The novel contribution of this article is to propose a neural network–based sliding-mode control strategy for improving the position-control performance of a tendon sheath–actuated compliant rescue manipulator. Structural design of a rescue robot with slender and compliant mechanical structure is introduced. The developed robot is capable of drilling into the narrow space under debris and accommodating complicated configuration in ruins. Dynamics modeling and parameters identification of a compliant gripper with flexible tendon sheath transmission are researched and discussed. Moreover, the neural network–based sliding-mode control scheme developed based on radial basis function network is proposed to improve the position-control accuracy of the gripper with modeling uncertainties and external disturbances. The stability of the proposed control system is demonstrated using Lyapunov stability theory. Further experimental investigation including trajectory-tracking experiments and step-response experiments are conducted to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed neural network–based sliding-mode control scheme. Experimental results show that the proposed neural network–based sliding-mode control scheme is superior to cascaded proportional–integral–derivative controller and conventional sliding-mode controller in position-control application.


Objective: To compare the comprehensive care plan assessment (Minimum Data Set, MDS) of vision with the clinically evaluated visual status of nursing home residents to determine the accuracy of the vision care plan. Design: Descriptive study. Setting: One publicly funded and four privately owned long-term care nursing facilities. Participants: 151 nursing home residents undergoing vision examination at the nursing home request. Mean age of 81, range 34 to 97 years. Main Outcome Measure: The charted MDS assessment for vision patterns was compared with the MDS plan which would have been formulated based on direct clinical vision examination. Determinations were made based on the three areas required by MDS: visual acuity (VA), peripheral vision, and presence of prosthetic visual devices. Conclusions: The MDS care plan for vision and actual visual status agreed in only 34% (52/151) of persons. The Vision (VA) subsection overestimated VA in 41 % and underestimated VA in 11%. Concordance for VA was extremely poor (kappa 0.176). In no participants did the MDS indicate a visual field defect, whereas 16.5% (25/151) did show visual field restriction on examination. Care plan assessments also failed to note the use of visual prosthetic devices in 17% (26/151). These results indicate that MDS care plan assessment for vision is often inaccurate and may result in the lack of appropriate vision care being triggered through resident assessment protocols (RAP).


Goteborg Energi is Sweden's largest municipal energy company, owned entirely by the City of Gothenburg. Since 2007, Goteborg Energi has grown to become Sweden's largest supplier of biogas. Sweden's target is that at least 50% of the energy used in Sweden will come from renewable sources by 2020. Goteborg Energi's first biogas plant, Gasendal is an upgrading plant installed in Gothenburg in 2007. Lidkoping biogas is one of the world's first plants for liquefied biogas (LBG). The Gothenburg Biomass Gasification (GoBiGas) Project is the largest demonstration of utilizing forest residues for the production of a renewable fuel, in this case biomethane. The gasification technology has an advantage over all other known conversion technologies, which is the possibility to convert all types of biomass or wastes to the desired end product and make use of the losses that arise in the conversion to drive the process.


In this paper, we will give examples of holomorphic functions in the unit disc having singular connections between the growth of maximum modulus and angular ranges (Theorem A) as well as singular connections between the growth of spherical derivative and sequences of ρ-points (Theorem B).


The directionally crystal nickel-based high-temperature alloy is used for the turbine blade of some advanced engines recently.In order to enhance the reliability of design parameters and design method for the endurance life of the turbine blade,the endurance life experiments are made on the specimens cut from the typical part of the turbine blades.For each specimen,its endurance life and creep deformation values at different time are recorded during the endurance life experiment,and creep strains are gained.Therefore,the predicting equation is obtained and its reliability is proved using modified θ-Project Concept.


Necrotizing enterocolitis is a gangrenous intestinal inflammation characteristic for neonatal age. It is one of the most mysterious diseases with unknown pathogenesis however it is acknowledged as multifactorial. Necrotizing enterocolitis has a broad spectrum of clinical manifestations which may vary from the typical image of a prostrated newborn with a large and taut belly as well as with bloody stools and vomiting content colored bile, or to a picture of a child with a casual finding blood in the stool and that can't stand the food or can't reatin food in the stomach. The disease is diagnosed based on clinical features complemented with radiological and laboratory findings.
 Treatment can be conservative such as compensation of fluid, mechanical ventilation, decompression of the gastrointestinal tract with nasogastric tube, interruption of enteral feeding with the transition to a fully parenteral nutrition and the application of antibiotics. In addition to conservative treatment, if there is an indication we proceed to the surgical treatment. Depending on the extent of disease and patient characteristics, a number of different surgical options may be undertaken including resection of clearly demarcated gangrenous bowel with enter ostomy, resection with anastomosis and in situations with marginally viable bowel or multifocal disease decompression with proximal enter ostomy or combination of different decompression and drainage surgical techniques. Especially in group of very small birth weight babies with necrotizing enterocolitis the use of peritoneal drainage could be used as treatment option.
 Great importance is paid to finding effective methods of prevention necrotizing enterocolitis that is still not found despite significant scientific efforts.


Abstract
 This paper develops a Stated Preference (SP) experiment that provides a way to measure service quality in public transport. The paper introduces an empirical procedure for optimising the SP experiment. This procedure permits the identification of the choice alternatives defining the experiment by simulating the choices of a user sample. By using the data collected from an experimental survey, a Multinomial Logit model was calibrated. This model is a way of identifying the importance of service quality attributes on global customer satisfaction and calculating a Service Quality Index, which provides an operationally appealing measure of current or potential service effectiveness.


In 1961 Jarvi and Saxen reported 4 cases of a previously undescribed connective tissue tumor containing elastinophilic fibers which they termed elastofibroma dorsi (1). Their patients were elderly, and the tumors were all located in the subscapular space adjacent to the apex of the scapula and beneath the rhomboid and latissimus dorsi muscles. One of the four had bilateral tumors.

Since the original description, over 60 cases have been reported (1–30). The true incidence of this unique soft tissue tumor is probably underestimated because of its obscure location and benign and usually silent course. Elastofibroma has not been recognized as a cause of periscapular complaints despite its characteristic scapular location.

The purpose of this report is to present a case of bilaterally occurring elastofibromas that caused periscapular pain in a 61-year-old man and review the salient features of this rare lesion.


As wind is random, intermittent and instability, with continual installation of wind farms, the impact of large scale wind farm on power system has become an important issue for integration and operation of wind farm. Aiming at studying the transient stability of district grid containing high proportion of wind power, numerical simulations with BPA for an actual district grid of China Southern Power Grid are presented. In these simulations, the interaction between the large-scale wind farm and traditional thermal power plants (TPPs) is investigated taking the different operating modes and fault location into account. The critical clearing time (CCT) is adopted as the measurable indicator to assess the interaction.


ABSTRACT This paper studies the processes through which skilled international workers are differentially attracted to and incorporated in the rapidly globalising cities of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, thereby reproducing the migrant division of labour in these cities. This is accomplished by presenting results from a large-scale employment survey of foreign and local firms in these cities, as well as key informant interviews conducted with representatives of these firms. Most significantly, it is in global city labour markets that firm employment practices intersect with state regulatory frameworks and local employment structures, and thus, where skilled international migration flows are localised.


We investigate current (I), magnetization (M) and their fluctuations in a normal conductor attached to two ferromagnetic leads. For the parallel case, M vanishes independently of the contact polarization η but we find that the fluctuations of M depend on η. This effect persists even in the presence of spin‐flip processes (with a rate γsf). In the antiparallel case, I decreases and M increases when η is enhanced, reflecting the "spin‐valve" effect. This tendency is inverted as long as γsf grows. We also present the conditions for obtaining maximal fluctuations for the magnetization as a function of γsf.


We derive explicit closed-form formulas for the standard Clausen functions and in terms of the Hurwitz zeta function, where m is a positive integer.


This paper proposes a method for intra-sentential subject zero anaphora resolution in Japanese. Our proposed method utilizes a Multi-column Convolutional Neural Network (MCNN) for predicting zero anaphoric relations. Motivated by Centering Theory and other previous works, we exploit as clues both the surface word sequence and the dependency tree of a target sentence in our MCNN. Even though the F-score of our method was lower than that of the state-of-the-art method, which achieved relatively high recall and low precision, our method achieved much higher precision ( > 0.8) in a wide range of recall levels. We believe such high precision is crucial for real-world NLP applications and thus our method is preferable to the state-of-the-art method.


In this review the literature data of 2010–2015 years were analysed for smoking prevalence and its influence on brain, heart, blood vessels, blood and treatment effects with taking into account of age, gender, genetic factors, duration of smoking. The results of smoking stopping and its biorhytmic aspects were presented too.


The research progress on applications of silole derivatives with aggregation-induced emission in opto-electronic devices,detection of biological molecules,and chemical sensors in recent years was summarized.Future prospects of silole derivatives were also discussed.


Boehme subtly but surely benefited from the cultural enrichment of the Lutheran Reformation which had extended its impact by then from the urban populations to the rural peasantry. The period of confessional consolidation after 1555 led to polarization and conflict between the Lutherans and Calvinists over the doctrine and practices of Communion, the use of the formula of exorcism in baptism, and the doctrine of predestination. Aurora's vision of the natural order was certainly rent by the apocalyptic darkness of the devil and the light of God. As the relations of Gorlitz with its Catholic emperor were restored and the new learning brought about a recalculation of time, the neighboring Lutheran territories suffered from repeated inner-Protestant controversies. Aurora's sense of apocalyptic polarization and the corollary paradox that good and evil are interrelated correspond to the interplay of order and innovation in Boehme's era and region. Keywords: Aurora ; Boehme; Gorlitz; Lutheran Reformation


A cross-sectional study was conducted from October, 2010 to May, 2011 on a total of 384 cattle and sheep to identify the major ectoparasites and to determine their prevalence in and around Bishoftu town, central Ethiopia. Out of 202 cattle and 182 sheep examined for ectoparasites, 95 (47.0%) cattle and 73 (40.1%) sheep were found to be infested with one or more ectoparasites. Overall eight genera of ectoparasites belonging to ticks (Boophilus, Amblyomma, Rhepicephalus and Hyalomma), lice (Damalina and Linognathus) and mange mite (Demodex spp and Psoroptes spp) were encountered in the study area. Prevalence of tick infestation was 35.2% (71/202) in cattle and 26.9% (49/182) in sheep. Among the risk factors assessed, female animals (cattle: χ2=5.4, P=0.020; sheep: χ2=5.5, P=0.019) and production system (cattle: χ2=29.4, P=0.000; sheep: χ2=10.3, P=0.001) were significantly associated with prevalence of tick infestation. The prevalence of pediculosis was 8.9% and 12.6% in bovine and ovine, respectively. Sex (χ2=19.3; P=0.000) and breed (χ2=4.6; P=0.033) in cattle, and production system in both cattle (χ2=5.5; P=0.020) and sheep (χ2=6.4; P=0.040) were found to be significantly associated with the prevalence of pediculosis. The prevalence of demodicosis and psoroptic mange in cattle was 6.6% and 0.6%, respectively. However, the only mange mite species encountered in sheep was Psoroptes with the prevalence rate of 2.2%. Age in cattle (χ2=14.0; P=0.000) and sheep (χ2=3.8; P=0.040), and body condition in cattle (χ2=7.7; P=0.021) were found to be significantly associated with the prevalence of mange mite infestation. The present study revealed that widespread occurrence of ectoparasites in cattle and sheep in the study area, and the major ectoparasites identified were tick, lice and mange mite, thus, improved management practice and well-coordinated control interventions are required.


Human emotions are within-person factors that function as a stimulus of an individual's attitude and behaviour, either positively or negatively. From the organisational behaviour spectrum, concern over negative behaviour like Counterproductive Work Behaviour (CWB) is more prevalent due to tremendous negative effects on both employees and organisations. Although the impact of the affective states on CWB was empirically evident, there was an insufficient study that systematically reviewed the literature on such association. Hence, the present article adopts the PRISMA guidelines (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) by integrating multiple research designs to investigate the emotional experiences-CWB phenomenon. The relevant literature review was selected from two established databases, Scopus and Web of Science. Based on the thematic analysis, two main themes (i.e., negative and positive affect) emerged as predictors of CWB at work. Subsequently, the sub-themes of discrete emotions were discussed as part of the study findings. In addition, this study comprehensively explained the significance of affective states on CWB. As a result, the study offers valuable insight into the body of knowledge and practical implementation for future strategies. The key takeaway is that creating more positive events and eliminating negative events are expected to be beneficial in elevating employees' emotional well-being, hence reducing CWB occurrence.


The transformation of society towards digitalization and automatization cannot be ignored by the higher education system. While this has been naturally reflected by the education system regarding technical sciences, humanities are still struggling to catch up with the latest trends in the digitalization of society. The field of Digital Humanities (DH) is very young and lacks a solid methodological basis or ontological principles. This paper aims at proposing some philosophical and methodological grounding for the field of DH and its practical applications in the higher education system. We describe two case studies of the creation of new study programs at the Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic.


The utilization of a quantitative reliability criterion in long range transmission planning is proposed. The application of a conditional probability approach the determination of load point reliability indices in practical systems is discussed and illustrated by a simple hypothetical system study. Failure at a bus is defined by three planning criteria and the reliability level obtained in terms of a probability and an expected frequency of bus failure. The method requires ac load flow analysis at several load levels under possible system component outages. The technique is quite general, and any known operating conditions can be included. Planning based on acceptable load bus reliability levels results in optimum utilization of the investment placed in transmission facilities.


Low interannotator agreement (IAA) is a well-known issue in manual semantic tagging (sense tagging). IAA correlates with the granularity of word senses and they both correlate with the amount of information they give as well as with its reliability. We compare different approaches to semantic tagging in WordNet, FrameNet, PropBank and OntoNotes with a small tagged data sample based on the Corpus Pattern Analysis to present the reliable information gain (RG), a measure used to optimize the semantic granularity of a sense inventory with respect to its reliability indicated by the IAA in the given data set. RG can also be used as feedback for lexicographers, and as a supporting component of automatic semantic classifiers, especially when dealing with a very fine-grained set of semantic categories.


We consider planar lattice walks that start from (0, 0), remain in the first quadrant i, j ≥ 0, and are made of three types of steps: North-East, West and South. These walks are known to have remarkable enumerative and probabilistic properties: – they are counted by nice numbers (Kreweras 1965), – the generating function of these numbers is algebraic (Gessel 1986), – the stationary distribution of the corresponding Markov chain in the quadrant has an algebraic probability generating function (Flatto and Hahn 1984). These results are not well understood, and have been established via complicated proofs. Here we give a uniform derivation of all of them, which is more elementary that those previously published. We then go further by computing the full law of the Markov chain. This helps to delimit the border of algebraicity: the associated probability generating function is no longer algebraic, unless a diagonal symmetry holds. Our proofs are based on the solution of certain functional equations, which are very simple to establish. Finding purely combinatorial proofs remains an open problem.


The open cell silicon carbide porous ceramic performs were prepared by impregnating a polyurethane sponge with aqueous ceramic slurry. Three - dimensional structure silicon carbide reinforced aluminum matrix composites were made by a pressureless molten metal infiltration process. The reaction mechanism and dynamics of infiltration process were discussed. The phase composition of the preform and composites were determined by XRD, its structures were characterized by SEM. The results show that the alloying elements Mg and Si in aluminum can destroy alumina film, markedly shorten the incubation period of infiltration process. The higher the infiltration temperature, the shorter the infiltration time.


T I-IE IMPORTANCE of family and home experience in the child's development is recognized by all the sciences dealing with human behavior; much less attention has been given to the factors and processes involved. Particularly striking is the failure to study such an important factor as the role of the guest. What is the role of the guest in family life, with particular reference to the child's development? This article is a report on one phase of a larger study on the role of the guest. It is based on an analysis of 200 published autobiographies, to ascertain to what extent the authors made any reference to guests in their early home life or personal development. The only basis of selection was that the authors must have written to some extent of their early life. This particular use of autobiographical material in the study of behavior can be related to the discussions of Allport, Krueger, Burr, Murchison and others.1 Its use in the present study has a specific purpose, in addition to any other values inherent in it. This purpose is to show to what extent and in what ways persons, chiefly of distinction and intelligence, who survey in maturer years the "scenes of their childhood," emphasize, without the promptings or suggestions of a research project, the role of the guest in their early family life and personal development. In other words, how do persons to whom the importance of a guest has not been suggested by questioners and questionnaires write of family guests in their early life development? It is believed that the answer to these questions is of value: first, as an indication of the importance which authors of autobiographies attach to the role of the guest; second, as a revelation of the ways in which the guest is considered to be important; and third, for the leads which it suggests for the personal interviews which constitute a subsequent part of a larger study.


Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, with the incidence rapidly increasing in Europe over the past two decades. Reliable biomarkers for prostate cancer are currently unavailable. Thus, ...


Abstract Objective: to analyze the intersections between rural women's quality of life and resilience. Method: convergent mixed methods design in which a cross-sectional quantitative study is triangulated with a qualitative study guided by Oral History. Data were collected concomitantly, using a socio-demographic form, Resilience Scale, Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey, and open-ended interviews. The analysis was based on descriptive and inferential statistics and inductive thematic analysis, which was integrated later. Results: an association was found between the social aspects domain of quality of life and a moderate level of resilience related to the characteristics of life in rural areas. The integration of results enabled verifying that these two constructs (which mutually influence each other) are mediated by protective factors, resilience developed by the rural women, such as spirituality and the formation of social support, enchantment, and a feeling of belonging to their context. Conclusion: by developing protective factors, rural women develop a resilient behavior that favors their quality of life. Identifying these factors enables the development of psychosocial interventions to promote rural women's health.


In order to balance the urgent requirements of environmental protection and the huge financial pressure of the government, the PPP model has been promoted in the construction of environmental protection, and effective risk management is still the key to project success. Based on the expert scoring method, combined with the risk evaluation index system of environmental protection PPP project, this paper uses the analytic hierarchy process and the entropy weight fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method to construct the risk evaluation model of environmental protection PPP project. Taking PY County water environment treatment and ecological restoration project as an example, seven first-level risk factor indicators and 23 two-level risk factor index evaluation systems were constructed to conduct risk assessment and draw conclusions.


. Mohammadian, M. and M. J. Malakouti. 2002. Effect of two types of composts on soil physical and chemical properties and corn yield. J. Water Soil Sci. 16: 144-151. (In Persian with English abstract). Naghavi Maremati, A., M. A. Bahmanyar, H. Pirdashti and S. Salak Gilani. 2007. Effect of different rate and type of organic and chemical fertilizers on yield and yield components of different rice cultivars. Proceeding of 10 Iranian Soil Science Congress, 26-28 Aug. 2007,Tehran, Iran. (In Persian). Pedra, F., A. Polo, A. Ribero and H. Domingues. 2006. Effect of municipal solid waste compost and sewage sludge on mineralization of soil organic matter. J. Soil Bio. Biochem. 29: 1375-1382. Ramadass, K. and S. Palaniyandi. 2007. Effect of enriched municipal solid waste compost application on soil available macronutrient in the rice field. Archiv. Agron. Soil Sci. 53: 497-506. Rezvantalab, N., H. Pirdashty, M. A. Bahmanyar and A. Abbasiyan. 2009. Evaluating effects of municipal waste compost and chemical fertilizer application on yield and yield components of maize (Zea mays L. SC704). Electronic J. Crop. Prod. 2(1):75-90. (In Persian with English abstract). Sailaja Kumara, M. S. and K. Ushakumari. 2002. Effect of vermicompost enriched with rock phosphate on the yield and uptake of nutrients in cowpea. J. Tropic. Agri. 40: 27-30. Schussler, J. R. and M. E. Westgate. 1991. Maize kernel set at lower water potential: II. Sensitivity to reduced assimilates at pollination. Crop Sci. 31: 1196-1203. Sujatha, M. G., B. S. Lingaraju, Y. B. Palled and K. V. Ashalatha. 2008. Importance of integrated nutrient


Learning Objectives: The diagnostic approach to heparin induced thrombocytopenia (HIT) begins with clinical suspicion. The 4T score is a pretest clinical scoring system to guide assessment of pre-test probability. Current guidelines suggest holding heparin and starting alternative anticoagulation if the 4T score is ≥ 4. The 4T score has never been evaluated in a pure medical intensive care unit (MICU), where patients have multiple reasons to develop thrombocytopenia. We performed a retrospective analysis of the 4T score in MICU patients clinically suspected to have HIT prompting laboratory evaluation. Methods: This was a retrospective study of adult patients admitted to the MICU in an urban academic tertiary referral center in Virginia between Jan 2017 and April 2018. We included all patients who had the HIT induced antibody assay (HIT-Ab) and the serotonin release assay (SRA) ordered while in the MICU. Patients who were transferred from another ICU were excluded. The SRA (> 20%) was used as the gold standard for the diagnosis of HIT. Patients with only HIT-Ab results were excluded. The 4T score was calculated retrospectively through chart review. Results: The MICU had 2308 visits during this time period. 108 tests were ordered for 101 patients (4.4%). Of these, 91 paired assays were sent for 90 patients. 51 (56.0%) tests had a corresponding HIT score of ≥ 4. There were 3 (3.3%) confirmed cases of HIT. The 4T scores for those cases were 3, 5, and 5. The HIT-Ab had 26 positive results (>0.4 OD) and 65 (71.4%) negative results. Positive HIT-Ab results had 1 (3.8%) positive SRA and negative HITAb results had 2 (3.1%) positive SRAs in separate patients. Conclusions: In MICU patients with clinical suspicion for HIT, the negative predictive value for a 4T score < 4 was 97.5%. The positive predictive value for ≥ 4 was 3.9%. These values suggest the risk of HIT is overestimated with score ≥ 4 compared to published data from other ICU and non-ICU populations. Thus, despite using the recommended pre-clinical test model, there is still a high potential to over diagnose and treat HIT in a medical ICU setting, exposing the patient to the unnecessary risk of anticoagulation. A prospective study should be done to further evaluate the applicability of the 4T score in the MICU population.


Recent increase of interest in eco-city construction sector in the area of the apartment house has its application has been actively performed. But, Examples of eco-friendly stadium and the stadium is very lacking apply eco-friendly architectural elements and co-housing eco-friendly by comparing the elements applied field is to derive the elements. The results of this study were as follows; Co-housing and eco-friendly construction of public sports facilities and the different post-utilization plan considering the eco-friendly construction planning and ecological planning should be established considering the axis.


the use the dendrochronological methods in architectural and ethnographic surveys with special reference to early Russian towns in Siberia. The methods are used for the tentative dating of eight architectural constructions in the town of Tara. The standard dendrochronological technique includes the use of the calibrated tree-ring chronology relating to the study area, and the relative chronology modeled on the speci fi c site. The method has numerous advantages, but also certain limitations, such as the dif fi culties with dating partially reconstructed buildings. These dif fi culties can be overcome by using a multidisciplinary approach. As a result, the time of construction and reconstruction of several buildings in Tara has been evaluated


Computational methods have become an essential part of most high end engineering projects, greatly simplifying the analyzes and design tasks. Reduced order methods account for the essential parts of a simulation, decreasing the computational time while maintaining an acceptable level of accuracy in the results. The proper generalized decomposition (PGD) is one of the several methods based on the reduced order solution [1]. This work has the objective of showing the application of a PGD driven adaptivity process in a practical problem. We simultaneously seek two complementary PGD solutions, one compatible and one equilibrated, which we use to bound their error (as in [2]) and also to drive the adaptivity process (in the physical and in the parameter space). We present the analytical and approximated solutions of an academic problem and we discuss the error assessment strategies for the approximated solutions, applying them to the adaptivity process. A sufficient number of terms is considered for the PGD approximations so that the truncation error is negligible. This enables a novel form of assessing the PGD solutions error, this time specific for each parameter, which is applied to obtain convergence rate estimations. We also present a novel error indicator for the adaptivity process, which can drive both an hand p-adaptivity. The convergence rates obtained are in agreement with the expected results according to [3]. The solutions for the adaptivity process show a high level of accuracy, providing evidence that the indicator is capable to drive an adaptivity process. The new adaptivity indicator and the parametric convergence rates proposed in this work assess the error of PGD approximations and are an additional step in the investigation of strategies to deal with the error sources in the PGD.


Linum persicum is an endemic plant growing wild in Iran which have considerable amounts of lignans. These lignans are used to produce anticancer drugs such as, etoposide, etophose and teniopside [1]. In this study we investigated podophyllotoxin content in cell culture in 16 phytohormon treatment. Podophyllotoxin content was higher in 1 mg L -1 naphthaleneacetic acid/ 0.4 mg L -1  kinetin treatment. Amount of  podoplyllotoxin in this treatment was 0/05 mg/gr(FW).


over different utterances of that word that show wide variation in acoustic features due either to differences between speakers, to effects of coarticulation with surrounding words, or to phonological rules that alter the form of the word (e.g. electric/electricity). (See Saffran, Werker, & Werner, Chatper 2, this Volume for an excellent review; also Aslin, Saffran, & Newport, 1998; Fisher, Church, & Chambers, 2004; Fisher & Tokura, 1996; Jusczyk, 1997; Mehler et al., 1988; Morgan & Demuth, 1996). The third piece of the word-learning puzzle—establishing a mapping between the conceptual and linguistic units—is also much richer than it appears at first glance. It is a universal feature of human language that many kinds of words (e.g., nouns, adjectives, verbs) can be applied correctly in the very same naming episode, and that each kind of word highlights a unique aspect of that episode and supports a unique pattern of extension. Consider again the vision of puppies playing in the park. Count nouns (e.g., "Look, it's a puppy") not only refer to an individual puppy, but extend broadly to other members of the same object category (to other puppies, but not to bunnies). In contrast, proper nouns (e.g., "Look, it's Lassie"), which refer specifically to the named individual, cannot be extended further. And if we provide an adjective ("Look, it's fluffy"), the meaning is again quite different. Here, we refer to a property of the named individual, but not the individual itself, and we can extend that word to other instances of that property, independent of the particular entity embodying it (e.g., to any other fluffy thing, final_chapter_100705.doc 6 of 86 including (some, but not all) puppies, bunnies, and bedroom slippers). Finally, verbs ("Look, it's running") refer to a relation or an activity involving that individual at that moment in time, and are extended to similar activities, involving very different actors (e.g., horses, children) at different times and places. To summarize, to be successful word learners, infants must (1) identify the relevant conceptual units (e.g., an individual, a category of individuals, an event, and so on), (2) identify the relevant linguistic units (e.g., words), and (3) establish a mapping between them. We have argued that at its core, word learning requires a certain degree of abstraction in each of these domains. Any given utterance of a word must be related to an abstract phonological representation, and any given individual must be related to an abstract concept. 1.2. Early solutions to the puzzle of word learning. Despite these apparent logical difficulties, infants learn words with impressive ease and alacrity. By roughly 12 months, infants reliably recognize words in fluent speech and are beginning to produce words on their own; by roughly 24 months, they produce hundreds of words and begin to combine them systematically to form phrases. Perhaps more remarkable still is the fact that by 2 to 3 years of age, they discover that there are distinct kinds of words (distinct grammatical forms) and that these are linked to distinct kinds of meaning (Brown, 1957, 1958; Gentner, 1982; Macnamara, 1979; Waxman, 1990; Waxman & Gelman, 1986). In fact, the evidence reveals that they mine these links, taking the grammatical form of a novel word as a cue to establishing its meaning (for thorough reviews of recent literature, see Hall & Lavin, 2004; Markman & Jaswal, 2004; Woodward & Markman, 1998). Toddlers acquiring English systematically restrict the extension of a proper noun to the named individual (Hall, 1991, 1999; Hall & Lavin, 2004; Jaswal & Markman, 2001), but extend count nouns more broadly, to the named individual and to other members of the same object category (Waxman, 1999; Waxman & Markow, 1995). They systematically extend adjectives to properties of objects (Klibanoff & Waxman, 2000; Mintz & Gleitman, 2002; Prasada, 1997; Waxman & Klibanoff, 2000; Waxman & Markow, 1998) and verbs to categories of events (Fisher & Tokura, 1996; Hollich, final_chapter_100705.doc 7 of 86 Hirsch-Pasek, et al., 2000; Naigles, 1990; Tomasello, 2003; Tomasello & Merriman, 1995). But how do infants discover the mappings between grammatical form and meaning? The full repertoire of such mappings cannot be innately specified because languages differ in the grammatical forms that they represent, in the way they mark these grammatical forms on the surface, and in the ways they recruit these forms to convey fundamental bits of meaning (Baker, 2001; Croft, 1991; Frawley, 1992; Hopper & Thompson, 1980). In the face of these differences, there appear to be some universals. In particular, in all human languages, object concepts are lexicalized as nouns and event concepts as verbs (Brown, 1957, 1958; Dixon, 1982). But at the same time, there is considerable cross-linguistic variation. Within the class of nouns, some languages (like English) make a grammatical distinction between mass and count nouns, whereas others (like Japanese) may not (Imai & Haryu, 2004). Even more dramatic evidence for this kind of flexibility comes from cross-linguistic comparisons of the grammatical form adjective. Some languages (including English, Spanish, and the African language Dyirbal) have richly developed, open-class systems of adjectives, but others (e.g., the Bantu languages) have sparse adjective systems, including as few as 10 terms (Dixon, 1982; Lakoff, 1987). Moreover, in many languages (e.g., Mohawk, Mandarin) it is extremely difficult to determine whether there is a grammatical category adjective that is distinct from the category verb. In Mohawk, for example, most morphological and syntactic tests put the class of concepts that are labeled by adjectives in English into the class of verbs (Baker, 2001). Even within a given language, the boundaries around the grammatical forms are permeable. Although a core semantic function of nouns is to refer to object concepts (e.g., PUPPY, TABLE), nouns can also be used to refer to properties (e.g., HEIGHT, BELIEF), events (e.g., EARTHQUAKE, DESTRUCTION), and abstract notions (e.g., FREEDOM, IDEA). And although a core semantic function of verbs is to refer to events (DECIDE, JUMP), verbs can also refer to properties (APPEAR, KNOW) or states (LIKE, STAND). Indeed, the very same underlying concept can sometimes be expressed by both a noun and a verb: final_chapter_100705.doc 8 of 86 (1) The results of the election were a surprise to me (N). (2) The results of the election surprised me (V). It therefore follows that the links between grammatical categories (noun, verb) and semantic categories (thing, event) are not rigidly fixed, even within a given language, but are correlational (P. Bloom, 1994; Macnamara, 1986; Pinker, 1989). How do infants discover these links? It would be unreasonable to assume that from the start, infants' expectations mirror those of the mature speakers of their language, because as we have seen, infants must discover which grammatical forms are represented in their language and how they are recruited to convey meaning. It is reasonable, however, to ask whether infants might approach the task of acquisition with some language-general expectations in place to guide acquisition from the start and which could then be fine-tuned as the infant gained experience with the details of their native language (see Saffran et al., Chapter 2, this Volume for a similar developmental view). 2. Plan of the Chapter To address these issues, we open with a section on initial acquisitions, focusing briefly on the linguistic, conceptual, and social underpinnings that precede the advent of infants' first words. We then consider infants' initial forays into mapping their first words to meaning. To foreshadow, recent evidence reveals that infants cross the threshold into word learning equipped with a powerful and initially general expectation linking the linguistic and conceptual units. This general initial link gets bona fide word learning off the ground and sets the stage for subsequent lexical, grammatical, and conceptual developments. In the next section, we ask how young word learners move beyond this initially broad link. The evidence suggests that infants first tease out the grammatical category noun from among the other grammatical forms, and map them specifically to individual objects and categories of objects. This early establishment of a noun-tocategory link serves as the foundation that enables infants to discover the other essential grammatical forms (e.g., adjectives, verbs) and map them to their respective final_chapter_100705.doc 9 of 86 meanings. After considering several consequences of the early acquisition of nouns, we focus on the acquisition of adjectives and verbs. In both cases, the patterns of acquisition differ importantly from the acquisition of nouns, and appear to depend on the prior acquisition of (at least some) nouns. We suggest that this follows directly from the distinct informational requirements and conceptual entailments of each of these distinct predicate forms. Several overarching themes appear throughout the chapter. Each has figured largely in the history of research on word learning and each continues to exert considerable force in contemporary theoretical and empirical work. 2.1. Cross-Linguistic Evidence. One theme is related to the place of cross-linguistic evidence in theories of acquisition. As noted, the mappings between grammatical and conceptual categories vary across languages. This variability illustrates two related points. First, the precise mappings between particular grammatical and conceptual categories must involve learning. Second, cross-linguistic comparisons can be a powerful tool for discovering which aspects of word learning (if any) might derive from principles of grammatical architecture and which might be more malleable across development and across languages (Bornstein etal., 2004; Bowerman & Levinson, 2001; Gentner, 198


The concept of teacher professional development (TPD) was coined to emphasize the process of learning and teacher development rather than its formation process. TPD appears, therefore, to delimit a distinction through the idea of teaching based on training courses that do not establish a relationship with the professional routine and practice. However, in practice the term TPD has received multiple meanings and has been used and associated with different processes and activities that do not break off the traditional concept of training and do not contribute to the questioning and to the transformation of school practices and empowerment of teachers. In face of such issue, this article aims to develop a theoretical discussion about the TPD concept related to the teacher profession, based on the uses and meanings that have been established in the literature and in research. In this regard, a review of studies and documents on the subject was conducted, remarking, on one hand the conflicting aspects about the use and the meaning of this concept in the Brazilian context and, on the other hand, some contexts and practices that are TPD inducers or catalysts, such as the teacher's research and their participation in investigative communities.


In-plane shear and compression are important modes in masonry walls, both in load bearing structures and in framed structures. By these mechanical actions shear forces caused by wind and earthquakes are resisted. Upon shear-slipping along bed joints, brick units in masonry also undergo upward translation, or dilatancy, causing global volume increase. If this dimensional change is prevented, large compressive stresses may build up, increasing the resistance to slip by the Coulomb-friction nature. If this shear-compression interaction is not modeled correctly, large errors may be made. In the extreme case, unlimited shear resistance may be predicted by computational models. A discrete crack modeling approach for masonry, which captures the shear-compression dilatational behavior realistically, is elaborated. Shear-compression experiments on small masonry specimens as well as 1 m×1 m masonry walls are analyzed as validation.


This paper makes a comparative study of the subject-oriented,competence-oriented and working orientated curriculum models in the process of higher vocational education reform in China.In the light of the core issues such as subject,structure and content of curriculum models,the author argues that the choice of curriculum model of working process systematization is the historical inevitability and the designing and developing of courses are the key of the current curriculum construction in our higher vocational education.


Merozoite surface protein 8 (MSP‐8) of Plasmodium parasites plays an important role in erythrocyte invasion and is a potential malaria vaccine candidate.


This paper investigates many drawbacks and limitations of current clustering algorithms designed for wireless sensor networks. These limitations include high resource requirements, significant overhead, tight synchronization requirements, and TDMA limitations. A new clustering algorithm called hybrid access and an adaptive duty cycle clustering (HADC) protocol is introduced, aiming to address the previous limitations. HADC protocol is based on several concepts, including static clusters, adaptive duty cycling, hybrid scheme channel access, minimum node's functionality, and pseudo synchronization. The resulting network's important features are energy efficiency, robustness, low latency, scal-ability, and self-healing. The functionality of HADC is validated by both simulation and laboratory experiments. Simulation results show significant improvement of HADC over the well-known LEACH protocol in terms of energy, latency, and packet delivery ratio. The experiment results show that the node's lifetime with two 3000 mAh batteries and transmitting four packets per minute is about 16 years. The lifetime of the cluster head supported by the same energy sources ranges from 110 to 472 days. HADC is the first clustering algorithm designed for sporadic and low rate WSN applications to the best of authors' knowledge.


The current model of SARS‐CoV‐2 assembly proposes a multistage process: (i) the viral RNA coated with the nucleoprotein (N) forms the ribonucleoprotein (RNP), (ii) traffics to the endoplasmic reticulum‐Golgi apparatus intermediate compartment (ERGIC)‐derived vesicles to (iii) interact with the membrane (M) assembled along with spike (S) and envelope (E) proteins. Coronaviruses' M has been described as required for new virus particle assembly. To date, biochemical and structural information on M are unavailable and key host factors required for M lattice formation, trafficking and interaction with the RNP are poorly characterized. The objective of this research project is to progress our understanding of SARS‐CoV‐2 assembly. Our central hypothesis is that M through its interaction with host lipids coordinates viral protein interactions and RNP packaging as key processes for SARS‐CoV‐2 assembly and spread. The role of lipids as molecules regulating the viral life cycle is poorly investigated.


Present research work describes the issues associated with slurry transportation systems in thermal power plants. It not only explores the importance of such ash handling systems but also embarks upon a step-by-step procedure to optimise slurry contents, without ignoring flow process parameters like velocity and pipe diameter to ensure least possible drop in the flow pressure, along the length of pipe. After analysing the research gaps, a strategic methodology based on the philosophies of mixture design of experiments (DoE) and computational flow dynamics (CFD) was suggested. Experiments were designed and performed in a balanced orthogonal matrix, before simulating through CFD. A deviation of mere 8% (approximately) was found in the end results, and hence an average drop in pressure from 3176 to 1252 KPa was unleashed, in the first attempt itself. The rheological properties (like pH value or settling properties) of slurry were assumed to be in required ranges and their relative impacts on critical flow metrics of slurry transportation system were not studied. The present study used an integrated approach to study the flow and further proved its authenticity by implementing it in an Indian thermal power plant successfully.


The invention discloses a forging technology for a race used for a large-scale mine vehicle wheel. The forging technology comprises the steps that 1 rough forging process: the blank is placed into a heating furnace to heat firstly, the heating temperature ranges from 1200 DEG C to 1300 DEG C, and primary chambering is conducted on the blank heated by the heating furnace through a die; 2 refined forging process: secondary chambering is conducted on the blank on the blank on which ring rolling is conducted through the same die, and a forge piece is manufactured. The race forge piece used for the large-scale mine vehicle wheel made by the forging technology provided by the invention has the advantages that the material use is saved, preparation is made for the follow-up thermal treatment, and the quality and performance of the product are guaranteed; two-station ring rolling is achieved, second melt down of the product is avoided, and the energy is saved.


With more than 11,000 optional and alternative features, the Linux kernel is a highly configurable piece of software. Linux is generally perceived as a textbook example for preprocessor-based product derivation, but more than 65 percent of all features are actually handled by the build system. Hence, variability-aware static analysis tools have to take the build system into account.
 However, extracting variability information from the build system is difficult due to the declarative and turing-complete make language. Existing approaches based on text processing do not cover this challenges and tend to be tailored to a specific Linux version and architecture. This renders them practically unusable as a basis for variability-aware tool support -- Linux is a moving target!
 We describe a robust approach for extracting implementation variability from the Linux build system. Instead of extracting the variability information by a text-based analysis of all build scripts, our approach exploits the build system itself to produce this information. As our results show, our approach is robust and works for all versions and architectures from the (git-)history of Linux.


Submitted to the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Engineering in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology May 19, 2005. rl Copyright 2005 Priya Agrawal. All rights reserved. I The author hereby grants to M.I.T. permission to reproduce and distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis and to grant others the right to do so. MASSACHUSETTS INS E OF TECHNOLOGY


The operation On 19 June 2001 Dentsply International Inc., USA (Dentsply) notified the German Federal Cartel Office (FCO) of its intention to acquire the complete dental division of Degussa AG,…


Since the introduction of the HTTP/3, research has focused on evaluating its influences on the existing adaptive streaming over HTTP (HAS). Among these research, due to irrelevant transport protocols, the cross-protocol unfairness between the HAS over HTTP/3 (HAS/3) and HAS over HTTP/2 (HAS/2) has caught considerable attention. It has been found that the HAS/3 clients tend to request higher bitrates than the HAS/2 clients because the transport QUIC obtains higher bandwidth for its HAS/3 clients than the TCP for its HAS/2 clients. As the problem originates from the transport layer, it is likely that the server-based unfairness solutions can help the clients overcome such a problem. Therefore, in this paper, an experimental study of the server-based unfairness solutions for the cross-protocol scenario of the HAS/3 and HAS/2 is conducted. The results show that, while the bitrate guidance solution fails to help the clients achieve fairness, the bandwidth allocation solution provides superior performance.


Reconfigurability is a key element to extracting more from spacecraft subsystems. Once deployed, subsystems may be used more fully and become obsolete later through reconfigurability, often not envisioned by their creators. We have built a set of reconfigurable processing building blocks and infrastructure centered on our RAD750TM processor products and standard interfaces. These blocks can create various processing architectures and be reconfigured at the software, interface or Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) levels. This creates an OS for hardware where it is as easy to change the hardware functions as it has been to create software functions in previous systems. ' Reconfigurable systems utilize RAM-based or fused-based circuits. New technologies, such as our Chalcogenide memory, provide the advantages of both instant reconfiguration and non-volatility. Chalcogenide-based FPGA elements may be inserted into Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) and System-on-Chips (SOCs) to provide a reconfigurable component mixed with high performance elements that may adapt to the latest interface or algorithms. This is important in space systems when design and interface decisions remain embedded in systems for many generations.


Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a complex disease linked with several chronic diseases. We aimed at identifying genetic variants associated with NAFLD and evaluate their functional consequences. We performed a genome-wide meta-analysis of four cohorts of electronic health record-documented NAFLD in participants of European ancestry (8434 cases and 770,180 controls). We identified five potential susceptibility loci for NAFLD (located at or near GCKR, TR1B1, MAU2/TM6SF2, APOE, and PNPLA3). We also report a potentially causal effect of lower LPL expression in adipose tissue on NAFLD susceptibility and an effect of the FTO genotype on NAFLD that is likely explained by obesity. Positive genetic correlations between NAFLD and cardiometabolic diseases and risk factors such as body fat accumulation/distribution, lipoprotein-lipid levels, insulin resistance and coronary artery disease and negative genetic correlations with parental lifespan, socio-economic status and acetoacetate levels were observed. Altogether, this large GWAS meta-analysis revealed new insights into the genetic architecture of NAFLD.

Funding: Part of this study was supported by the European Union through the European Regional Development fund. The work of Estonian Genome Center, Univ. of Tartu has been supported by the European Regional Development Fund and grants No. GENTRANSMED (2014-2020.4.01.15-0012), MOBERA5 (Norface Network project no 462.16.107) and 2014-2020.4.01.16-0125. This study was also funded by the European Union through Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant no 810645 and through the European Regional Development Fund project no. MOBEC008 and Estonian Research Council Grant PUT1660.

Ethical Approval: This study and the use of data from 4119 cases and 190,120 controls was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the University of Tartu (Approval number 288/M-18).


Anti‐group B streptococcal type III polysaccharide‐specific human B cells from the peripheral circulation can be activated and delected in an in vitro culture system. It is possible to detect both IgM‐ and IgG‐producing cells from both seropositive and seronegative donors. The specificity of the response was demonstrated by inhibition with excess liquid phase antigen and the use of related but antigenically distinct control antigens. The response was absent without the addition of T cells, optimal at 10% and 25% T cells respectively for IgM‐ and IgG‐secreting cells, and undetectable using 50% T cells. The optimal antigen concentration for in vitro B‐cell activation is 2.5 × 10−4μ/ml. Cells from 5 of 6 seropositive donors and 3 of 7 seronegative donors produced specific IgM antibody after culture with antigen. We conclude that the control of the human antibody response to the group B streptococcal type III polysaccharide is influenced by T cells. The response seen in the culture system may be of value in assessing future vaccine candidates designed to prevent neonatal infections.


This paper proposed a three dimensional (3-D) time/wavelength/spatial code for optical code division multiple access networks (OCDMA) with straight detection method in the receiver. The proposed 3-D code is developed by adding one dimensional (1-D) prime code (PC) and two dimensional (2-D) quadratic congruence (QC) code. The performance analysis of the OCDMA network depends upon the measured bit error rate (BER), signal to noise ratio (SNR) and received power. The mathematical analysis considers different noises and multiple access interference (MAI) during calculation of SNR. The effective transmitted power and received optical power are measured at different levels of bit error rate to study the attenuation effect.


PURPOSE: To estimate the number of passengers in elevator cars for assigning each car to a stop by forming fuzzy sets representing the number of passengers in a car by selecting plural terms from plural observed weight fuzzy sets and by using fuzzy sets representing utility of assignment of cars for assigning each car to a stop. CONSTITUTION: Weight signals from a weight sensor and input data from an observed weight data element 53 are supplied to a weight interpretation module 52. The number of passengers estimated according to fuzzy inferences is supplied to a car passenger data element 54. Hall stop signals and input from a traffic data mode data element 58 and a passenger data element 62 are supplied to a performance estimation module 64 to estimate the performance of each car in response to the specific hall call. An assignment utility calculating module 70 estimates performance of each car and determines the utility of assignment of each car in response to the specific hall call. COPYRIGHT: (C)1993,JPO


: This paper uses an exhaustive review of the literature to describe the complex emotional process involved in listening to music. It starts by describing the most important theories that have been proposed to describe this process, over the course of history, and then goes on to define aesthetic emotions and the methods most commonly used to describe these. Next, it considers how the composite parts of music (tempo, intensity, intervals, etc.) influence listeners' feelings. The article concludes by considering the usefulness of music as an effective resource in emotional education.


The availability of road network information simplifies aut onomous driving by providing useful prior information about driving environments wh ich is valuable for planning and perception. It tells a robotic vehicle where it can drive , models of what can be expected where, and provides contextual cues that influence dr iving behaviors. Currently, however, road network information for driving environment s is manually generated using a combination of GPS survey and aerial imagery. These tec hniques for converting digital imagery into road network information are labor int e sive, reducing the benefit provided by digital maps. To fully exploit the benefits of dig ital imagery, these processes should be automated. As a step toward this goal, we pre s nt an algorithm that extracts the structure of a parking lot visible from a given a ri l image. We propose a hierarchical approach to generating and evaluating candid te hypotheses. We test three different machine learning algorithms and their combinati ons for removing erroneous hypotheses. From the experimental results, our Markov Rand om Field implementation performs best in terms of false negative rate and Eigenspots performs best in terms of false positive rate.


The high‐contrast imaging group at Princeton University has been at the forefront of the adaptive optics community. In this paper, we present advances made in both the correction and estimation of aberrated wavefronts. We show experimental results in the use of two sequential deformable mirrors (DMs) for the creation of a symmetric dark hole in the image plane. In addition, we present results of the two‐camera wavefront estimation scheme that is less dependent on knowledge of the DM surface than traditional estimation by diversity on the DM.


Abstract—We consider an approximation of one-dimensional fractional diffusion equation. We claim and show that the finite difference approximation obtained from the Grünwald-Letnikov formulation, often claimed to be of first order accuracy, is in fact a second order approximation of the fractional derivative at a point away from the grid points. We use this fact to device a second order accurate finite difference approximation for the fractional diffusion equation. The proposed method is also shown to be unconditionally stable. By this approach, we treat three cases of difference approximations in a unified setting. The results obtained are justified by numerical examples.


We investigate the role of discarded memory retrievals in experiments on free recall from lists of items. Such retrievals are not explicitly reported but testable predictions can be derived by assuming that they correlate with a delay in the timings of recall. We report on three situations where such a delay occurs: if the final item was already recalled ("silent recency effect"); if the item that, within the list, follows the latest recalled item was already recalled ("silent contiguity effect"); and in sequential recalls within highly performing trials ("sequential slowdown"). All these effects can be reproduced by a minimal model where the discarding of memories ("bouncing") occurs either if they are repetitious or, in strategically organized trials, if they are not sequential. Based on our findings we propose various approaches to further probing the submerged dynamics of memory retrieval.


Simple Summary Growth hormone (GH) action is strongly implicated in the progression and therapy resistance in several types of solid tumors which overexpress the GH receptor (GHR). The aim of our study was to characterize the effects of GH and its downstream effector insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) on melanoma using in vitro and in vivo models. We confirmed an IGF-1-independent role of elevated circulating GH in upregulating key mechanisms of therapy resistance and malignancy with analyses conducted at the molecular and cellular level. We identified that GH upregulates key mechanisms of therapy resistance and metastases in melanoma tumors in an IGF-1 dependent and independent manner by upregulating multidrug efflux pumps and EMT transcription factors. Our study reveals that GH action renders an intrinsic drug resistance phenotype to the melanoma tumors—a clinically crucial property of GH verifiable in other human cancers with GHR expression. Abstract Growth hormone (GH) and the GH receptor (GHR) are expressed in a wide range of malignant tumors including melanoma. However, the effect of GH/insulin-like growth factor (IGF) on melanoma in vivo has not yet been elucidated. Here we assessed the physical and molecular effects of GH on mouse melanoma B16-F10 and human melanoma SK-MEL-30 cells in vitro. We then corroborated these observations with syngeneic B16-F10 tumors in two mouse lines with different levels of GH/IGF: bovine GH transgenic mice (bGH; high GH, high IGF-1) and GHR gene-disrupted or knockout mice (GHRKO; high GH, low IGF-1). In vitro, GH treatment enhanced mouse and human melanoma cell growth, drug retention and cell invasion. While the in vivo tumor size was unaffected in both bGH and GHRKO mouse lines, multiple drug-efflux pumps were up regulated. This intrinsic capacity of therapy resistance appears to be GH dependent. Additionally, epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) gene transcription markers were significantly upregulated in vivo supporting our current and recent in vitro observations. These syngeneic mouse melanoma models of differential GH/IGF action can be valuable tools in screening for therapeutic options where lowering GH/IGF-1 action is important.


The utility model relates to a bicycle-driven small family car. The left part of a car carriage bottom frame (3) is connected with a push-and-pull chair (2) and a push-and-pull table (4); the right part of the car carriage bottom frame (3) is connected with a push-and-pull rack (21); the back part of the car carriage bottom frame (3) is connected with a closestool (6); four sliding ceiling regulating rods (14) at the upper parts of the four corners of the car carriage are connected with a solar monocrystalline silicon plate (12) at the top of the family car; and the whole family car is connected with an electric bicycle (16) in front; the bicycle-driven small family car is characterized in that a washroom (7) is formed by connecting a semi-standing tent (13) and a solar hot water bag (10); the solar-cell plate at the top of the family car can illuminate the electric bicycle in front and the interior of the family car, recharge the electric bicycle and supply power to electrical appliances, so that a power supply for electrical appliances is not carried; the life quality of a field activity is effectively ensured; a user can stroll about in the moveable small snail family car driven by the electric bicycle; the small family car can adapt to any weather, can be driven by a motorcycle, a bicycle or manpower, is applicable for preventing earthquake and rescuing people in a disaster or improving the life conditions of nomads, fruit farmers and fishermen and is applicable to field temporary workers.


Abstract Objective: The primary aim of this study was to investigate whether scores for a speech-in-noise test were associated with the results of two electrophysiological techniques mainly targeting low spontaneous rate, high-threshold auditory fibres. Design: Cross-sectional study. Participants were evaluated with the hearing-in-noise test (HINT), along with the Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) with and without ipsilateral noise. The wave V/I amplitude ratio for the ABR without ipsilateral noise and ABR wave V latency shift in the presence of ipsilateral noise were obtained. Study sample: Twenty adults aged between 20 and 34 years (10 females) who did not report occupational exposure to noise were selected. All participants presented with normal hearing thresholds (0.250–8 kHz) and the presence of distortion product otoacoustic emissions, bilaterally. Results: A significant association between the wave V/I amplitude ratio for the left ear and the HINT scores for the left ear was found. Conclusions: Based on the results of this study, in normal-hearing listeners, the wave V/I ratio is associated with speech-in-noise performance, specifically in the left ear. This non-invasive procedure has the potential to be used in clinical populations who present with speech-in-noise difficulties despite having normal audiograms.


Descending necrotizing mediastinitis (DNM) is a life-threatening condition, in which infection arisingfrom deep neck tissue spreads downwards into the mediastinum. Contrast-enhanced cervico-thoraciccomputed tomography(CT) scan is vital for appreciate of the extent and location of mediastinalinvolvement. Treatment of DNM begins with intravenous administration of a broad-spectrum antibioticcovering both aerobes and anaerobes. Immediate transcervical drainage and debridement with or withouttransthoracic mediastinal drainage should be considered. Transthoracic mediastinal drainage has tobe performed when the mediastinal infection has spread below the carina and/or the Th4 vertebra.Moreover, it is important to determine whether additional drainage is required by evaluation using regularCT imaging. The overall reported mortality rate since 1960 has been 31%, but from 1999 to 2008 ithas been 15.5%.


Comparing the work of our university instructors with that of Australian ones,we find such problems as the poor quality of the instructors,their lack of affinity and sense of responsibility,their preference to some students and little care to others.The reasons for these problems lie in the imperfect management system and the instructors themselves.The suggestions are presented as follows: to select right people as instructors,pursue professional qualification system,improve instructors' status and salary,offer some training chances and invite senior students as instructors.


The sputter depositions of Al2O3, CeO2, Ta2O5, Y2O3, and ZnO were performed in view of elucidating their spatial distribution of deposition rate. Among them, CeO2 and Y2O3 showed a depression of deposition rate in front of the target. Similar results were observed for CeO2 with changing the O2 concentration in the sputtering gas and the sputtering discharge power. This depression of the deposition rate in front of the target is restricted to the cases of 5% to 2% of O2 and of higher discharge power. In these cases, the planar distribution of deposits in front of the target have concave profiles corresponding to the erosion region on the target. Main reason for this depression of deposition rate can be explained in terms of reemission of deposits by energetic particles bombardment from the target. However, another chemical effect of O2 may affect the total amount of the deposits.


Alternative methods of cytology have been on the rise, as emphasized in several articles. There is debate in the literature about the possible advantages and limits of each cytological method. Focusing on extragynecological cytology, fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB) was introduced in 1930 but was not recognized as an invaluable diagnostic tool until the 1950s, when it was regarded for its simplicity, safety, and ability to be repeated. Conventional cytology (CC), which may be considered the pioneering cytological diagnostic tool, has been the cornerstone of cytological methods, including those recently gaining attention for their ability to diagnose thyroid nodular lesions. In addition, in 1995, liquid-based cytology (LBC) gained consensus as an alternative and valid method for both gynecological and nongynecological cytology. Since then, several authors have compared and emphasized the differences among CC, LBC, and cell block–derived slides. There has been a surge in the literature reporting alternative cytological methods, especially LBC, and their potential to serve as reasonable solutions for some of the problems with cytology. However, the question remains if the cytological method itself is more important than the cytopathologist who interprets the sample. As an analogy, were the specific sailing ships more critical than Columbus' navigational experience in reaching the new world? If he had steered the Pinta rather than the Santa Maria, would the result have been different? Similarly, the same kind of discussion can be applied to cytology. Hence, the controversy surrounding LBC and other alternative methods might be explained by a reluctance to look for possible advantages that might be offered. However, criticisms are generally made after careful evaluation, especially in institutions where new methods might increase technical workloads and economic costs. These concerns might justify the reluctance with which many laboratories treat the LBC method or other alternative cytological approaches. In our institution, we have been working with LBC since 2001, although we initially applied a split sample method. Our numerous articles, which cover all cytological specimens, but mainly thyroid cytology, show excellent results that were obtained with a simple shift to LBC. Our results indicate that our rates of diagnostic categories were identical to those of the pre-LBC era, which led us to conclude that the cytopathologist's


A fast solid-state pulse generator used as a thyratron grid driver for kicker pulsers, has been developed and built with power MOSFETs and a transmission line transformer. The MOSFET, pulsed on and off by a pair of P-N channel HEXFETs, switches charged capacitors into the transformer connected in parallel on one end and in series on the other end to step up the voltage. The resulting output pulse parameters are 2-kV peak (into 50 Omega ), 13-ns, risetime (10-90%), 250-ns duration, and less than 50-ps pulse-to-pulse jitter. Various methods are employed to protect the MOSFETs from thyratron arc back, including the use of TransZorbs and a magnetic diode.<<ETX>>


This article explains the importance of the EFL (English as a Foreign Language) method in teaching English in vocational schools. EFL places student learning motivation as the main focus in the selection of learning materials and methods, so that the learning process and content can be adapted to the student's area of interest. The use of Google Classroom can assist students in learning EFL because it provides access to an online English communication environment and facilitates communication between teacher and class. This study shows that automotive majors need EFL for their academic success and need learning materials related to electricity. These results show the importance of paying attention to students' needs in making EFL materials for other study programs in vocational schools.


Dear Editor,

The Gram-negative bacillus Burkholderia gladioli is known to be a causative pathogen of pneumonia in cystic fibrosis 1,2. Chronic lower respiratory infections involving B. gladioli are associated with poor graft survival and unfavourable outcomes 1,2. Burkholderia gladioli was first identified as a plant pathogen in gladiolus, iris and rice, but this bacterium is found in diverse environments including soil, plants and the human respiratory tract. Its pathogenesis in humans was first described in the mid-1990s in case reports of cystic fibrosis 3 and chronic granulomatous disease 4, and the majority of the reported B. gladioli infections have been in immunocompromised adults, e.g. human immunodeficiency virus-infected patients, and newborns 5. Although it is still a fairly uncommon pathogen, B. gladioli in humans is an opportunistic pathogen and is associated with a poor prognosis.

The genus Burkholderia was formerly classified as the genus Pseudomonas. The virulence of B. gladioli in humans is recognized to be low, and the clinical manifestations of this pathogen in non-lung transplantation patients have not been fully elucidated. We treated a 62-year-old female patient with myasthenia gravis, a thymoma and immune-mediated granulocytopenia. She had been treated with tacrolimus for the previous 12 months. From her sputum, non-fermenting Gram-negative rods were cultured microbiologically. The isolate was oxidase-negative, indole-negative and nitrate-negative. The 16S rRNA detection in our collaborator's laboratory confirmed B. gladioli as a 99% comparable DNA sequence. The patient's case was complicated with bronchiolitis followed by bacteraemia due to B. gladioli. The infection of B. gladioli presented as diffuse panbronchiolitis (Fig.(Fig.1)1) and progressed into repeated bacteraemia. The pathogen was not isolated because a laboratory technician made an arbitrary decision not to proceed further to determine the species of the causative organism, although the patient had been suffering from repeated bacteraemia due to the same bacillus. Our institute's laboratory reported the pathogen only as 'an environmental non-fermenting Gram-negative rod.'

Figure 1

Pulmonary infection by Burkholderia gladioli presenting as diffuse panbronchiolitis. (a) Transverse view showing the transbronchial distribution of small opaque nodules in the right upper lobe (S2), indicated by arrowheads. (b) Nodular infiltration shadows formed ...

Non-fermenting Gram-negative bacilli are bradytrophic and can survive for long periods in a wet environment without sufficient nutrients. Such bacilli include Pseudomonas spp., Acinetobacter spp., Stenotrophomonas spp., Chryseobacterium spp. and Burkholderia spp., all of which are opportunistic pathogens. Non-fermenting Gram-negative bacilli have the following microbiological characteristics: (1) they produce various β-lactamases in nature, (2) they show multidrug resistance in nature, (3) they easily acquire plasmids harbouring antibiotic-resistant genes, and (4) they form a biofilm on surfaces to colonize. All of these features are linked to clinical issues in the treatment of infection, and they are linked to unfavourable outcomes.

As stated in the position paper distributed by the US Health Care Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC), the surveillance of newly emerging pathogens is a critically important component of prudent infection control. Microbiological identification is also crucial, especially using samples obtained in clinical settings. In our patient, the isolated bacterium was not multidrug-resistant, fortunately; she was treated successfully with a carbapenem antibiotic, meropenem (0.5 g, three times per day, administered for 11 days). We recommend the microbiological identification of non-fermenting Gram-negative bacilli according to the clinical situation, even when the bacillus is likely to be found in the environment and is an unremarkable microbe. To do so, interdisciplinary interactions between clinical and laboratory personnel are helpful. The value of medical microbiology is based on interactive laboratories.


ABSTRACT The influences of shape characteristics and pressure on n-Heptane ring fire were investigated through two groups of experiments. In group A, the ring fire with varying shape characteristics was conducted. In group B, the ring fire was performed under sub-atmospheric pressures including 45 kPa, 60 kPa, 75 kPa, and 90 kPa. The results show that the mass loss rate is determined by combined results of air entrainment and heat dissipation effect. The flame structure is divided into merged flame and separated flame. The axis temperature has no significant difference in growth stage but presents a corresponding relationship in decrease stage.


Diffusion capsules implanted in the abdominal cavity of the mouse recipient are one of the variants of the humanized model of "human-animal" systems. The aim of our study was to determine the optimal parameters for the cultivation of hematopoietic progenitor cells in gel diffusion chambers and their functional activity of bone marrow cells from different locations. To achieve this goal, the method of cultivation in gel diffusion chambers in vivo combined with the method of colony formation in semi-liquid agar, cytological research methods and light microscopy were used. The optimal conditions of cultivation and kinetic indicators of cell aggregate formation by bone marrow precursors of patients without hematological pathology in semi-liquid medium were established in vivo in 16 days of cultivation. We determined that the most suitable term for taking the results of experiments is at 12th day of cultivation. The number of cells that was determined to be optimal for further studies was 5x10(5) cells in 1 ml, or 1x10(5) cells per chamber. Our results suggest that regardless of the place of collection of biological material in humans, the formation of colony in the culture of diffusion chambers is maintained at nearly the same level. The CFU activity for the sternal puncture was 36.5 ± 2.3, the CFU activity for bone marrow from the rib fragment was 38.5 ± 4.8, the CFU activity for trepan biopsy from the anterior upper part of the iliac crest was 35.5 ± 6.8 and the CFU activity from the posterior upper part of the iliac crest was 37.3 ± 5.5. These observations are important for evaluation of functional activity and further use of stem cells from different parts of bone tissue in the case of transplantation. This is further supported by the proliferative potential of colony formation and the index of cell maturation in clones. The obtained data deepen our understanding of the functioning of the hematopoietic stem cells in the human body under normal conditions.


This paper presents the proposal for the development of the requirements document of a system, carrying out all the necessary survey to propose solutions of the information problems for a company of the retail trade. The requirements document will be used by the company "Danillo e Douglas Moveis", specialized in the sale of furniture in general. The analysis of requirements presented was carried out jointly with the company taking into account the issues of information management, to carry out the informational survey necessary to support the development of the requirements document.


Pfizer has formed a multiyear collaboration with Nodality to use the latter's single cell network profiling (SCNP) technology as a tool to streamline the development of new compounds for autoimmune diseases, beginning with lupus. Pfizer also has the option to use Nodality's technology, which was licensed from Stanford University, to develop novel companion diagnostics. Pfizer Venture Investments has been an investor in Nodality since 2008.


The equilibrium between Nb metal and gaseous NbCl/sub 5/ was studied primarily by transpiration measurements of the densities of niobium and chlorine in the vapor in equilibrium with solid niobium at elevated temperatures. Mass spectrometer studies of a molecular beam effusing from a niobium Knudsen cell into which NbCl/sub 5/ or Cl/sub 2/ was led confirmed the proposal that the important vapor species were NbCl/sub 5/, NbCl/sub 4/, and NbCl/sub 3/. The transpiration data were analyzed so as to derive the equilibrium constants for the reactions: 1/4 Nb(s) + NbCl/sub 5/(g) = 5/4 NbCl/sub 4/(g); K/sub 54/ and 1/3 Nb(s) + NbCl/sub 4/(g) = 4/3 NbCl/sub 3/(g); K/sub 43/. To accomplish this analysis, K/sub 54/ was evaluated at the lowest temperature studied where NbCl/sub 5/ and NbCl/sub 4/ were the primary species. The heats of formation of NbCl/sub 5/ and NbCl/sub 4/ were used to determine the change in K/sub 54/ with temperature and so to evaluate K/sub 54/ at the higher temperatures. At the higher temperatures of our experiments, NbCl/sub 4/ and NbCl/sub 3/ were the primary species, and the values of K/sub 43/ were determined at those temperatures. As part of this work, enthalpy increments above room temperaturemore » were measured for the condenced phases of NbCl/sub 5/. With these data the vapor pressures of NbCl/sub 5/ were analyzed by a ..sigma..-plot treatment to derive the enthalpy and entropy of sublimation, which were found to be ..delta..H/sub 298//sup 0/(subl) = 22.41 kcal/mole and ..delta..S/sub 298//sup 0/(subl) = 45.40 e.u. These data were used to evaluate the enthalpy of formation of gaseous NbCl/sub 5/ (-168.1 kcal/mole) and the absolute entropy of solid NbCl/sub 5/ (50.4 e.u.) at 298/sup 0/K. For NbCl/sub 4/, the enthalpy and entropy of sublimation at 298/sup 0/K were calculated to be 32.8 kcal/mole and 44.9 e.u., and the enthalpy of the formation gas was calculated to be -133.2 kcal/mole. For NbCl/sub 3/, the enthalpy of formation of gas was found to be -83 kcal/mole at 298/sup 0/K.« less


This special issue of ES: Revista de Filologia Inglesa 33.1 (2010) contains ten papers from the Second International Congress of the John Gower Society in Valladolid, Spain in July 2011, each, as the editors explain in their introduction, situating Gower's work in one of the contexts relevant to its interpretation.


We investigate the wall-crossing behavior as Bridgeland moduli spaces for some Simpson moduli spaces of Gieseker-semistable torsion sheaves on $\mathbb{P}^1\times \mathbb{P}^1$ with linear Hilbert polynomial. In particular, we recover some of the birational transformations of these spaces described by Maican and Chung-Moon as wall-crossing maps in certain slices of $Stab(\mathbb{P}^1\times \mathbb{P}^1)$.


Based on the advanced contemporary theories on English language learning and directed by College English Curriculum Requirements issued by the Ministry of Education,through the analysis of English network and NBCAI teaching environment,the practice of network-based "problem-centered" "dynamic" college English teaching approach in our college and the investigation among related teachers and students,the paper demonstrates that the teaching approach being studied and practiced in our college embodies student-centered teaching concept and in a way can help cultivate students' ability of discovering,analyzing and solving problems independently.


In this work, the growth of nanotubular oxide layers on Ti 1-x Ni x (x=0.49, 0.498, 0.511, 0.522, 0.525) shape memory alloys was investigated. All of the Ti-Ni alloys were fabricated by arc melting process under high vacuum atmosphere. The crystal structure and the growth of the nanotubular oxide layers were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), field-emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy attached to a transmission electron microscope (TEM). The electrochemical anodization was carried out at various durations (5 min and 20 min) and applied voltages (20 V, 35 V and 50 V) at room temperature in ethylene glycol containing 0.06 M NH 4 F and 1.5 wt% H 2 O. Nanotubular oxide layers were formed on all Ti-Ni alloys by electrochemical anodization, but the morphology of the oxide layers was changed depending on the anodization duration and Ni concentration of the Ti-Ni alloy substrate. In the case of short duration (5 min), the nanotubular oxide layers were formed on all Ti-Ni alloys by electrochemical anodization, however, the morphology of oxide layer was changed from nanotubular structure to nanopore structure with increasing anodization duration. Moreover, it was cleared that the morphology variation of the nanotubular oxide layers was accelerated with increasing Ni concentration, from 49.0 at% to 52.5 at%, which is attributed to the formation of a Ni-rich layer on the Ti-Ni alloy surface by electrochemical anodization. (Received May 30, 2018; Accepted June 30, 2018)


Educational research provides information on specific ways in which conceptual changes occur when students learn geometrical optics. Students' ideas may be represented as clusters of 'facets‐of‐knowledge', each cluster specific to an optical setting. When students' ideas undergo conceptual change these facets of knowledge are transformed. The resulting 'hybrid knowledge' incorporates ideas from classroom instruction as well as some beliefs students held prior to instruction. It appears that relevant pre‐instructional knowledge could be described within 'holistic conceptualization', while hybrid post‐instructional knowledge may be described in the framework of 'image projection conceptualization' (IPC) contrasting with the scientific view elaborated in 'point to point flux mapping', conceptualization. The transition from holistic conceptualization to IPC, neither of which is correct, is related to students' incorrect interpretation of the light‐ray concept. Specific activities are suggested to encourage an...


Addresses the weaknesses of current electronic commerce (EC) applications related to their lack of support for the customer to recognize other people (either other customers or vendors) on a specific site, and to communicate with them when desired. We argue that, as EC grows more popular, there will be an increasing need for more sophisticated application software that is capable of both handling business transactions 24 hours a day and facilitating interactive, context-sensitive communication on request. We aim to highlight the importance of awareness in the interaction between and among customers and suppliers in producing, delivering and shopping for goods and services. Alternative views on awareness facilities as platforms for high, but manageable, levels of interactivity in EC are analysed. We also point out the implications of this facility in forming, for example, customer communities. A platform supporting awareness and launching communication is presented, and the implications of its features are discussed.


For being not falling in as final targets of attackers,the critical resources in network environments should be protected. It is vital to quantify the threat and impact during the process of multi-stage attacks. Aiming at combine threat quantification of individual attack action and significance value of hosts,as well as large amount of attack dependencies in attack graphs,a methodology for threat evaluation was proposed. The bi-directional threat evaluation presented in this article is able to compute progress attackers already,as well as the threat to goal-resources in attack graph,which can be well applied to real-time attack threat evaluation. The proposed was finally verified in experiment and simulation.


The significance of limited resections, including wedge resection and segmentectomy, remains controversial because of their curability rates. In the current study, the objective was to determine a strategy for the treatment of patients with roentgenographically occult bronchogenic squamous cell carcinoma (ROSCC) based on the pathologic findings from 184 patients with ROSCC who underwent resection.


Factors Affecting Rwandan Informal Sector Workers' Participation in Public Pension Schemes by Emmanuel Kayitare MINTAX, University of Sydney, 2007 BEC, University of Rwanda, 2002 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Public Policy and Administration Walden University July 2016 Abstract Social security is one of the key pillars of socioeconomic development in developing countries. Despite being an internationally recognized basic right and a key pillar of socioeconomic development, it does not protect the majority of the global workforce. Over 90% of workers in developing countries do not have social security coverage, the greatest percentage belonging to informal sector. In Rwanda, the national government has stepped up efforts to extend coverage to the wider population, but informal sector workers have not joined the existing pension scheme in significant numbers, and the reasons for which are unclear. Guided by Maloney's theory of voluntarism; the purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the factors affecting the level of workers' participation in informal sector in pension scheme in Rwanda. This study was designed to provide new insights into the current social security situation of informal sector workers in Rwanda and to contribute to the knowledge base on social security and the informal sector. The research questions focused on awareness, income levels, and other factors that can address the social security needs of informal sector workers. Data were collected from 22 active workers from informal sector and 5 officials from ministries and agencies who were well-versed with social security issues. Data were analyzed via Moustakas's steps of epoche, phenomenological reduction, imaginative narration, and synthesis of texture and structure. The results revealed that low incomes, lack of awareness, poor benefit design, distrust of public schemes, and frustrating laws and procedures were hindering the increased public pension coverage of informal sector workers in Rwanda. These findings will help Rwandan policy makers to promote positive social change by informing policies that enhance social protection of workers in informal sector.Social security is one of the key pillars of socioeconomic development in developing countries. Despite being an internationally recognized basic right and a key pillar of socioeconomic development, it does not protect the majority of the global workforce. Over 90% of workers in developing countries do not have social security coverage, the greatest percentage belonging to informal sector. In Rwanda, the national government has stepped up efforts to extend coverage to the wider population, but informal sector workers have not joined the existing pension scheme in significant numbers, and the reasons for which are unclear. Guided by Maloney's theory of voluntarism; the purpose of this phenomenological study was to examine the factors affecting the level of workers' participation in informal sector in pension scheme in Rwanda. This study was designed to provide new insights into the current social security situation of informal sector workers in Rwanda and to contribute to the knowledge base on social security and the informal sector. The research questions focused on awareness, income levels, and other factors that can address the social security needs of informal sector workers. Data were collected from 22 active workers from informal sector and 5 officials from ministries and agencies who were well-versed with social security issues. Data were analyzed via Moustakas's steps of epoche, phenomenological reduction, imaginative narration, and synthesis of texture and structure. The results revealed that low incomes, lack of awareness, poor benefit design, distrust of public schemes, and frustrating laws and procedures were hindering the increased public pension coverage of informal sector workers in Rwanda. These findings will help Rwandan policy makers to promote positive social change by informing policies that enhance social protection of workers in informal sector. Factors Affecting Rwandan Informal Sector Workers' Participation in Public Pension Schemes by Emmanuel Kayitare MTAX, University of Sydney, 2007 BECON, University of Rwanda, 2002 Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Public Policy and Administration Walden University July 2016 Dedication This study is dedicated to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Without the guidance and encouragement of my GOD, I would not have accomplished this goal. It is dedicated as well to my amazing partner in life, Peace, and to our four children—Collins, Chrystal, Crown, and Chryton—who steadfastly journeyed with me through the ups and downs of the process, never ceasing to be a constant source of strength and encouragement. Last, but by no means least, this study is dedicated to my parents, Mathias and Clemencia, who never had the opportunity to pursue formal education, but without whom this achievement would never have been possible. Acknowledgments I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to the members of my Dissertation Committee for their invaluable support throughout the dissertation journey. I am thankful to Dr. Anthony Fleming for his wonderful mentorship and inspiration, and for his taking the time to painstakingly review my drafts and provide feedback in a timely manner. I must also express my thanks to Dr. Robert Schaefer, who has been a source of encouragement from the outset and helped to ensure methodological correctness, and also to Dr. George Kieh for his input to the process. I would also like to thank all of my family, friends, and well-wishers. This project would not have come to fruition without their prayers, encouragement, and support.


Nutrition index are used on a wide scale for the diagnsosis of the mineral nutrition of the grasslands and to facilitate the decisions regarding their fertilisation mode.In literature are available few data regarding the inter-annual evolution of the nutrition indexes in relationship with the cumulated mineral balances. The problems that are coming from are to find out the measure in that those indexes are able to provide piece of information on the evolution of the N and P supplies level in the case that the mineral balance is positive or in the case in that the mineral balance is negative. The experimental fields were set by the Orphee team (INRA Toulouse) on two grassland types different from the pedological and climatic point of view, placed in Erce in Central Pyrenees in 1999 (0° east, 43° north) and in Gramond in Massif Central in 1998 (2° east, 44° north). There were applied four treatments: N0P0, N0P1, N1P0 et


Abstract : This report contains a summary of interviews conducted related to cultural adaption of US Army soldiers. Interviews were conducted by curriculum development specialists at various BT and AIT centers and Army units in Conus, Korea, and Europe to identify any situational/cultural areas which would affect the developoment or conduct of English language training programs for non-native English speakers. (Author)


CHEN Yun as an important member of the central leadership,Who has contributed to china' economic development greatly.It's economic theory rich the Marx' Materialist dialectics,develop the economic theory of Marx,implement the mass viewpoint and line of Materialism.From the perspective of Marxism in china,comprehensively analysis the economic theory of CHEN Yun which has great theoretical and practical significance.


High resolution ultrasonic spectroscopy was used to study progressive aggregation and structural changes in diluted aquatic solutions of humic substances over the concentration range from 0.001 g/L to 3 g/L. For this purpose, both sodium salts (fulvates) and protonized forms of fulvic acids and sodium salts of humic acids (humates) were used; the origin of humic substances covered wide range of sources. Obtained results confirmed previously published statement about the progressive aggregation of humic substances in diluted solutions. The method allowing the treatment of obtained data by fractal analysis was developed and tested. Determined dependency of fractal dimension on concentration revealed clear differences in mechanisms of aggregation of individual humic and fulvic samples. In fact the value of fractal dimension 2.5 was determined for the concentration 3g/L; diluting the solution caused increasing in fractal dimension value up to 3 for concentrations around 0.01 g/L. The increase was not the same for all samples, in fact the most significant fluctuation in this concentration range was observed for fulvic acids. It was found out that despite the prevalence of hydrophobic forces in stabilization of humic substances in diluted solutions, also the nature of the counterion represents one of the crucial factors playing role in conformation and stability of humates and fulvates. In accordance with previous observations based on the measurement of lignite humates, also humates, fulvates and fulvic acids originating from various sources showed the change in their aggregates properties around the concentration 1 g/L. Key-Words: Humic and fulvic acids, aggregation, IHSS, ultrasonic spectroscopy, fractal analysis.