercise intervention arm exercising an average of 166 minutes per week and >70% of women on both arms attending > 20 calls. At baseline 39 women (27%) had a CES-D score greater than 16, indicating depressive symptomatology. CES-D scores decreased in women on the exercise intervention arm by an average of 2.2 ± 7.0 points (17% decrease) compared to an increase of 0.4 ± 5.6 points (4% increase) in women randomized to the attention-control arm (p = 0.02). A dose-response inverse relation of exercise with CES-D score was also observed (p < 0.01). Conclusions: Ovarian cancer ABSTRACT Background: With no effective screening tool, ovarian cancer survivors often suffer from unpleasant treatment-related side effects that influence quality of life. Increased physical activity has been associated with lower depression scores in ovarian cancer survivors. However, to date, no randomized controlled trial assessing the effect of exercise on depression has been conducted in this population. The Women's Activity and Lifestyle Study in Connecticut (WALC) was a randomized trial examining the impact of exercise vs. attention-control on quality of life, body composition, and cancer biomarkers in ovarian cancer survivors. This analysis examined the effect of exercise on depression scores. Methods: We enrolled 144 physically inactive (< 90 minutes per week of exercise) ovarian cancer survivors who had been diagnosed within the past 4 years and completed initial chemotherapy into a six-month randomized controlled trial. Women randomized to the exercise intervention arm (n = 74) received 25 weekly phone calls from a certified cancer exercise trainer and were counseled on increasing their physical activity to 150 minutes per week of home-based aerobic exercise. Women randomized to the attention-control arm (n = 70) also received 25 weekly phone calls to discuss relevant health topics. Depression symptomatology was measured via the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) at baseline and six-months. Student's t-test and generalized linear models were used to compare changes in depression from baseline to six-months between the two arms. Results: All baseline characteristics were similar between the two arms. Adherence to both the exercise intervention and attendance to the weekly calls was outstanding with women on the exercise intervention arm exercising an average of 166 minutes per week and >70% of women on both arms attending > 20 calls. At baseline 39 women (27%) had a CES-D score greater than 16, indicating depressive symptomatology. CES-D scores decreased in women on the exercise intervention arm by an average of 2.2 ± 7.0 points (17% decrease) compared to an increase of 0.4 ± 5.6 points (4% increase) in women randomized to the attention-control arm (p = 0.02). A dose-response inverse relation of exercise with CES-D score was also observed (p < 0.01). Conclusions: Ovarian cancer analysis was performed using the intent-to-treat principle in order to assess significant differences in CES-D score between the baseline and six-month study visits. For those women who did not complete the six-month assessment of depressive symptomatology, the change in CES-D was imputed as 0. Potential covariates included baseline CES-D score, cancer stage, age, time since diagnosis, history of recurrence prior to enrollment, and recurrence of cancer during the study period. on a sub-group analysis randomized arm We examined the impact of exercise on depressive symptomatology by comparing the self-reported an of at 150 minutes of exercise per week and those that did not. Among all participants, we examined the impact of attendance to the weekly telephone calls on depressive symptomatology. Lastly, we performed a stratified analysis to evaluate effect modification by depressive symptomatology at baseline, cancer stage, age, cancer recurrence prior to enrollment and during the study period, attendance to weekly telephone calls, and exercise adherence. All statistical analysis was conducted using SAS, Version 9.3 (SAS, Cary, NC) with a two-sided 0.05 significance level.


The utility model discloses a removable starlight lamp. The removabel starlight lamp comprises a support. The support is fixed with a polygonal base which is provided with a matching transparent cover. The periphery of the polygonal base is provided with a plurality of lightings which are provided with a convex lens. A color film is arranged on the opposite position of the lightings of the transparent cover and the base. The removable starlight lamp has the following benefits that the support is fixed with the polygonal base, the polygonal base is provided with the matching transparent cover, the periphery of the polygonal base is provided with a plurality of lightings, the lightings are provided with a convex lens, and the color film is arranged on the opposite position of the lightings of the transparent cover and the base. The removabel starlight lamp has the advantages of being simple in making , low in cost, thus being suitable for household use and adding sense of color to the house.