This article, written by JPT Technology Editor Chris Carpenter, contains highlights of paper OTC 31298, "Novel Active Slug Control in Angola: Development and Field Results," by Lisa Ann Brenskelle, SPE, Martin Bermudez Morles, and Lauren Annette Flores, Chevron, prepared for the 2021 Offshore Technology Conference, Houston, 16–19 August. The paper has not been peer reviewed. Copyright 2021 Offshore Technology Conference. Reproduced by permission.
 Hydrodynamic slugging was anticipated during the design of a new facility in Angola. A simulation study demonstrated that a control scheme from the literature could be applied effectively to control the slugging. That solution was rejected, however, because of the use of a pseudovariable as the principal control point. A novel control scheme, therefore, was developed and tested in simulation for both hydrodynamic slugging and severe riser-induced slugging. Upon commissioning, slugging at the facility was found to be more severe than anticipated during design, but the novel active slug-control scheme was effective in controlling incoming slugs.

 Various control schemes have been implemented to control slugging in hydrocarbon-processing systems, including subsea systems. The accepted control approaches to the various types of slugging differ because causes of slugging differ, although the effects on processing facilities are similar. For hydrodynamic slugging, the use of a pseudoflow controller, which uses a calculated value of flow, is the accepted conventional approach. The pseudoflow is calculated from the equation for volumetric liquid flow through a valve, which results in a value that is not physically meaningful for multiphase fluids.
 For terrain slugging, the accepted approach is the use of pressure control, wherein the pressure is upstream of the slug-forming area. For riser slugging, this is at the base of the riser.
 For both hydrodynamic and terrain slugging, the accepted control schemes usually modulate the control valve located upstream of the vessel first receiving produced fluids, normally depicted as a separator, although this vessel also could take other forms. Use of this valve in relation to slugging is common, whether used manually or in a control scheme. Maximum production occurs with the valve fully open, but this cannot control or prevent slugging.
 Known field-demonstrated control schemes include pseudoflow control, pressure control upstream of the slug-forming area, pressure control upstream of the slug-forming area cascaded to (i.e., determining the setpoint for) the pseudoflow control, and composite variable control.
 Each of these control schemes has practical disadvantages affecting usability in the field. The principal disadvantage of pseudoflow slug control is that setpoint determination is difficult because the pseudoflow is not an actual physical flow rate. Trial and error would be required to determine the pseudoflow setpoint each time it would need to be adjusted, which would be a frequent occurrence as operational conditions change. In the case of slug control through pressure control upstream of the slug-forming area, the principal disadvantage is the use of a subsea pressure sensor because the slug-forming area, the low point, frequently is subsea. Not only is subsea instrumentation expensive, but such instrumentation also is difficult to replace should it fail.


Purpose
The purpose of this study is to improve the utilization of walk-in tutors at the University of Dayton.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper discusses the application of mixed methods participatory action research with the use of the lean six sigma (LSS) define-measure-analyze-improve-control (DMAIC) methodology combined with discrete event simulation to improve the tutoring processes at the University of Dayton.

Findings
The impact of these improvements provided a great balance between tutor utilization and student wait time, and as a result, an increase in pay was negotiated for tutors. Additionally, two schools within the University, Engineering and Business, have seen the value of the tutoring for their students and have provided additional financial support for tutoring services. Specifically, these schools now have dedicated by-appointment tutors for their students.

Originality/value
Incorporating simulation within the LSS methodology provides a "prototype" simulation of the potential solutions prior to changing the process in the real world. This approach can minimize the risk of implementing solutions that are costly or ineffective. The improvement of increased tutor pay helped to demonstrate the university's commitment to tutors and tutoring. Through continuous improvement efforts, the tutoring department has tripled the number of courses that they support through these enhanced relationships, improved utilization and the overall culture and work environment. The LSS methodology and tools combined with discrete event simulation can be used as a guide for improving other repetitive processes within the university.


We review some of the results obtained in our group in recent years concerning the dynamical behavior of phase oscillators in networks with a hierarchical structure. The dynamics highlights the role of communities at all levels. At the same time, by analyzing the resulting dynamical evolution we can infer details about the topological structure of the system. Thus a link between dynamical and topological properties of complex systems is established.


Determination of actinides in the environmental sample requires separation of each element. This procedure is tedious and time consuming. And also, the detection limits of some nuclides using alpha spectrometry are rather higher. To overcome the lower detection limit and complicated separation procedure, a simple analytical technique for the determination of actinide isotopes in the environmental samples was developed and applied to IAEA and NIST reference sediment samples. For the separation of actinides from matrix, anion exchange resin and TRU-spec extraction chromatography resin were used and chemical yields were obtained using natural uranium, thorium, and tracers. For overcoming the higher detection limits of U and Th in alpha spectrometry, neutron activation analysis was applied. Using combined method, the detection limit was increased about 10 times. The activity values of each isotope were consistent with the reference values reported by IAEA and NIST.


The goal of this paper is to compare the performances of two different velocity observers, a full order one and a reduced order one, when used to estimate the velocity vector of a planar robot subject to impacts with the environment, modelled as perfectly rigid. Both the sensitivity of the observers to quantization errors in the position measurements and their behaviour in closed-loop are investigated. Keywords— Mechanical systems, non-smooth impacts, velocity observers.


This thesis starts with suggestions that college students judge their figures and the necessity of losing weight by standards of their own weights. In addition, the author explains the importance of healthy food and reasonable amount of sports to losing weight. It is a theoretical guide to ideal figures for the over-weight.


Considering fault data are absent in the real chemical production process,this paper utilizes(support) vector machines(SVM) which fits the small sample problems to diagnose the chemical process steady faults.To ensure the real-time capability of online diagnosis and eliminate the disturbances from higher (dimensional) monitored data as well as system noises,a novel fault feature selection method based on binary quantum particle swarm optimization(BQPSO) and SVM is proposed.The results of simulation prove that BQPSO can find the global optima effectively and select the fault features quickly and exactly.And,the fault diagnosis method based on SVM with feature selection can reliably diagnose the faults(online) in the complex chemical process.


Evolved UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (EUTRAN) offer high uplink and downlink throughput. This enhances user experience in term of Quality-of-Service (QoS). Radio resource allocation is a complex arrangement of resources in multiuser scenario. Generally in network, radio resources are configured in pool, however resources are offered to user on the basis of "as soon as required (ASAR)". LTE in EUTRAN provides radio resource to user, with different scheduling mechanism. This definitely reduces network capacity in whole, but at the same time increases resources availability per user at particular state of time. In every cycle of resource allocation a feedback mechanism works to cater operational resource requirement. In this paper we investigate performance of different strategies of resource allocation, driven through different scheduler such as round robin, proportional fair, best channel quality indicator (CQI), max transmission point (TP) and resource fair(RF). We evaluate strategy for resource allocation under indistinguishable arrangement and conclude with comparative performance analysis and find proportional fair offers balance throughput, fairness and spectral efficiency.


The invention discloses a low temperature resistant and moisture-proof treatment agent for wicker rattan. The agent is composed of a liquid A and a liquid B. the liquid A is formed by mixing the following raw materials: hydroxyl silicone oil, citraconic anhydride, veratric aldehyde, di phenyl ether, allyl polyoxyethylene ether, polyarylacetylene resin and water; and the liquid Bis made from the following raw materials by weight: albizia bark, Radix Euphorbiae Pekinensis, whiteflower cacalia seed coat, scorch-fried Cape jasmine fruit, persimmon calyx, catnip, paris rhizome, Semen Citri Reticulatae, Chinese tinospora stem and Euphorbia thymifolia. Compared with the prior art, the invention has the following advantages: two chemicals are combined, so that the agent has effective mildew proofing and anti-bacteria performance and good moisture resistance when the rattan products are in the environment of low temperature and high humidity; and the products in the harsh environment have little change properties and keep long service life.


By methods of documentary analysis and questionnaire investigation,it was investigated about 2 000 college students four universities in Zhejiang Province with their needs of theory about P.E.and Health.The results indicated that:(1)urrent college students needs of Theory about P.E.and Health were high.(2) the knowledge of P.E.and Psychology,P.E.and Medicine,and P.E.and Health was the top three among their needs.(3)the main questions existd in teaching theory of P.E.were: the content of theory of P.E teaching seemed be out of date,and it′s selection was much more influenced by teachers′ will,a poor quality of theory of P.E.and lack of teaching arts among many P.E.teachers,lecturs were dull and only reading according to textbook,and the way of teaching is simple and not include current teaching technology and approaches.According to those questions,several countermeasures were suggested.


A new efficient fuzzy weighted mean filter approach to the restoration of images corrupted by mixed noise was proposed. The coefficient of the proposed method can be varied adaptively based on degree of mixed noise by designing a T-S model based on differences between pixels in the window. Finally, the values of the processed pixel can be calculated. The proposed method can reduce the influences of noise pixels effectively by adjusting the coefficient and improve the filtering performance greatly. Simulation results based on Matlab show that the proposed method can be applied to many different types of image and preserve the integrity of edge and detail information and remove mixed noise effectively.


We give a pedagogical review of flavour and CP violation in the lepton sector, with a particular emphasis on new physics - and in particular supersymmetric - contributions to flavour and CP violating observables involving leptons.


The article deals with the use of the results of measuring the catalogued space objects coordinates by a radar station for long-range detection in the interests of differential correction of coordinate-time and navigation support for consumers. We describe the idea of comparing trajectory data that allows us to calculate the total electronic content in the direction of a catalyzed space object under the assumption of a thin layer at the height of the ionosphere maximum. The main stages of the method of differential correction of coordinates-but-time and navigation support for consumers based on the results of comparing trajectory data are described. The results of modeling are presented, which allow us to evaluate the possible positive effect when using the proposed approach.


Between 1 968 and 1989, a total of 1 88 species of birds were recorded in an area of approximately 5 k:m2 in and around the campus of the Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR); of these, 58 species were permanent residents, 3 were breeding residents, 38 seasonal residents (mostly wintering migrants of North America), 50 passage migrants, and 39 were seasonal, occasional, or accidental visitors. The breeding avifauna of 61 species is comparable in size to that of other deforested areas in Costa Rica. During the study period, the UCR area changed from being dominated by traditional shaded coffee plantations, to one dominated by urban and suburban development. In Ihe process, the abundances of sorne 59 birds species, mostly residents, have changed markedly, with deelines far exceeding increases. Relatively few migrants and visitors changed in abundance, but the majority of both groups consisted of species recorded too infrequently for any marked trends to be detected. Over the 21 years, nearly all of Ihe species requiring shaded plantations, wooded areas, sstreams, or tall old second growth ha ve deelined;. species of pastures, low scrub, and other open areas mostly maintained fairly constant populations or deelined, but a few increased; most of those occupying a wide range of habitats held Iheir own; and small number of species attaining greatest densities in urbanized areas increased. Reasons for observed declines varied: for many species, loss of particular resources associated with a given vegetation type seam implicated; for olhers, the general configuration of the vegetation most important. T hose species using widely


Introduction: Mean bar failure in overdenture-supported implant has been reported to be 3.97 percent; even this low failure rate is unacceptable for patients because of its cost compared with complete denture. The aim of this study was to assess stress distribution in different points of the bar of overdenture-supported implants by finite elements analysis. Materials and methods: In this descriptive study, stress distribution on the bar of mandibular overdenture was evaluated by the finite elements analysis (FEA). Implants in two canine areas were connected to each other by one bar at the distance of 2 mm from the lining tissue of the edentulous ridge. Then the vertical force applied to the left first molar increased gradually from 0.5 to 50 N and stress distributions were recorded at different points of the bar. Results: By increasing the force up to 6.06 N, stress was uniformly distributed over the bar, but with greater force stress was focused on the border of the middle third and the force application third. This pattern of stress distribution continued parallel with an increase in the force. Conclusion: Failure is higher at the border area between the middle third of the bar and the third near the applied force due to maximum stress; therefore, reinforcement of the bar at this area is suggested Key words: Attachment, Dental stress distribution, Finite element analysis, Overdenture, Supporting bar.


Image inpainting is an active research field of image processing. Previous inpainting methods often require a long computational time to give sufficient results, especially due to the extensive search process of exemplar-based methods. This work improves a previous fast inpainting method based on local similarity, which achieves runtimes measured in tens of milliseconds per image, but often results in unacceptable artifacts. We improve the resulting image quality by allowing pixels to be filled at any angle, determining the angle based only on the vicinity of the target region, and cross-fading between source pixels from opposite sides of the target region. The proposed method is shown to eliminate the two drawbacks, while retaining a fast runtime.


This article examines high superintendency turnover through rural community members' perceptions of such attrition in their districts. Findings indicate that community members perceived high turnover as negative and believed that turnover was created by financial pressures, rural community resistance to educational trends, and bias against minorities and/or "outsiders." Interestingly, most community members talked about superintendent turnover as "just the way things are around here," attributing high turnover to what they considered external financial conditions (the superintendents' low salary and the state funding sources) and unwittingly putting themselves in a position of helplessness, or as victims, even when they controlled the amount of salary that they offered candidates.


Language service courses at South African tertiary institutions are nothing new.
However, traditional perspectives on the nature and purposes of these courses have
been challenged. One of these challenges is the view that the language (discourse)
of the subject cannot be taught in external language courses for academic or even
specific purposes, but that subject specialists need to do this teaching. This paper
reports on an investigation into language as a contributory factor to academic
failure amongst first-year Accounting students at the University of Port Elizabeth, to
provide some empirical support for this view. The results of the investigation
indicated that students' problems are in most cases related to conceptualisation.
This indeed implies language, given its fundamental facilitating role in all higherorder
cognition, but it is suggested that the most appropriate form of remedial
support may be neither a course in English for academic purposes, nor even
English for Accounting specifically, but rather some form of team teaching that
involves both language teachers and subject specialists.


Recently we have developed a new algorithm, PROVEAN (Protein Variation Effect Analyzer), for predicting the functional effect of protein sequence variations, including single amino acid substitutions and small insertions and deletions [2]. The prediction is based on the change, caused by a given variation, in the similarity of the query sequence to a set of its related protein sequences. For this prediction, the algorithm is required to compute a semi-global pairwise sequence alignment score between the query sequence and each of the related sequences. Using dynamic programming, it takes O(n · m) time to compute alignment score between the query sequence Q of length n and a related sequence S of length m. Thus given l different variations in Q, in a naive way it would take O(l · n · m) time to compute the alignment scores between each of the variant query sequences and S. In this paper, we present a new approach to efficiently compute the pairwise alignment scores for l variations, which takes O((n + l) · m) time when the length of variations is bounded by a constant. In this approach, we further utilize the solutions of overlapping subproblems, which are already used by dynamic programming approach. Our algorithm has been used to build a new database for precomputed prediction scores for all possible single amino acid substitutions, single amino acid insertions, and up to 10 amino acids deletions in about 91K human proteins (including isoforms), where l becomes very large, that is, l = O(n). The PROVEAN source code and web server are available at http://provean.jcvi.org.


Onion are the third most important vegetable crop sold in South Africa. Optimum sowing dates for new cultivars was determined in Bloemfontein (South Africa) during 2009 and 2010. Cultivars planted in 2009 and 2010 were 'Charlize', 'Jaquar', 'Python', (South Wester, 2009; Ceres Gold, 2010). Unavailability of 'South Wester' seed resulted in replacement with 'Ceres Gold'. In 2009 onion seeds were sown on 30 April, 7 and 21 May and in 2010 on 11, 25 May and 8 June. Trials were laid out as a randomized complete block design with each treatment combination replicated 3 times. Plant height and leaf number were measured 18 weeks after emergence. At harvest, bulb yield and quality were recorded. Cultivars differed with respect to growth habit, bulb size, neck diameter and bolting, but not bulb fresh mass and yield. Sowing date did not influence plant height and leaf number significantly, except in 2010 where the early sowing dates resulted in taller plants. The respective delayed sowing dates in 2010 (11 May, 25 May, 8 June) significantly decreased average bulb fresh mass (71.48, 49.42, 49.21 g bulb-1) and yield (40.96, 34.05, 28.20 t ha-1). In both seasons thinner necks were recorded for later planting dates.  Cultivars tested in Bloemfontein can be sown from late April to late May, although the best results were obtained from sowing in May.

 Key words: Bolting, bulb diameter, bulb neck diameter, bulb shape, bulb yield, leaf number, photoperiod, plant height, temperature.


The population of Bangladesh is increasing in an alarming rate. To control this alarming population contraception use is essential. But contraception use depends on literacy, income, religion, cultural norms and surrounding environment. Most of the Bangladeshi people are illiterate and religious minded. Especially madrasha teachers have wrong notion to use contraception. This study aim to investigate the level of knowledge and the use of contraception among the madrasha teachers in a selected area of Mirpur in Dhaka city. It is a cross sectional study and a total number of 103 male teachers in selected madrasha were interviewed for conducting the research. This study finding shows that 45.63 % respondents age were between 40-47 years, Mean age was 47 years of respondents and S.D is ±8.935, Monthly income of the respondents (51.46%) were in between 6,000-9,000 taka, 58% of respondents family member were 4-6. 28.2% of the respondents has got the information about contraception method from TV, About 70.9% of the madrasha teacher had told that they use any type of contraception method, 74% had good knowledge about contraception method, 60.3% of them had told that they have faced economical problem to use, Among 73 respondents, 81% of them use the method as temporary and 19% of them use it as a permanently method. Among 73 respondents, 41.1% of them had told that they are satisfied by use of contraceptive method. Madrasha teachers are informing about contraception, but they have lack of proper knowledge and economic problem to use different methods.


This paper investigates the Cooroy Mill community precinct (Sunshine Coast, Queensland), as a case study, seeking to understand the way local dynamics interplay and work with the community strengths to build a governance model of best fit. As we move to an age of ubiquitous computing and creative economies, the definition of public place and its governance take on new dimensions, which – while often utilizing models of the past – will need to acknowledge and change to the direction of the future. This paper considers a newly developed community precinct that has been built on three key principles: to foster creative expression with new media, to establish a knowledge economy in a regional area, and to subscribe to principles of community engagement. The study involved qualitative interviews with key stakeholders and a review of common practice models of governance along a spectrum from community control to state control. The paper concludes with a call for governance structures that are locally situated and tailored, inclusive, engaging, dynamic and flexible in order to build community capacity, encourage creativity, and build knowledge economies within emerging digital media cityscapes.


Typically, iterative learning control (ILC) is applied based on a core hypothesis that the strict repetitiveness of control environment, task, and model should be satisfied by the controlled system. The problem of interest in this paper is: whether and how can ILC robustly work for controlled systems subject to iteration-dependent environments, tasks and models? To successfully solve this problem, an ILC algorithm using a high-order internal model (HOIM) is proposed and convergence conditions are developed. It is shown that HOIM-based ILC both possesses robustness against iteration-dependent uncertainties from initial states, disturbances, and plant models and tracks iteration-dependent references. Also, simulation tests validate the effectiveness of HOIM-based ILC.


Objective: to observe Rhubarb's function on Lung Protection in acute lung injury/acute respiratory distress syndrome(ALI/ARDS).Methods: 100 cases of ALI patients up to standard were randomly divided into two groups,and routine treatment was for 50 cases of control group while treatment with adding Rhubarb nasal feeding for 50 cases of treatment group;Compared index changes of respiratory mechanics,hemodynamics and changes of arterial blood gas and patients' computer days,time in CPU and mortality in CPU of two groups.Results: The compared difference was remarkable on respiratory mechanics,hemodynamics and changes of arterial blood gas and patients' computer days,time in CPU and mortality in CPU between treatment group and control group.Conclusion: By Rhubarb,patients' respiratory mechanics,hemodynamics and arterial blood gas index could be effectively improved,incidence of MOF was decreased and time of ICU was shortened.


E. ROUX – S. BOUILLAND – A.-P. GODILLON-MAQUINGHEN D. BOUTTENS (1) Laboratoire d'Automatique et de Mécanique Industrielles et Humaines, U.M.R. C.N.R.S. 8530 Université de Valenciennes, Le Mont Houy, 59313 VALENCIENNES Cedex 9 France (2) Groupe Hopale, 62 608 BERCK SUR MER – France ABSTRACT The aim of this study is to assess the performances of the global optimisation (GO) method (Lu and O'Connor, 1999) within the upper limb kinematics analysis. First the model of the upper limb is presented. Then we apply GO method in order to reduce skin movement artefacts that imply relative movement between markers and bones. The performances of the method are then evaluated with the help of simulated movements of the upper limb. Results show a significant reduction of the errors and of the variability due to skin movement.


ABSTRACT Receiving a variant of uncertain significance (VUS) result is quite common for individuals who undergo genetic testing. Because VUS results are often unexpected and necessarily complex, they are challenging for genetic counselors to deliver. The current research sought to examine how three specific message features (risk estimate formats, establishment of a future plan, and linguistic agency), and message receivers' intolerance of uncertainty, influenced the effectiveness of genetic counselors' communication of a VUS result. A series of MANCOVAs and multiple regressions suggested that these message features affected message receivers' perception of a genetic counselor's credibility and receivers' uncertainty appraisal and information-seeking intentions. Specifically, establishing a future plan and assigning agency to a VUS result enhanced perceived counselor credibility. When results were presented in a numeric format, assigning agency to counselors resulted in heightened danger appraisal and greater information-seeking intentions. Individuals' intolerance of uncertainty moderated the association between risk formats and uncertainty appraisal. These results have both theoretical and practical implications for communication of uncertainty in the context of genetic counseling.


The development of human-computer interfaces was studied in two large software product development organizations. Researchers joined development projects for approximately one month and participated in interface design while concurrently interviewing other project participants and employees, recording activity in meetings and on electronic networks, and otherwise observing the process. The two organizations differed in their approaches to development, and, in each case, the approach differed in practice from the model supported by the organizational structure. Development practices blocked the successful application of accepted principles of interface design. The obstacles to effective design that results from people noticing and being affected by interface changes, and a lack of communication among those sharing responsibility for different aspects of the interface.


Thisstudy evaluated whether T-cell memory reflects increased precursor frequencies ofspecific long-lived Tcells and/or alow-level immuneresponse against someform ofpersistent antigen. Antivirally protective CD8+T-cell mem- orywasanalyzed mostly intheoriginal vaccinated hostto assess therole ofantigen initsmaintenance. T-cell mediated resistance against reinfection wasmeasured inthespleen and inperipheral solid organs withprotocols thatexcluded pro- tection byantibodies. Invivoprotection wascompared with detectable cytotoxic T-lymphocyte precursor frequencies de- termined invitro. Inthespleen, invitro detectable cytotoxic T-lymphocyte precursor frequencies remained stable indepen- dently ofantigen, conferring resistance against viral replica- tioninthespleen during reinfection. Incontrast, T-cell mediated resistance against reinfection ofperipheral solid organs fadedawayinanantigen-dependent fashion within a fewdaysorweeks. We showthatonlymemoryTcells persis- tently orfreshly activated withantigen efficiently extravasate intoperipheral organs, wherecytotoxic Tlymphocytes must beabletoexerteffector function immediately; boththe capacity toextravasate andtorapidly exert effector function critically dependonrestimulation byantigen. Ourexperi- mentsdocument thattheduration ofT-cell memoryprotective against peripheral reinfection depended ontheantigen dose usedforimmunization, wasprolonged whenadditional anti- genwasprovided, andwasabrogated after removal ofantigen. Weconclude thatT-cell mediated protective immunity against theusualperipheral routesofreinfection isantigen- dependent.


Facial nerve palsy (FNP) can be a challenging medical condition, and bilateral FNP is an uncommon occurrence that is potentially fatal and warrants urgent medical intervention. We report a rare case of bilateral FNP that developed after traumatic brain injury (TBI), which we approached through an electromyographic study. A 23-year-old male patient had experienced a fall-down injury from height of 4 meters while on his military service. Computed tomography of the brain and facial bone showed acute TBI and multiple skull base fractures. Limited facial expression and dysarthria started at the time of cranioplasty, which was about 3 months after the patient's initial presentation, and these symptoms gradually deteriorated over time. An electrodiagnostic study demonstrated incomplete bilateral facial nerve lesions, which were strongly indicated as lower motor neuron lesions. An early diagnosis based on electrodiagnostic study should be considered for proper treatment, which can achieve optimal functional recovery after bilateral FNP.


This paper provides an overview of the challenges experienced by a set of adjacent local government councils in collectively identifying the vulnerability of Cockburn Sound and Owen Anchorage coastal zone (Western Australia) to the effects of climate change as well as practical and effective measures to address those identified vulnerabilities. The coast in this area features a wide range of industrial, recreational, residential and commercial activities and is influenced by complex sedimentary and metocean processes as well climate variability. This paper describes the approach adopted by the Cockburn Sound Coastal Alliance (CSCA) to determine those vulnerabilities and identify the 'value at risk' of coastal assets potentially affected by coastal processes under different timeframes and climate change scenarios, for incorporation in the subsequent decision making and planning outcomes. The paper provides an opportunity to practitioners, the consultancy industry and funding bodies to reflect on the challenges (potentially common to other coastal regions) faced by local government authorities in understanding the behavior of complex coastal systems in a context of a lack of long-term coastal datasets, consistent funding opportunities and in-house coastal expertise. It points to the challenges of preparing a good consultant's brief and achieving outputs from the Consultant that meet the client's needs, and the pros and cons of early community engagement in coastal decision-making.


Wireless ad hoc network is a collection of wireless mobile nodes that dynamically self-organize in arbitrary and temporary network topologies. As compared to conventional network, wireless ad hoc network are more vulnerable to the security attacks. The nature and structure of wireless ad hoc network makes it very attractive to attackers, because there is no fixed infrastructure and administrative approach in it. "Sinkhole attack" is one of the severe attacks in this type of network; this makes trustable nodes to malicious nodes that result in loss of secure information. This paper focuses on sinkhole attacks on routing protocols such as DSR, AODV. To overcome the problems occur due to sinkhole we discuss about Security-aware routing (SAR) which helps to reduce the impact of such attack. Keywords—DSR, AODV, SAR, Sinkhole attack, geographic routing, MANET.


Abstract : Spectral characteristics were measured on the B-1, and two types of FB-111 windscreens in the spectral region of 0.3 - 2.0 micrometers. The total transmission, index of refraction, dispersion and Lambert absorption coefficients were determined to quantitate the effective protection offered by these windscreens to high-intensity radiation. Total windscreen transmission measurements were performed spectrophotometrically with each sample in normal incidence and adjacent to the detection aperture, allowing both the direct transmission and the forward scatter to be measured. The index of refraction for each windscreen was measured using a laser spectrometer system. The index of refraction at eight wavelengths in the visible spectrum was accurately determined with this system. Finally, a method is presented to calculate the light attenuation offered by the three windscreens to this region of spectral radiation at various angles of incidence.


This issue of the Earth Negotiations Bulletin ©  is written and edited by Tanya Rosen, Bo-Alex Fredvik, Tasha Goldberg and Kate Harris. The Digital Editor is Kiara Worth. The Editor is Pamela Chasek, Ph.D. . The Director of IISD Reporting Services is Langston James "Kimo" Goree VI . The Earth Negotiations Bulletin is published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development. The Sustaining Donors of the Bulletin are the European Union, the Government of Switzerland (the Swiss Federal Offi ce for the Environment (FOEN)), the Italian Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. General support for the Bulletin during 2016 is provided by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB), the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Aff airs and Trade, SWAN International, the Finnish Ministry for Foreign Aff airs, the Japanese Ministry of Environment (through the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies IGES), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). Specifi c funding for coverage of this meeting has been provided by the European Union and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Funding for translation of the Bulletin into French has been provided by the Government of France, the Wallonia, Québec, and the International Organization of La Francophonie/Institute for Sustainable Development of La Francophonie (IOF/IFDD). The opinions expressed in the Bulletin are those of the authors and do not necessarily refl ect the views of IISD or other donors. Excerpts from the Bulletin may be used in non-commercial publications with appropriate academic citation. For information on the Bulletin, including requests to provide reporting services, contact the Director of IISD Reporting Services at , +1-646-536-7556 or 300 East 56th St., 11D, New York, NY 10022 USA. SUMMARY OF THE SEVENTEENTH MEETING OF THE CONFERENCE OF THE PARTIES TO THE CONVENTION ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN ENDANGERED SPECIES OF WILD FAUNA AND FLORA: 24 SEPTEMBER 4 OCTOBER 2016


A brief introduction of current research concerning pipeline detection robots is presented, and problems arise when individual pipeline detection robots carry out detection tasks including the complexity of movement mechanism, inability in multi-tasking, limitation of detection range as well as large time consumption and low efficiency. In response to the demand of complicated underground gas pipeline inspection in cities, a new idea is proposed in gas pipeline detection through cooperative work of robots, based on the advantages of multi-robot system in space, mechanism, time, information and resources, of which the competitive edges in space, resources, mechanism and communications are elaborated and further analyzed. The pressing issues in the research concerning the cooperative detection of robots in complicated underground gas pipelines are further discussed in the paper.


We analyze the determinants of Europeans' retirement savings' for a sample of 4,526 individuals in 8 European countries. Our results show that the driving forces of the decision of saving for retirement are quite similar. This decision is positively related to the individuals' age, financial literacy, household income, employment status and saving habit. In addition, the results suggest that country-level institutional factors also play a crucial role on the individual's retirement attitudes.


A wafer structure comprising a semiconductor substrate, a plurality of elastic members, and a plurality of UBM layer a plurality of bumps. A semiconductor substrate having active surface, and which is provided with a plurality of pads on the active surface; and the elastic members are disposed in the bonding pad, the resilient member and each having an opening to expose a portion of the pad; UBM layer respectively cover connected to a corresponding pad on the elastic member, and each of the UBM layer; bumps are disposed on the UBM layer.


This report examines the pharmacological properties and therapeutic potential of Dimetindene maleate as a medium strong tranquilizer and anxiolytic. Dimetindene maleate is an antihistamine with additional sedative effects, making it suitable for managing anxiety and promoting relaxation. This report delves into the mechanism of action, pharmacokinetics, clinical applications, and potential side effects of Dimetindene maleate, providing a comprehensive understanding of its therapeutic benefits and limitations. Additionally, this report explores current research trends and future prospects for Dimetindene maleate as a promising option in the management of anxiety disorders.


Recent developments in materials and process selection for structural applications, using the performance index methods are reviewed. Their current implementation in softwares is presented. Possible developments in the field of materials design is outlined.


The present invention detects the state of the obstacle with the bottom surface as more particularly, in the periphery of the mobile robot when driving the mobile robot of the mobile robot according to a driving technology of a mobile robot to automatically switch to the optimal drive mode. Driving means for moving the mobile robot according to the invention is given mission area and; Cleaning means for cleaning the debris on the floor and in traveling on board; Detecting the obstacle environment information including whether or not the ground state in a space mission environment by sensing the output unit; Depending on the environment information received from the environment sensing unit it is configured to include a control for a number of driving mode selected by setting the appropriate drive mode. Mobile robots, cleaning robots


The US Department of Energy and Caterpillar entered a Cooperative Agreement to develop compression ignition engine technology suitable for the light truck/SUV market. Caterpillar, in collaboration with a suitable commercialization partner, developed a new Compression Ignition Direct Injection (CIDI) engine technology to dramatically improve the emissions and performance of light truck engines. The overall program objective was to demonstrate engine prototypes by 2004, with an order of magnitude emission reduction while meeting challenging fuel consumption goals. Program emphasis was placed on developing and incorporating cutting edge technologies that could remove the current impediments to commercialization of CIDI power sources in light truck applications. The major obstacle to commercialization is emissions regulations with secondary concerns of driveability and NVH (noise, vibration and harshness). The target emissions levels were 0.05 g/mile NOx and 0.01 g/mile PM to be compliant with the EPA Tier 2 fleet average requirements of 0.07 g/mile and the CARB LEV 2 of 0.05 g/mile for NOx, both have a PM requirement of 0.01 g/mile. The program team developed a combustion process that fundamentally shifted the classic NOx vs. PM behavior of CIDI engines. The NOx vs. PM shift was accomplished with a form of Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI). The HCCI concept centers on appropriate mixing of air and fuel in the compression process and controlling the inception and rate of combustion through various means such as variable valve timing, inlet charge temperature and pressure control. Caterpillar has adapted an existing Caterpillar design of a single injector that: (1) creates the appropriate fuel and air mixture for HCCI, (2) is capable of a more conventional injection to overcome the low power density problems of current HCCI implementations, (3) provides a mixed mode where both the HCCI and conventional combustion are functioning in the same combustion cycle. Figure 1 illustrates the mixed mode injection system. Under the LTCD program Caterpillar developed a mixed mode injector for a multi-cylinder engine system. The mixed mode injection system represents a critical enabling technology for the implementation of HCCI. In addition, Caterpillar implemented variable valve system technology and air system technology on the multi-cylinder engine platform. The valve and air system technology were critical to system control. Caterpillar developed the combustion system to achieve a 93% reduction in NOx emissions. The resulting NOx emissions were 0.12 gm/mile NOx. The demonstrated emissions level meets the stringent Tier 2 Bin 8 requirement without NOx aftertreatment! However, combustion development alone was not adequate to meet the program goal of 0.05gm/mile NOx. To meet the program goals, an additional 60% NOx reduction technology will be required. Caterpillar evaluated a number of NOx reduction technologies to quantify and understand the NOx reduction potential and system performance implications. The NOx adsorber was the most attractive NOx aftertreatment option based on fuel consumption and NOx reduction potential. In spite of the breakthrough technology development conducted under the LTCD program there remains many significant challenges associated with the technology configuration. For HCCI, additional effort is needed to develop a robust control strategy, reduce the hydrocarbon emissions at light load condition, and develop a more production viable fuel system. Furthermore, the NOx adsorber suffers from cost, packaging, and durability challenges that must be addressed.


Anti-LAP-TGFβ antibodies inhibit tumor growth in a CT26 syngeneic tumor model in combination with radiation therapy. TGFβ is a major immunosuppressive cytokine that acts within the TME and is implicated in resistance to checkpoint inhibitors. TGFβ is synthesized as a pro-protein complex in which the mature cytokine is caged within LAP, the latency associated peptide of TGFβ1, and serves to hold TGFβ1 in a latent state. Anti-LAP-TGFβ antibodies have efficacy in mouse models of cancer (Gabriely et al., 2017) and offer a promising new treatment approach in oncology. Radiation is standard of care in many cancer indications and is a known potent inducer of TGFβ. TGFβ is also implicated in resistance to radiation treatment. Thus, combination treatment with anti-LAP antibodies and radiation may yield a novel approach for enhancing therapeutic responses in a population with significant unmet medical need. We have evaluated the anti-tumor effects of targeting TGFβ via an anti-LAP antibody in combination with radiation therapy in a murine syngeneic CT26 colorectal cancer model. We identified a unique class of anti-LAP antibodies, TLS-01, that specifically target LAP on the surface of cells, but do not bind to LAP-TGFβ in the extracellular matrix. We assessed the effects of combination of TLS-01 and radiation on both tumor efficacy and modulation of immune cell subsets within the TME. CT26 tumor bearing mice (tumor size ~300 mm3) were treated with either TLS-01, an isotype control antibody, 12 Gy or 20 Gy of targeted radiation, or a combination of TLS-01 with 12 Gy or 20 Gy of radiation. Seven days after treatment, 3 animals per group were analyzed for tumor infiltrating immune cell subsets and the remaining animals were followed for tumor growth and survival for up to 19 days. Radiation inhibited tumor growth in a dose dependent fashion. Combination treatment with TLS-01 and radiation inhibited tumor growth to a greater extent than was seen with TLS-01 or radiation treatment alone. Radiation treatment dramatically increased the number of CD8+ T cells in the TME and concomitantly increased both the number and immunosuppressive properties of inhibitory cell populations in the TME, including increases in CD73 expression on M-MDSCs and M2 macrophages. Treatment of irradiated mice with TLS-01 reduced Tregs, increased the CD8 / Treg ratio and reduced CD73 expression on immune suppressive cells. Combination of TLS-01 with radiation resulted in enhanced efficacy when compared to either agent alone. Our data provides mechanistic insights underpinning this enhanced efficacy. TLS-01 moderated immunosuppression in the TME by radiation via modulation of multiple immunosuppressive cell types. These data support the therapeutic utility of combination treatment of TLS-01 and radiation therapy in the treatment of solid tumors. Citation Format: Kenneth J. Simon, Stavros Kopsiaftis, Randall Burton, Patricia E. Rao, Jessie M. English, Barbara S. Fox. Anti-LAP-TGFb antibodies inhibit tumor growth in a CT26 syngeneic tumor model in combination with radiation therapy [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2019; 2019 Mar 29-Apr 3; Atlanta, GA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2019;79(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 93.


The article underlines some underrated aspects of the interest Galdos demonstrates, in the eighties and nineties of the nineteenth century, for narrative strategies contradicting a strict adherence to realism. In particular, with Misericordia the author looks into the anatomy of Madrid's social body to find in the category of the social outcasts a possible deliverance.


Process equipment, including physically and logically integrated into the process control system, safety system, safety system and process control systems can be applied to common security within the process equipment, communications and display hardware and software functionality while providing isolation. The integrated process control and safety systems for the safety system and process control system uses a common data communication structure, so that the program can be the same way, such as using the same communication hardware and software to send data to any system device or from it receives data. Setting the general structure of data communications, by using the data relating to the transmission apparatus or information received from the flag, address or other fields, so that the safety program can distinguish between the process control system and safety system unit means, such that the process control system and security-related system data can be separate, so that the safety program within the user interface may automatically process the data were based on the data source (or destination).


In recent times the prevailing climate of economic growth has allowed many businesses to grow even though they may have contained fundamental weaknesses in their organisational and management structure particularly in terms of how they manage their increasingly complex business environment [Gälweiler, 1990; Malik, 2001a].However, the recent economic downturn has meant that organisations with such weaknesses are significantly vulnerable to failure. The Mandis Agony Index, which monitors distress on the basis of profit warnings, redundancies, plant closures and weak trading statements, increased by more than 7% in 2001 [Sunday Times Mandis Index, 2002]. This paper looks at how the Viable System Model [Beer 1985] can audit the organisational structure of a businesses to identify structural weaknesses. This is interfaced with the ISO 9001:2000 guidelines to provide a framework by which these weaknesses can be overcome. The paper draws on a number of practical examples in both the U.K. and Germany to discus how new structures are designed and implemented to facilitate long term organisational learning in order to create and manage the corporate knowledge base and thus promote long term viability.


Abstract : The rationale and procedures for preventing cross-contamination in Air Force dental facilities are discussed, including dental instrument and DTR furnishings; instrument preparation; sterilization--materials, methods, and monitoring; storage and shelf life; and treatment of specific equipment. Special applications for prosthodontics and dental radiology are outlined. Personal protection is stressed and current procedures for communicable disease reporting are given. Appendixes summarizes some topics discussed in the text and provide special information on hepatitis as well as sources for infection control supplies and periodicals.


According to the theory for measuring the information of mechanical products and with the combination of the classification of the information of mechanical products, the processing technology information of mechanical products was studied deeply, and the measurement method of processing technology information for mechanical products was presented. This method can evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the process file in the initial stage of the product design, which can reduces the manufacturing costs of products effectively. The superiority of this method was verified through the analysis of a concrete example.


A needle and hub assembly for an automatic injector and a method for making the needle and hub assembly. The needle and hub assembly comprises a cap or skirt (40), a forward surface of which is interposed between and reinforced by first (42) and second (44) engaged hub portions. A needle (46) is received in a contiguous channel formed in the two hub portions. The method for making the assembly comprises molding the first hub portion, placing the cap over the first hub portion, inserting the needle into a channel in the first hub portion, and then overmolding or otherwise forming the second hub portion on the exterior of the cap such that it is engaged with the first hub portion. An assembly created by this "two-shot" process can be used to seal a relatively large opening, and supports the needle more effectively than a conventional assembly.


J. Hillis Miller. Versions of Pygmalion. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990. Pp. iii + 256. The origins of this book are traceable to A. Bartlett Giamatti's "vigorous attack on literary theory written while he was still president of Yale Uni- versity. He was of course implicitly criticizing some influential colleagues at Yale" (14). In response to Giamatti's charge that deconstruction is radically incapable of situating the literary text within the social domain of ethics, Miller undertakes close readings of James's What Maisie Knew, Kleist's "Der Findling," Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener," Blanchot's L'arret de mort, and James's "The Last of the Valerii," in order "to exemplify... the claim that the rhetorical study of literature is indispensable to exploration of the so-called extrinsic relations of literature: the relations of literature to his- tory, politics, and society, to personal and institutional relations" (13). In exploring "the extrinsic relations of literature," Miller's project, ...


Introduction/Hypothesis: The 2016 Surviving Sepsis Campaign recommends hydrocortisone (HCT) in refractory shock. There is a lack of data that provides guidance on whether there is a benefit to tapering off HCT upon shock resolution. The objective of this study is to compare shock recurrence in intensive care unit (ICU) patients with septic shock tapered (TAP) vs not tapered (NTAP) off HCT. Methods: The study was conducted at a tertiary care academic medical center and a community hospital in the United States. Medical records of adult patients receiving vasopressors and HCT between July 2013 and June 2018 were evaluated. Adult patients were included if they were admitted to the ICU, required vasopressors for a minimum of 4 hours, received HCT for a minimum of 48 hours, who had either evidence or strong clinical suspicion of an infection, and had shock resolution. Patients were excluded if they had a pre-existing diagnosis that required steroid use, or if they died within 48 hours of ICU admission. The primary outcome was the incidence of shock recurrence, which was defined as re-initiation of vasopressors between 4-48 hours after shock resolution. Secondary outcomes evaluated included development of new shock (vasopressor reinitiation greater than 48 hours after initial discontinuation), gastrointestinal bleeding, and hyperglycemia. Results: A total of 82 and 193 patients were included in the TAP and NTAP groups, respectively. The cohorts mean age was 60.7 (±15.7) years, 62% were male, 63% were admitted to the medical ICU, 75% were mechanically ventilated, the median SOFA score was 10 [IQR 8-12], and the median baseline norepinephrine dose was 9 mcg/min [IQR 9-20]. Shock recurrence occurred in 9.8% of TAP and 11% of NTAP patients (p=0.781), respectively. There was no difference between the TAP and NTAP groups with respect to vasopressor duration (53.9 hrs [IQR 35-102.1] vs 51.6 hrs [IQR 333.8-112]; p=0.894). The total HCT duration was longer in the TAP group compared to the NTAP group (149 hrs [IQR 105-240] vs 92 hrs [IQR 60-135]; p<0.001). The median duration of tapering was 4.4 days [IQR 2-5.2]. There were no differences between groups for any of the secondary outcomes. Conclusions: Tapering off HCT in septic shock patients does not reduce shock recurrence 4-48 hours after initial vasopressor discontinuation.


The existence of laws and institutions has the essence of promoting justice in two ways. First, to identify the moral values and moral system that has been settled in the structure of society. Second is to establish a system of legal norms that indirectly form the system of justice itself. The character of justice is essentially "unlawful", so the concept of justice itself is born from the assumption that a moral value is not contrary to law, that is justice. Justice is part of a crystallized moral, in orderly terms. Regularity in positive law, but it is not enough with only positive law, it can also be seen from the principle in the basic norms in community life. Criminal is the sorrow imposed by the state upon someone who commits a violation of the provisions of the law. Criminal intentionally dropped to be perceived as sorrow. The size of a criminal penance that someone deserves is an unresolved problem. New crimes are felt in real terms when they are effectively implemented. Its objectives are not solely by the way of imposing a criminal but by resorting to acts. Criminalization is a form that must be given by criminal law, because it has disrupted social life. The ideal punishment becomes the center of attention of modern criminal law today. The role of a criminal judge is crucial, especially to decide a case fairly. Therefore, the criminal justice must have a lot of data about the actions and the perpetrators. Although the judgment is often a problem, in the same case but have different decision. The circumstances require a control point, which can provide useful help in punishing. The present judicial world has accommodated the "progressive law," which in its application has created a new meaning, namely "substantive justice," with its peculiarity based on court proceedings and facts, and this is a legal breakthrough, in various criminal justice activities. The purpose of the upcoming criminal law system is the law that organizes human actions. Through a regulation which contains a unity, with essentially linking specific rules, to the moral order, religion order, so that the renewal of the criminal law requires the research and thought of the central, very fundamental and strategic problems, including the policy in establishing criminal sanctions. The regulation of criminal law is a reflection of the ideology of a nation, which makes the law grow, and it is of utmost importance, that the whole law building, rests on a healthy and consistent political view. Implications Reform of criminal law, with the substitution, refinement of material and formal punishments, is as a  step forward, the people of Indonesia, to achieve justice of legal certainty and its usefulness. Therefore it is needed to immediately apply the new formal and material criminal law as a container to improve the nature of the punishment of dignified Indonesian society. Keywords : Law, Criminal, Punishment, Judge and Justice.


The utility model provides a high-strength steel welding structure of a crane boom. The welding structure comprises at least three layers of welding beads, and is characterized in that each layer of the welding beads is divided into at least two beads, an annealing welding bead is arranged outside the outmost welding bead, and the thickness of each layer of the welding beads is no larger than 2.5mm. The welding structure adopts multilayer and multi-bead thin layer welding, and the annealing welding bead is arranged at last for welding, so that the probabilities of cold breaking and tenacity descending are greatly reduced, and the quality conformance rate of weld joints reaches 99%.


The invention discloses a preparation method for a traditional Chinese medicinal lotion for treating kidney Yin deficiency type ecthyma and belongs to the technical field of traditional Chinese medicine preparation methods. Generally, antibiotics and sulfonamides are adopted to treat kidney Yin deficiency type ecthyma at present, and when carbenicillin is adopted to treat kidney Yin deficiency type ecthyma, various types of allergic reactions can be caused, i.e. neurotoxicant reaction and pulmonary edema can be caused by large dose, and transient ammonia enzyme rise and granulocytopenia can be caused during administration. The invention adopts the technical scheme in which the method comprises the following steps of: taking dried rehmannia, black-bone chicken, mulberry, scrophularia ningpoensis, asparagus fern, dendrobe, medlar, fructus ligustri lucidi, tortoiseshell, turtle shell, black sesame, black soybean, Chinese date, Chinese yam, cabbage, dried longan pulp, bighead atractylodesrhizome, American ginseng, lotus seed, codonopsis pilosula, sharpleaf galangal fruit, radix astragali, rhizoma polygonati, polished round-grained rice, dry ginger, fragrant solomonseal rhizome and liquorice, soaking the 27 medicines in water, and decocting through slow fire, wherein the decoction is the traditional Chinese medicinal lotion for treating kidney Yin deficiency type ecthyma. The method has the advantages that the prepared traditional Chinese medicine is low in toxic and side effects and high in cure rate. Adverse responses caused by Western medicines are avoided.


This article examines how unstable land on a sandy peninsula in peri-urban Mangaluru becomes part of urban land contestation to primarily support continued informal tenure. The peninsula is undergoing shifts changing both its shape and land use under the influence of a range of biophysical and human forces. For the time being, fisherfolk can remain in place despite lacking land documents, but much of the peninsula has been proposed for commercial development projects. The sand-spit thus becomes a frontier for variegated land claims part of urbanization processes where the variable 'nature' of land is enmeshed. Drawing on urban political ecology and Indian land governance literature, the article highlights how the fluctuating land supports continued informality since the shifting sands make boundaries challenging to delimit and maintain, and, once stabilised, can be claimed by the state. The informalising characteristics of land, understood as an 'informality machine', reinforces similar ongoing urban transformations along the entire coastline, to mainly favour elite interests, but can also be seized upon by the fisherfolk themselves for new claims, or workarounds aimed at securing long-term tenure. Future research on the urban land question would do well to include a perspective of land as co-constituted by socio-natural processes.


In illumination systems for projection display, it is often necessary to tailor the aperture size and angle of light to suit the system requirements such as an imager panel. One way to do that is to use lenses, but depending on the angle and area this may not be achieved economically in terms of space and costs. Non-imaging optics is often used to perform such function. A compound parabolic concentrator (CPC), which is simple to use and small in size, is one example of such approach, but it has the disadvantage of non-uniform output intensity profile and not conserving brightness. A tapered light pipe (TLP) is often used instead to alleviate such shortcomings, but such light pipe would need to be infinitely long to conserve brightness, which makes it quite impractical. In this paper, a lensed tapered light pipe is described that change the area and angle of light with minimal loss of brightness and provide a very uniform output intensity profile at the output. Numerical modeling using ray tracing computer program is used to optimize the TLP for each applications.


Determination of the optimum tilt angles of a photovoltaic module is of great importance because the power of photovoltaic module is highly dependent on the incident solar radiation. The purpose of this research was to verify the computational optimum tilt angles of a PV module by conducting an experimental research in Kerman‐Iran. For achieving this, first, the optimum tilt angles were found using a computational model which predicts the module output energy at different tilt angles. Second, monthly, seasonal, biannual, and annual optimum tilt angles of a photovoltaic module were measured. The experimental optimum tilt angles were obtained based on 1 year measured data of the output energies of photovoltaic modules. The experiments were carried out by measuring the output electrical power of six photovoltaic modules which were inclined toward the south at different tilt angles throughout the year. The experimental optimum tilt angles were then determined based on the maximum output energy of the PV modules. Finally, the computational optimum tilt angle and the experimental optimum tilt angle were compared with each other. The results showed differences between the calculated and the measured optimum tilt angles of a PV module in the region under investigation. It was revealed that the measured annual optimum tilt angle is higher than the calculated annual optimum tilt angle. This difference was due to lack of the environmental parameter influences such as dust deposition on the PV front surface in the computational model. This study clearly showed that fixing the photovoltaic module based on the calculated annual optimum tilt angles decreases 3% the electrical output energy of photovoltaic module throughout the year compared with that fixed at the experimental optimum tilt angle. © 2014 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 34: 1156–1165, 2015


Given the increased penetration of information technologies in private, domestic, public and working spaces and environments, the diffusion of these technologies becomes a very important issue to study. In general, theories of technological innovations analyse the mechanisms of socio-economic processes underlying diffusion (Rogers, 1983; Flichy, 1995; Valente, 1995). According to the pioneering work of Everett Rogers (1983), the eventual adoption of a technological innovation depends on the following five factors: (i) the relative advantage, which can be measured in economical terms but also in terms of social prestige and satisfaction, (ii) the compatibility with the values of the appropriating group, (iii) the complexity, (iv) the triability and (iv) the observability of the innovation. Similarly, according to Rogers, the corresponding decision processes follow five stages: knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation and confirmation. Furthermore, Rogers distinguishes five groups of users: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. Through these different typologies, it is possible to follow the time evolution of the adoption rate, which, as generally is the case in economics, constitutes the essential descriptive variable of diffusion processes and turns out to be described by an S-curve (Rogers, 1983).


We study the soft-core extended Bose-Hubbard model in a two-dimensional triangular lattice by using the quantum Monte Carlo methods. The ground-state phase diagram of the system exhibits a very fruitful structure and is much intriguing. Aside from the Mott insulating state, four kinds of solid states with respect to the commensurate filling factors rho=1/3,2/3 and rho=1 are identified. In incommensurate fillings, superfluid, supersolid, as well as phase-separation states are detected. As in the case of the hard-core bosons, a supersolid phase exists in 1/3 < 2/3 while it is unstable toward the phase separation in rho < 1/3. However, this instability is refrained in 2/3 < 1 due to the softening of the bosons, and then a supersolid phase survives.


With the popularization and revolution of wireless networks and autonomous driving, cellular-vehicle-to- everything (C-V2X) has become a hot research scale, which profoundly affects the way people travel and mobility by improving road safety and providing efficient driving paths. The type of data packets used to communicate in the C-V2X includes periodic and aperiodic messages and they use the same resource pool. In this work, we proposed a novel method that can support dividing the whole resource pool for the periodic and aperiodic messages. This method can ensure that the packet reception ratio of aperiodic messages is maximized while maintaining the stability of periodic message receiving performance. And based on the simulations, we concluded the proposed method can provide better performance.


An increasing trend of digitally enhancing learning provides unique opportunities to expand from local to global learning environments. However, current technologies and educational approaches do not adequately support creative communication and learning for primary school learners across the globe. We maintain that it is important to promote agentic engagement amongst learners by involving them in the design of their own digitally enhanced learning environment. In this study, we connected ten learners from a Namibian and a Finnish school in virtual communications to co-design an interactive map game. Following a research through design approach, we share a detailed account of the case study in which we facilitated a distributed co-design process, using Skype, a custom made VR environment, and Microsoft Whiteboard. We reflect on the co-design sessions, focusing on communication and the design concept evolution contributing to distributed co-design methods and techniques not only for the design community but also as an agentic learning process that could be incorporated into formal learning environments. With a paucity of existing empirical work of geographically distributed co-design with children, our case study provides an empirical foundation pointing at critical issues to be further investigated such as multilingual design, social cohesion, facilitation roles, technologies, design breadcrumbs, negotiations and learner's pride.


With the rapid advancement of education, personalized learning has gained considerable attention in recent years. Learning path plays an important role in this area and has attracted great concern. Many generating mechanisms have been proposed from different perspectives for assisting learning. Some methods focus on learners' interest, while some methods pay close attention to learning styles. This article proposes a new learning path generating method named learning diagnosis–learning path (LD–LP), which is based on knowledge structure and learning diagnosis. Different from the previous work, it takes knowledge relation, learner's ability, learning time, and repetition into account. The difficulty of knowledge provided to students will be adjusted according to students' academic achievement and learning time adaptively. The system generates personalized learning path by the sequence of learning knowledge. Students who were majoring in mathematics were invited to participate in the experiment. Experimental result demonstrates that LD–LP works effectively and it has high adaptivity and positive feedback.


Digital necrosis is an uncommon paraneoplastic syndrome. Fewer than 50 cases have been sporadically reported through the literature over the last 30 years.


This study investigated the drawing processes of a Chinese ink painter through field observation, interviews, and a field experiment. Compared to many studies using a single method such as interview only, this multimethod study enabled us to capture the creative processes from various perspectives. We observed processes of drawing in a temple and asked the painter to draw 16 pictures in a field experiment (8 created from random lines that the audience drew and 8 created on blank paper). We found that (a) the painter seemed to gradually form a global image of the drawing as he drew each part one by one, (b) lines that the audience drew seemed to create new constraints for his drawing and forced him to create a new style of pictures, and (c) the painter moved his brush in the air before actually drawing lines on the paper. This hand movement seems to have one of the following functions: positioning (where to draw), rehearsal (how to draw), and image generation (what to draw).


1 Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, 911 Partners Way, Engineering Building I, Raleigh, NC 27695-7907, USA 2Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203, USA 3Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA 4Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research Dresden, P.O. Box 27 01 16, 01171 Dresden, Germany


In order to program SIMD (single instruction stream-multiple data stream) parallel machines used for tasks such as speech and image processing, a language with explicit parallel constructs is often desirable. The language ADA, developed by the Department of Defense, is used as a basis for such a language. Extensions of ADA which allow the user to specify such things as interprocessor communications and activation of processors are proposed. 25 references.


Obesity and diabetes are metabolic syndrome associated diseases. Increased body weight has been noticed worldwide and the World Health Organization (WHO) considers this as an epidemic. Reduction in body weight helps to reduce obesity-related issues such a


WH HETHER or not the welfare effect of the distribution of income is included in any treatment of welfare economics, that is certainly where it belongs. It is usual, however, to separate this aspect of welfare from those concerned with resource allocation on the grounds that any criterion of an optimum income distribution is based on values less widely acceptable than those on which an optimum resource allocation2 is based. We can always get around the distributional aspect by confining ourselves to the definition of an improvement in welfare as a situation in which no one is worse off and at least one individual is better off. But we do so at the cost of limiting ourselves severely in the number of situations which may be called an improvement and leaving ourselves open to the charge of conservatism in the matter of income distribution. Faced with this dilemma, the economist either accepts these limitations and moves at a snail's pace or accepts instead criteria which are less restrictive albeit less widely acceptable. He may, for in-


Even though personnels are expected to contribute to the development of organization with their knowledge, opinions and suggestions, they sometimes prefer to keep silent. Perceived organizational justice can be important in personnels' decision to speak up about organizational issues. The main purpose of the study is to examine the impact of elementary school teachers' organizational justice levels on their organizational silence. The participant group in the study consists of 357 elementary school teachers who are working in primary education institutions of Diyarbakir province. The relational survey model was utilized while conducting the research. This research is done by using Organizational Justice Scale and Organizational Silence Scale. In the analysis of data, SPSS and AMOS package sofwares were utilized. Results of the research showed that teachers' distributive, procedural and interactional justice perceptions have negative relation with acquiescent silence and defensive silence, while having positive relation with prosocial silence. Regression analyse results confirms the thought that organizational justice is a significant variable that predicts teachers' organizational silence.


Transplantation system can include such as those used in pelvic floor repair procedures, one or more needles, and one or more elongated implant. Using a hollow needle of a syringe or similar type, the elongated mesh or other implantable devices, through one or more small puncture incision, it can be delivered to the target tissue position in the closest pelvis vagina . Implantation device is in the patient's pelvis, pelvic fascia, pubic cervical fascia rectal Chitsusujimaku, fist muscle or other supportive muscle or the supporting tissues of the tissue, etc., for the engagement and pulling or fastening, the can be placed upon insertion through the incision.


Abstract The national weather services of Europe expressed their confidence in the effectiveness of satellite remote sensing through the creation, in 1986, of a new inter-governmental organisation, EUMETSAT (the European Meteorological Satellite Organisation), to ensure a long term European activity in this field. The charter of EUMETSAT is to establish, maintain and exploit European systems of operational meteorological satellites. The organisation consists of a Council, which meets two or three times each year, and a secretariat to conduct the day-to-day business. The initial programme of EUMETSAT is the continuation of the Metcosat geostationary satellite system, but other programmes are at the planning stage.


Flood storage can be defined as the temporary detention of floodwater. By capturing and storing the flood water peak flow the extreme volume is not passed downstream to cause flood inundation but gradually released when water levels have fallen. Flood storage has recently received greater interest at the European scale. Where the principle of flooding areas with expected lower losses (farmland) instead of high values areas (urban) is acceptable, obtaining this right on private property remains a challenge. Different forms of economic approach to obtain or incentivise this right may be considered: expropriation, one offpayment, annual single payment, and flood event losses compensation. This paper presents the results of a qualitative survey conducted in England and Wales in the frame of the FP7 EU EPIWATER project. England and Wales has well established flood storage and continues to be developed as one of a number of flood risk management approaches. The research reviews the current status and mechanisms that have successfully facilitated this approach. The research draws on 14 interviews with a range of key stakeholders involved in implementing and managing flood storage areas. Where flood mitigation is the main issue being addressed in a locality a single payment of partial land purchase with flowage easement was found to be the dominant funding mechanism. Where greater control of land use is required for predominantly environmental and conservation purposes then full land purchase is necessary. Alternative diffuse storage approaches have also been trialled in England revealing their limitations in the predictability of the final storage capacity in the catchment and their long term sustainability in terms of maintenance which is reliant on continued contributions from Agricultural Schemes. The UK context may be unique and not transferable to other countries. The paper further discusses this issue.


A married woman aged 29 was first seen by one of us (G. A. C.) at St. Luke's Maternity Hospital in October, 1949.' She was then in the last trimester of her first pregnancy. She gave a history of being quite well throughout that pregnancy until shortly before admission, when she felt sick and vomited, subsequent to which she became slightly jaundiced. She denied ever having been jaundiced or anaemic before in her life. There was no family history of haemolytic anaemia; her two sisters, both married, had had normal pregnancies. On examination the patient was


The thermoelectric properties of heavily B-doped SiGe thin films were studied. The electrical resistivity in the high-temperature region was very low, which suggests the possibility of high-temperature use of heavily doped SiGe films. After thermal annealing, the low-temperature deposited samples showed collapse of the superlattice structure. As deposited condition, the samples might be in amorphous like SiGe thin films apart from good crystallinity. In these films, the anomalous large thermoelectric power was observed in the room temperature region. The power factor reached 4×100 W/mK2 at 400 K and 1×100 W/mK2 at 900 K.


Porous poly-silicon (PPS) samples, obtained by electrochemical anodization of p-type poly-silicon wafers, were doped with Pd by the electroless process. Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy shows that Pd has diffused a few micrometres into the PPS layer. Scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive x-ray analysis results demonstrate the presence of Pd as dispersed clusters on the surface. The variation of the electrical resistance in the presence of dry air diluted with hydrogen at room temperature shows that Pd/PPS samples have the ability to sense hydrogen at levels down to several thousands of ppm. This value is far below the flammability limit of hydrogen gas. It was found that the increase in the time of anodization causes an increase in the penetration depth of Pd and, consequently, an increase in the sensitivity to hydrogen. By raising the device temperature to 60°C, the sensor response falls.


Malacca Laws (Hukum Kanun Melaka), is a written law existed during the Malacca Sultanate. It was established as a Malay customary law that is compatible with Islamic law. Malacca Laws is believed to be enacted during the ruling period of Sultan Muhammad Shah (1424-1444 AD) and implemented during the reign of Sultan Muzaffar Shah (1445-1458 AD), and methodically organized during the ruling period of Sultan Mahmud Shah (1489 -1511 AD). Malacca Laws is the first Islamic law that was introduced by Sultan Muhammad Shah in the state of Malacca. Its jurisdictions covered the Malacca state and all territories conquered by Malacca. Malacca Laws which has 44 articles related to ruling power, laws, and taboos of family law, significantly affects the laws of other states. Family aspects in Malacca Laws are discussed in the present study to understand the influence of Islam and customs adopted in the past, in terms of their effects on the family law as well as other laws. Literature search is used in the present study. The objective of this study is to find articles that are related to family aspects contained in the Malacca Laws. The discussion focuses on matters related to marriage, guardianship, and inheritance of property as well as some provisions of the law relating to marriage.


ABSTRACT Opposition to racism and antisemitism is often assumed to be a distinguishing feature of radical left politics. Before and during the Holocaust, the most radical case of antisemitism, most Marxists were slow to recognise the threat posed to the Jews. After the event, there has been little significant rethinking. There may then be difficulties if and when antisemitism reappears. There are, however, some neglected resources within Marxism which could help shape a more effective response to a problem which continues to trouble European and other societies even after this traumatic event.


Objective:To investigate the influences of femoral neck fracture to femoral head function and provide experimental evidences for clinical treatments.Methods:The calcium?phosphorus contents and the mechanical property of cancellous bone in femoral head during the healing of femoral neck fracture were measured in the dogs.Results:The mechanical property was changed and the apparent changes of the calcium?phosphorus contents were not found.Conclusion:The healing state of femoral neck fracture can influence the function of femoral head.


The study investigates the conflict between India and Pakistan over Kashmir as a manifestation of a disagreement between the two countries and emphasizes the factors that are required for the state to act independently, including international law perspective, economic history, natural resource production, geography, and culture. According to the findings of the study, India and Pakistan have rejected the first two options of formal partition and autonomy, but the third option, an independent state, will remain the most viable option for the foreseeable future because neither India nor Pakistan can rule the entire region of Kashmir. As a result, the emergence of an independent state in Asia is considered a legitimate, negotiated solution to the Kashmir dispute. It is asserted here that as long as both India and Pakistan maintain their historically defensive positions, there is little hope for long-term peace in Kashmir. The study further contends that Kashmir's independence is the only way to ensure a long-term settlement to the Kashmir dispute as well as regional peace in Southeast Asia.


Infectious salmon anemia is a highly contagious viral disease of valuable marketable and breeding fish caused heavy anemia, contamination of blood cells and acute mortality of fish. The cause of disease to new genus Isavirus of the family Orthomyxoviridae. The clinical signs, methods of diagnostics and detection, and prevention of infectious salmon anemia are given.


The MutS( important constituent of MMR) of wild-type E. coli and hypermutators was studied using long PCR,Western blotting and plasmid complement essay. In order to determine possible deletion of mutS,three pairs of primers in two sides and middle of mutS were designed according to fhlA-mutS-rboS gene cluster and long PCR was carried out. K12 was model strain and each fragment of its mutS was identical with the anticipant fragment. Length of the three fragments was 12045 bp,10 688 bp and 8 477 bp,respectively. Compared to K12,three fragment length of hypermutator CE3101 and CE5116 had different extent deletion: the first band had deletion of 3 500 bp and 7 000 bp,the second band had 3 600 bp and 7 400 bp and the third band had 2 500 bp and 7500 bp,respectively. The MutS protein of K12,normal strains and hypermutators were determined by Western blotting. K12 had a very clear band and its MutS was the most complete. CE1112,CE1305,CE2219 and CE307 had fairly band and their MutS were fairly complete,too. But CE5103 and CE5120 had vague band and CE2205 had only tenuous band,their MutS proteins were incompletely integrated. The hypermutator CE3101 and CE5116 nearly had no band and their MutS were not integrated. With pBR322 as a control,plasmid complement essay was carried out using pGW1811 plasmid constructed from pBR322. CE1117,CE3101,CE1305,CE5116,CE6107,CE2313,CE7301 and K12 were transformed successfully. Mutation frequencies of CE1117,CE1305,CE6107,CE2313 and K12 to RIF changed very little and their change rate was about40%. But hypermutator CE3101,CE5116 and CE7301 mutation frequency changed drastically and their change rate was above 95%. These results suggested that the MutS of hypermutator E. coli had defection compared to wild-type E. coli.


Hybridity has become a master trope across many spheres of cultural research, theory, and criticism, and one of the most widely used and criticized concepts in postcolonial theory. This article begins with a thorough review of the interdisciplinary scholarship on hybridity. Then it revisits the trope of hybridity in the context of a series of articles on cultural globalization published in the Washington Post in 1998. This series on "American Popular Culture Abroad" appropriates hybridity to describe the global reception of U.S. American popular culture. Due to the controversy surrounding hybridity, the discourse woven into these articles invites a critical deconstruction. A discussion of the implications of hybridity's conceptual ambiguity follows. Finally, this article makes the case that hybridity is a conceptual inevitability, and proposes an intercontextual theory of hybridity, which comprehends global cultural dynamics by articulating hybridity and hegemony, providing an initial theoretical platform for a critical cultural transnationalism.


Novel 2-halochromans and their coupling to various nucleophiles to produce Vitamin E and as well as novel intermediates for Vitamin E.


In the course of the satellite orbit perturbing analysis,geometric algebra system was introduced innovationally to avoid trivial transformations of various algebra systems and the perturbing Kepler problem was studied in the unified algebra frame.Based on the transformation between position space and spinor space in geometric algebra system,the perturbing Kepler equation was transformed to a linear and regular form(also called Kustaanheimo-Stiefel equation or KS equation).Moreover,the Kepler problem was solved in term of a quaternion-valued function.Compared with traditional methods,it shows special advantages of geometric algebra in motion of satellite orbit.


The existence of two families of surface acoustic modes trapped by steep ridges on a piezoelectric substrate, shear horizontal and vertically polarized surface modes, is demonstrated experimentally using high aspect ratio interdigital transducers fabricated on lithium niobate. The experimental variation of the resonance frequencies of the various surface modes is obtained experimentally, and up to an order of magnitude slowing of surface waves is observed, with the phase velocity dropping from 4000 down to 450m∕s. It is argued that the observed resonances are surface modes trapped by the ridge electrodes.


* Abbreviations:
 cIMT — : carotid intima-media thickness
 CVH — : cardiovascular health
 ECHO — : Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes
 HDL — : high density lipoprotein
 NHLBI — : National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute

Atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States and worldwide.1 Because lipids in children and adolescents play a role in the development of atherosclerosis, many researchers have focused on whether screening blood lipid levels in youth could contribute to prevention of adult cardiovascular disease.2,3

One understudied issue has been the relationship between lipid levels in youth and markers of atherosclerosis in adulthood. In this issue of Pediatrics , Juonala et al4 report the relationship between non–high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels in childhood and high carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT) in adulthood. Participants included 4582 females and males from 4 cohort studies (3 international and 1 domestic) that collected data at ages 3 to 19 years and again in adulthood, an average of 26 years later. The authors found some relationships between non-HDL cholesterol levels among adolescents ≥15 years old and high cIMT during adulthood. For example, across all 4 cohorts, the adjusted relative risk among 15- to 17-year-olds with dyslipidemia was 1.72 (95% confidence interval: 1.08–2.72). The relative risks for participants with improved levels from youth to adulthood were lower than the relative risks for those who had persistently high levels, suggesting that reduction in non-HDL cholesterol over time can improve the atherosclerotic burden.

Despite these observed relationships, the findings …

Address correspondence to S. Sonia Arteaga, PhD, Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes Program, Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health, 3 White Flint North, 11601 Landsdown St, North Bethesda, MD 20852. E-mail: sonia.arteaga{at}nih.gov


Deregulation reforms in the Australian dairy industry had long‐lasting repercussions for Australian agriculture and the wider Australian economy. Using farm‐level data from 1979 to 2013, we investigate the effect of these reforms on productivity in the Australian dairy industry which arose from correcting resource misallocation between farms and across segregated state milk markets. Our results demonstrate that after the dairy reforms in 2000, relative market share shifted from less productive farms to more productive ones, and between farms using different production systems – generating additional productivity gains for the farm sector, but imposing some costs on downstream manufacturers by strengthening the seasonality of milk supply. Lessons from the Australian experience provide timely guidance for those countries exploring deregulation now or in the future to improve the industry‐level agricultural productivity growth through facilitating resource reallocation from less efficient to more efficient farms.


In this paper outsider participation in confirmation hearings for U.S. Court of Appeals nominees from 1979 to 2004 is examined. Findings indicate that outsider testimony has been absent since 1995, and that the factors that determined whether or not outsiders testified prior to 1995 do not account for the elimination of outsider testimony in recent years. Outsiders continue to be involved in the confirmation process through the low-cost activity of submitting materials to the Senate Judiciary Committee for the hearing record. When such materials are submitted—whether in support of or in opposition to confirmation—the nominee is less likely to be confirmed. Even with the recent elimination of hearing testimony as an avenue for outsider involvement in the confirmation process, interested outsiders continue to influence confirmation prospects through the use of a low-cost, formal lobbying activity.


Materiality, mediality, locality and temporality are constitutive characteristics of texts. Various texts in mediatized everyday reality show temporal aspects that influence their perception and their functions in different ways. The present article considers diverse expressions of temporality in destination ads, a genre that is hitherto underexplored. A special focus is put on multimodal practices that express temporal aspects, for instance the timeline of pre-, on- and post-trip time, vacation time as desired time, the situationality of ads, etc. The author uses multimodal discourse analysis to examine the interplay of semiotic resources in destination ads and to describe their compositional, ideational and interactional metafunctions. The analysis shows that text–image relations are crucial for the depiction of temporality and time-boundedness, and also for the formation of a specific tourist gaze that is centred on the desire to fully enjoy vacation time.


The structured singular value problem, which is a basic problem in robustness analysis and synthesis for control systems with structured uncertainties, can be formulated as an optimization problem over the manifold of unitary matrices with a given structure. The authors show how geometric optimization methods, such as the steepest ascent method and the conjugate gradient method for optimization on a Riemannian manifold, lead to algorithms with guaranteed convergence to a lower bound for the structured singular value.


Change in the locus of operating knowledge that accompanies 'New Federalism' policies implies different design and knowledge-engineering approaches for expert system applications. An expert systems strategy to implement a New Federalism approach in a Congressionally-mandated regulatory program is discussed. Tactical needs created by competition with conventional knowledge-delivery mechanisms are analyzed. Three knowledge-engineering tactics especially suitable for developing expert systems in this application environment are described.<<ETX>>


Urothelial carcinoma is one of the most common malignant neoplasms of the urinary tract and is characterized by a high local recurrence rate. However, no specific and reliable tumor marker has been identified for the diagnosis and follow‐up of patients with urothelial carcinoma.


Due to the impressive flexibility and stitchability, one-dimensional (1D) power storage devices are promising in facilitating devices assembly and provide highly efficient power sources for textile...


The chlorination leads to the formation of disinfection by products. Any process that uses chlorine gas directly or chlorine liberating chemicals or where chlorine is produced in the process, formation of chloro-organo compounds is a real possibility if alkanes, alkenes etc. are available. The trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids (HAAs) are the two most prevalent classes of disinfection byproducts. Chlorine reacts with natural organic matter (NOM) to form a number of carcinogenic byproducts. Treated effluents from ten chlorine based textile effluent treatment plants (ETPs) were assessed for trihalomethanes (THM). The presence of THMs in the outlet stream was confirmed in this study. The concentration of THMs was found below the WHO concentration where the effluents contain a lower value of dissolved organic carbon (DOC). Trihalomethanes (THMs) formation increases significantly with the increase concentration of DOC and increasing pH. But THM concentration is independent of pH at concentration above 150ppb. The pH value is 8.5 at 150 ppb concentration of THM. Curves have been generated in Matlab software to find out the concentration of THM for different chlorine dose, pH and DOC values. The concentrations of THM in the outlet stream of different ETPs can be found out using these curves. The results are very close to the practical measured values.


The author considers in this article the historical aspect of state tax policy and the possibility of upgrading its institution in Ukraine. The author analyzes the main functions and purpose of taxation depending on the particular historical era. The historical stages of formation and evolution of the tax system have been also analyzed, the main factors that contributed to the development of this system have been determined.


We present a microwave photonic notch filter based on a Si3N4 photonic chip, with a noise figure of less than 20 dB, a positive link gain and an ultra-deep rejection beyond 50 dB in the stopband. This level of performance is achieved by using on-chip resonators' unique phase responses, and thorough optimizations of the photonic link.


Terbinafine has been suggested as the treatment of choice for dermatophyte onychomycosis, and has excellent tolerability in treated patients. Hepatic injury has been reported with the use of terbinafine, however, the mechanism of hepatotoxicity is still obscure. The present study was designed to investigate the pathology of the liver in rats following administration of the therapeutic dose of terbinafine 4mg/kg b.w. p.o., daily. The hemogram and biochemistry including liver enzymes were all normal in all groups of rats following treatment, except for a transient increase in the level of alkaline phosphatase in rats treated with terbinafine after 2 weeks. The histology of the liver revealed fatty change in terbinafine-treated rats at 6 weeks. Ultrastructurally, only a few lipid droplets in occasional hepatocytes were found at 2 weeks. However, abundant lipid droplets with deposition of amorphous electron-dense substances were found in hepatocytes in rats treated for 6 weeks. Bile was found in the hepatocytes and in bile duct canaliculi. Moreover, the unique finding of a phagosome-like structure containing needle- shape substance was observed in hepatocytes. In conclusion, we demonstrated that terbinafine in therapeutic doses may have hepatotoxicity in rats. In comparison with liver enzyme tests and histological examination, electron microscopy is a more sensitive tool to detect the liver pathology.