[Objective] To investigate the main cause of outpatients with genital ulcer diseases.[Methods] To examine the treponema pallidum(TP),herpes simplex virus(HSV),human papilloma virus(HPV),haemophilus ducreyi(HD),human immunodeficiency virus(HIV),bactera and fungi with smear,culture,fluorescent quantitative polymerase chain reaction(FQ-PCR) and serological tests on human immunodeficiency virus(HIV) antibody.[Results] Among 151 outpatients,35 cases of syphilis(23.17%),28 cases of genital herpes(18.54%),16 cases of Condyloma acuminatum(CA),1 cases of chancroid(0.066%),7 cases of candidiasis(4.66%),and 9 cases of bacterial infections(5.96%),respectively.In addition,there exist united infections.Syphilis is combinated with 7 cases of genital herpes(4.63%),2 cases of CA(1.32%),and 3 cases of HIV infections(1.98%),respectively.Genital herpes is combinated with 5 cases of CA(3.71%),7 cases of candidia albicans(CAL)(4.64%),and 1 case of syphilis(0.67%),respectively.Bacterial infections are combinated with 3 cases of syphilis(1.98%).No pathogen was found in 73 cases(48.34%) in which the distribution was 24 cases of drug eruption(15.98%),27 cases of contact dermatitis and eczema(17.88%),4 cases of ulcus vulvae acutum(0.026%),2 cases of gangrenous balanitis(1.32%),2 cases of Reiter's syndrome(1.98%);3 cases of Behcet's syndrome(3.97%),and there was indeterminate causes in 10 cases(6.62%),respectively.[Conclusion] Genital ulcer diseases were consisted of syphilis,genital herpes,drug eruption,eczema as principally.The next in order was CA.The co-infection is familiar in sexually transmitted disease infection,and HIV infection reported the up-trend.


[Objective] To study the adjustment effect of Peibenfang on the disorder of hy pothalamus-pituitary-adrenal(HPA) axis in asthmatics. [Methods] Rat asthma model was duplicated by ovalbumin (OVA) through sensitizing and challenging.Asimei capsule was used as medicine for control. By investigating corticosterone(CORT) in blood serum,adrenocorticotropic hormone(ACTH) in blood plasma and CRH in hypothalamus,to explore the effects of Peibenfang on asthma. [Results] The levels of CORT and CRH in model group were lower than that in normal group,after treated by Peibenfang,these indexes were increased to different extent. [Conclusion] One of the mechanisms of Peibenfang against asthma was to adjust the disorder of HPA axis in asthma.


In this paper, a novel hierarchical clustering algorithm is proposed, where the number of clusters is optimally determined according to the Fisher class separability measure. The clustering algorithm consists of two phases: (1) Generation of sub-clusters based on the similarity metric; (2) Merging of sub-clusters based on the Fisher class separability measure. The proximity matrices are constructed. Each subcluster comprises patterns close to each other in proximity metric. The trellis diagram is used for searching of subclusters. Connections between consecutive layers in the trellis diagram are weighted by the similarity metric. The threshold for the merge of sub-clusters is numerically designed according to Fisher class separability measure. The proposed algorithm can pre-process the data for the supervised learning. It also can be applied for the optimal determination of basis functions for radial basis function (RBF) networks.


We consider second-order -Laplacian differential system. By using three critical points theorem, we establish the new criterion to guarantee that this -Laplacian differential system has at least three homoclinic solutions. An example is presented to illustrate the main result.


In this study we have attempted to objectify the diagnosis of the borderline syndrome by the use of formal Rorschach testing criteria. The randomly selected protocols of 140 subjects between the ages of 17 and 25 were subjected to cluster analysis of currently accepted scoring criteria for such phenomena as prevalence of primary process thinking and disturbance of reality testing. We were unable to demonstrate a cluster of scored responses supposedly typical for the borderline syndrome. Conversely, however, the protocols of patients clinically diagnosed as borderline did show some 'typical' Rorschach signs.


The IMPACT code suite is a self-consistent parallel threedimensional beam dynamics simulation toolbox that combines the magnetic optics method and the parallel particlein-cell method. It has been widely used to study high intensity/high brightness beams in many accelerators. In this paper, we will report on recent improvements to the code such as the capability to model RFQ in time domain and symplectic multi-particle tracking with a gridless spectral solver for space-charge simulation.


This paper analyzes the enclosed busbar dedicated PT cabinet structure and introduced the PT cabinet operation and preventive maintenance frequency.


PURPOSE: A dry etching method capable of etching with high selection rate and a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device are provided to obtain a high selection rate and improve the manufacturing yield or performance of a semiconductor device. CONSTITUTION: CH2F2 is used as an etching gas at the time of dry etching. When the etching gas is composed of a plurality of gases, the occupying ratio of the CH2F2 in the mixed gas is adjusted to >= 20% and, when a C-containing gas is mixed in the mixed gas, the occupying ratio of the CH2F2 and C-containing gas in the mixed gas is adjusted to >= 20% and that of the CH2F2 in the mixed gas is adjusted to >= 5%. Consequently, etching takes place in the bottom section of a contact hole, but does not take place on a resist(31), because a resulted product of reaction accumulates on the resist(31). Therefore, the contact hole can be formed without damaging the masking property of the resist.


We experimentally demonstrate integrated all-optical controlled amplitude modulation. Range of 0.25 mW control power is used to tune 15 dB of the output optical intensity. The design is fabricated in a commercial silicon photonics process.


We examine the efficiency of the Asymmetric Power ARCH (APARCH) model in the case where the residuals follow the standardized Pearson type IV distribution. The model is tested with a variety of loss functions and the efficiency is examined via application of several statistical tests and risk measures. The results indicate that the APARCH model with the standardized Pearson type IV distribution is accurate, within the general financial risk modeling perspective, providing the financial analyst with an additional skewed distribution for incorporation in the risk management tools.


The methods of the paper don't include scientific newness. The methods and the materials aren't described in sufficient detail, there are some deficiencies which are remarked at related points. Despite these, it is generally clear, well-structured and well-written but the language could be improved some in the sense of fluency and clarity. And, the manuscript is suitable in terms of themes of ESSD journal. I think it could be accepted after revision based on the review.


Repetition and form priming interact with neighborhood density at a brief stimulus-onset asynchrony Abstract The relationships between repetition/form priming effects and neighborhood density were analyzed in two masked priming experiments with the lexical decision task. Given that form priming effects appear to be influenced by a word's orthographic neighborhood, it is theoretically important to find out whether or not repetition priming also differs as a function of the word's orthographic neighborhood. Within an activation framework, repetition and form priming effects are just quantitatively different phenomena, whereas the two effects are qualitatively different in a serial-ordered model of lexical access (the " entry-opening " model). The results show that repetition and form priming effects were stronger for " hermit " words than for words with many neighbors. These results pose some problems for both activation and serial-ordered models. The implications of these results for determining how neighbors affect the identification of a word are discussed. Repetition Priming and Neighborhood 3 Repetition and form priming interact with neighborhood density at a brief stimulus-onset asynchrony Investigations of the effects of lexical similarity provide valuable information into the processes underlying word recognition and a number of papers reporting the results of such investigations have appeared recently (e. These data indicate that, upon the visual presentation of a word, similarly spelled words (the so-called " neighbors ") become partially activated and affect the speed of lexical access. Virtually all of these experiments have adopted Coltheart, Davelaar, Jonasson, and Besner's (1977) definition of orthographic neighbor —any word that can be created by changing one letter of the stimulus word, preserving letter positions (e.g., peace, poach, and beach are orthographic neighbors of peach)— and have defined the neighborhood of a word to be the set of neighbors of that word (or N). One interesting way of investigating neighborhood structure is by presenting a prime followed by a neighboring target (or the identical target). In this context, the masked Schoknecht, & Carter, 1987) has been the most fruitful paradigm to study competition processes at the earliest stages of word recognition. The priming stimulus is orthographically and/or phonologically related to the target and is presented briefly (30-66 ms) just prior to the target. The prime is preceded by a forward pattern mask and, under these conditions, the trace of the prime is relatively inaccessible to conscious report. (Obviously, the fact that the prime is replaced by the target at …


Image Fusion is a process of combining the relevant information from a set of images into a single image, where the resultant fused image will be more informative and complete than any of the input images. Image fusion techniques can improve the quality and increase the application of these data. This paper presents three types of fusion method principle component analysis (PCA), wavelet and P+XS to fuse multispectral and panchromatic land sat image with (30 and 15 ) meter spatial resolution respectively. Many criteria such as (ERGAS, RMSE, RASE, SC) have been applied to evaluate the results.


The paper considers heat transfer characteristics of thin film flow over a hot horizontal flat plate resulting from a cold vertical jet of liquid falling onto the surface. A numerical solution of high accuracy is obtained for large Reynolds numbers using the modified Keller box method.


The valence state and the mesomorphic behaviors of a homologous series of new cerium phthalocyanine double-decker complexes bearing thioalkyl substituents are described. Spectroscopic studies and Single crystal X-Ray crystallography data revealed that the metal center in this lanthanide double-decker complex is tetravalent making the whole molecule neutral and the two ligands structurally equivalent. As a consequence, the thermal stability of their mesophase is enhanced compared to those of other lanthanide phthalocyanine complexes. Moreover, these compounds show a strong tendency towards homeotropic alignment of their hexagonal columnar (Colh) mesophase on a glass substrate, which persist at room temperature (glass transition).


Morris Library will use standard data management practices to protect the items stored in OpenSIUC. The database will be backed up regularly and will be kept secure against unauthorized deletion or modification. Morris Library will take all possible steps to assure continuing access to items deposited in OpenSIUC. Every item deposited will remain retrievable from the repository. However, computer files depend on the availability of the appropriate software to render the functions and appearance intended by the file's creator; over time older software applications may no longer function on new computer platforms, leaving the files created with those applications inoperable. The level of access that the Library can assure to items stored in OpenSIUC may therefore range from preservation of the full functionality and appearance of the original file to preservation of the mere bit stream with no assurance that the file's original functionality or appearance can be recreated. In general, files created with open or non-proprietary software offer the greatest likelihood that their functionality and appearance can continued to be rendered as computer environments change. Faculty and other creators of digital content are urged to carefully consider the implications of choosing one or another file format or software application, and to balance the importance of the functions provided by a software application against the importance of being able to preserve those functions over a period of years or decades. The Libraries identify three levels of assurance for the continuing operability of digital files in OpenSIUC: • Supported: we support this format. There is a high likelihood that its content, appearance, and functions will be preserved over time. • Known: we recognize this format but cannot guarantee its support over time. • Not Supported: we do not recognize this format. At best, the bit stream will be preserved but not appearance or functionality. Name Extensions MIME Type Support Level Unknown application/octet-stream unknown Adobe PDF pdf application/pdf supported XML xml text/xml supported Text txt, asc text/plain supported HTML htm, html text/html supported Microsoft Word doc application/msword known Microsoft Powerpoint ppt application/vnd.ms-powerpoint known Microsoft Excel xls application/vnd.ms-excel known MARC application/marc supported JPEG jpeg, jpg image/jpeg supported


This study aims to find a potential solution to the problem of environmental pollution by Industrial effluents �aromatic hydrocarbons being the major constitue nt. In this study, bacteria belonging to the genus Pseudomonaswere isolated from the terrestrial and aquatic sites (sewage water) in and around petrol stations in Anantapur, India. The obtained isolate of Pseudomonaswas acclimatized to benzene stress and a relevant concentration of benzene that supported maximum growth was identified. A Specific strain of acclimatized Pseudomonas was obtained by growing it on a selective medium �a medium containing benzene as the sole source of carbon and energy. The pre sence of benzene degrading gene(s) on the plasmid was confirmed by Plasmid curing using acridine orange as a selective inhibitor. This was followed by isolation of the plasmid. After checking the purity of the plasmid DNA preparation by Agarose Gel Electro phoresis, a basic strain of


The determination of cholinesterase activity in plasma and erythrocytes serves as a useful and sensitive biomarker of exposure to organophosphorus and carbamate pesticides. However, acetylcholinesterase (AChE) and butyrylcholinesterase (BuChE) activity may be influenced by factors such as age, gender, drugs, and physical exercise. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of gender and physical exercise on the activity of AChE and BuChE in healthy individuals. The values for both enzymes were lower for women. Physical exercise increased the levels of BuChE, and had no significant effect on AChE. To our knowledge, this is the first clinical study evaluating the influence of physical exercise in levels of these enzymes. Considering that cholinesterase activity is a useful parameter in assessing the exposure of individuals to pesticides, it is important to understand factors that influence the determination of the enzymes in order to avoid the erroneous interpretation of results.


[Objective] The purpose was to supply reference for the synthetic utilization of biogas fermentative residue.[Method] With pakchoi as tested material,the effects of applying biogas fermentative residue on soil nutrient and pH value were studied through conducting field comparative experiment of comparing applying biogas fermentative residues at high,middle and low dosages as base fertilizer with applying chemical fertilizer as base fertilizer and applying no fertilizer.[Result] After applying biogas fermentative residue,compared with CK,the contents of available K and P and alkaline-hydrolytic N in soil increased and the treating effect of biogas fermentative residue at high dosage(3×104 kg/hm2) was best.The available P content reached 93.670 mg/kg in the pakchoi seedlings growing for 7 d,the available K and alkaline-hydrolytic N contents reached 135.084 and 54.308 mg/kg resp.in the pakchoi seedlings growing for 35 d,which were significantly higher than that in CK.The pH values of soil in various treatments with biogas fermentative residue were lower than that in CK,and that in the treatment at high dosage was lowest,in 6.98~7.10.[Conclusion] Biogas fermentative residue could improve soil structure,increasing the capability of retaining water and fertilizer and permeability of soil and enhance soil fertility effectively.


Seven stories that encompass struggless from creatures in one way or another. One story has a doctor interviewing another doctor, another story has parents coping with the loss of a son that already died. A third story, is about a runaway turkey, a fourth story tells of a tribe hiding from attacks inside a cave. Another tale tells of a wife caring for her sick husband; also a tale of a man seeking fortune out in the ocean.


Design flood estimates are needed in hydraulic design for the construction of dams and retention basins and in flood management for drawing hazard maps or modeling inundation areas. Traditionally, such design floods have been expressed in terms of peak discharge estimated in a univariate flood frequency analysis. However, design or flood management tasks involving storage, in addition to peak discharge, also require information on hydrograph volume, duration, and shape . A bivariate flood frequency analysis allows the joint estimation of peak discharge and hydrograph volume and the consideration of their dependence. While such bivariate design quantiles describe the magnitude of a design flood, they lack information on its shape. An attractive way of modeling the whole shape of a design flood is to express a representative normalized hydrograph shape as a probability density function. The combination of such a probability density function with bivariate design quantiles allows the construction of a synthetic design hydrograph for a certain return period which describes the magnitude of a flood along with its shape. Such synthetic design hydrographs have the potential to be a useful and simple tool in design flood estimation. However, they currently have some limitations. First, they rely on the definition of a bivariate return period which is not uniquely defined. Second, they usually describe the specific behavior of a catchment and do not express process variability represented by different flood types. Third, they are neither available for ungauged catchments nor are they usually provided together with an uncertainty estimate.This thesis therefore explores possibilities for the construction of synthetic design hydrographs in gauged and ungauged catchments and ways of representing process variability in design flood construction. It proposes tools for both catchment- and flood-type specific design hydrograph construction and regionalization and for the assessment of their uncertainty.The thesis shows that synthetic design hydrographs are a flexible tool allowing for the consideration of different flood or event types in design flood estimation. A comparison of different regionalization methods, including spatial, similarity, and proximity based approaches, showed that catchment-specific design hydrographs can be best regionalized to ungauged catchments using linear and nonlinear regression methods. It was further shown that event-type specific design hydrograph sets can be regionalized using a bivariate index flood approach. In such a setting, a functional representation of hydrograph shapes was found to be a useful tool for the delineation of regions with similar flood reactivities.An uncertainty assessment showed that the record length and the choice of the sampling strategy are major uncertainty sources in the construction of synthetic design hydrographs and that this uncertainty propagates through the regionalization process.This thesis highlights that an ensemble-based design flood approach allows for the consideration of different flood types and runoff processes. This is a step from flood frequency statistics to flood frequency hydrology which allows better-informed decision making.


This paper presents a novel method for model-free prediction of grasp poses for suction grippers with multiple suction cups. Our approach is agnostic to the design of the gripper and does not require gripper-specific training data. In particular, we propose a two-step approach, where first, a neural network predicts pixel-wise grasp quality for an input image to indicate areas that are generally graspable. Second, an optimization step determines the optimal gripper selection and corresponding grasp poses based on configured gripper layouts and activation schemes. In addition, we introduce a method for automated labeling for supervised training of the grasp quality network. Experimental evaluations on a real-world industrial application with bin picking scenes of varying difficulty demonstrate the effectiveness of our method.


[Li3(12-crown-4)3O2CCH3][Cd(Se4)2] has been prepared by the reaction of [Li(12-crown-4)]2Se6 with Cd(C2CCH3)2 in ethanolic solution. The corresponding polyselenide complex of mercury is formed by the reaction of [K(18-crown-6)]2Se6 with Hg(O2CCH3)2 in the same solvent. Both com pounds form dark red crystals, which were characterized by single crystal X-ray structure determinations. The only product to be isolated from the reaction of Bi(NO3)3·5H2O with [Na( 15-crown-5)]2Se6 in ethanolic solution was [Na(15-crown-5)]NO3, whose structure has also been determined. [Li3(12-crown-4)3O2CCH3][Cd(Se4)2]: space group Pbca, Z = 8. 1404 observed independent reflexions. R = 0.097. Lattice dimensions (19 °C): a = 1981.5(6). b = 1400.3( 1), c = 3268.9(9) pm. The compound forms a dicationic ensemble, in which three lithium ions coordinate with the oxygen atoms of the acetate ion. In the anions the cadmium atom is coordinated tetrahedrally by four selenium atoms of two Se42- units. {[K (18-crown-6)]2[Hg(Se4)2]}2: space group P 1, Z = 1. 3210 observed independent reflexions, r = 0.055. Lattice dimensions (19 °C): a = 1057.4(2). b = 1130.6(2), c = 2000.1(2) pm. α = 88.52(1)°, β = 85.86(1)°, γ = 66.22(1)°. The com pound has a complex ionic structure, in which the formula units form centrosymmetric dimers through K-O contacts between two cations. In addition there are K···Se contacts with the spiro-bicyclic anions, which - together with 6 K-O bonds within the crowns - lead to the coordination number of 8 for the remaining potassium ions. [Na(15-crown-5)]NO3: space group P212121, Z = 4. 1211 observed independent reflexions. R = 0.052. Lattice dimensions (20 °C): a = 912.9(2). b = 989.6(1). c = 1658.3(3) pm. The compound forms ion pairs, in which the sodium atom coordinates with the five oxygen atoms oi the crown ether, as well as with two oxygen atoms of the nitrate ion with Na -O bond lengths of 240 and 247 pm.


The numerical control transformation of CA6140 conventional lathe, is key technological transformation topic for adaption modernization production and a teaching, in the author's the unit of work Zhangjiakou professional technology institute trains the factory. In order to judge carries on the numerical control transformation whether reasonable, the transformation plan is whether best, has carried on the feasible proof from the technology and the economical two aspects to the lathe numerical control transformation.


Compare the climate averages of 1981-2010 to that of 1971-2000 with the temperature, precipitation and sunshine hours data from 71 meteorological station which was used in the climate evaluation service. The results show that, the average temperature rises in most regions of Heilongjiang province, especially in winter; annual precipitation increases in most areas, it increases in spring, summer and winter,but decrease in fall, the precipitation increase most in July; annual sunshine hours decrease in most regions.


Introduction: Perceived workplace exclusion and workplace indecency are among the problems of organizations which lead to Corruption, reduction in Organizational efficiency and Job Satisfaction. Thus, the present study examined the relationship between perceived workplace exclusion with workplace indecency in the medical staff of Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences. Material and Methods: The population for this descriptive research included all of medical staff in Rafsanjan University of medical sciences in 2013. By Cochran's formula and categorical random sampling method, 248 subjects were selected and responded to workplace exclusion scale (WES) and workplace Incivility scale questioners. Data were analyzed with Kendall and Spearman test and multivariable regression. Results: The Results showed that exclusion by the teammate and exclusion with colloquy language have the most correlation with workplace indecency and exclusion by the head of the department had the lowest correlation. Conclusion: It is proposed that with respect to the positive relation between perceived exclusion and indecency in the workplace, the managers use the most effort for creating an intimate and empathic atmosphere between the personnel in order to reduce the indecency and perceived exclusion between the personnel and its consequences in the workplace.


The objective of this paper is to show the implementation of a virtual assistant - chatbot that allows facilitating the most frequent queries made by the students in the secretariat of the Faculty of Engineering of the Universidad Simon Bolivar and improve the information process. Currently, it is difficult to obtain the required information on time, due to the volume of users who come to request it or because sometimes the functionary is not available to solve it, which brings dissatisfaction on the part of the students due to the time it takes to supply your needs. Motivated by the problem in this article, the results of the development of a software tool that uses artificial intelligence to provide information from the input words and respond in a similar way as a person behind any device, and understand the sentences provided by the user in natural language. The tool offers the user interaction in real time, providing answers to frequently asked questions. It is concluded that the chatbots reduce time, in that the consultancies by the secretariat, are not going to be necessary and with this, that time is used in other functions of greater scope, the immediate needs of the students are met and the information is more accurate.


AIM: Thiols contribute to the maintenance of homeostasis by participating in synthesis or structure of the proteins, performing some specific tasks in intracellular signaling pathways, having some regulatory roles in some parts of the cell cycle, acting as a catalyst in chemical reactions and forming compounds with metalic elements. Also, they occupy an important place in antioxidant defense system. We aimed at revealing whether there is any specific aberration in thioldisulfide homeostasis according to lifestyle in three distinct categories.


The invention relates to a method for Al, Ti-oxide / nitride coating of metallic substrates in friction systems by arc wire spraying.


We consider the following singularly perturbed Neumann problem with the critical exponent: and show that as ε tends to zero, the peak of the solutions tends to the boundary of the domain provided that the energy of the solutions remains below a certain natural level. This phenomenon is very different from the subcritical case.


The Third Reich started since 1933 its economic expansion in the countries of South Eastern Europe, aiming at obtaining raw materials (first of all strategic minerals) and agricultural products in exchange for German industrial goods. Germany could not pay in hard currency but such countries as Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria accepted the advantageous commercial conditions offered by Berlin. Although the rate of exchange of the German Mark was certainly too high in comparison with its real value, the governments of the above mentioned countries had little choise. Western European powers were not particularly interested in trade with Hungary, Romania or Yugoslavia and declined such economic agreements as those which were offered and concluded by Germany. In particular after 1936 the German economic offensive was strengthened and nearly removed British, French or Italian presence in South Eastern Europe. Germany succeeded in obtaining in that area a position of true economic domination. Wheat from Hungary, fuel from Romania or strategic minerals from Yugoslavia were exported first of all to Germany even when the latter did not fulfil for some time her financial obligations. When the Second World War approached, countries of East - Central Europe became some kind of German economic colony. The economic agreements with Romania in 1939 and later also with Yugoslavia aided Germany's industry for war purposes very efficiently.


A fundamental disagreement exists between empirical researchers who have evaluated home mortgage market data and mainstream microeconomists who have theorized about discrimination in credit markets. Empirical researchers see evidence of racial discrimination in virtually every study they conduct. They argue that whether one looks at the disparity between black and white applicant rejection rates, the shares of loans going to black and white neighborhoods, the number of banks in these neighborhoods, results from regression analysis, or a variety of other measures, the result is the same: residential mortgage markets are characterized by large racial disparities that are neither explained by income nor other economic and social variables. In short, these researchers conclude that these disparities constitute evidence of racial discrimination. Conversely, economic theorists never see evidence of racial discrimination in the


Passive damping of input filters in dc–dc converter applications has suffered enormous criticism presumably due to high conduction losses in the damping resistors. However, an accurate quantitative assessment of their adverse impact on efficiency is lacking. Similarly, not enough attention has been paid to the severity and extent to which they can effectively deteriorate a converter-efficiency under varying operating conditions. In order to quantify these losses we have performed a generalised power-loss analysis that helps in predicting this harmful effect of damping resistors on overall filter-converter system efficiency. A practical damping approach using a shunt R–C network, which is most commonly suggested in dc–dc converter applications, is investigated theoretically as well as experimentally. Results show that converter efficiency is susceptible to severe degradation, especially at high loads as well as at smaller damping resistor values. Furthermore, it is shown that these losses are considerably higher in buck-type converters than in boost-type converters. Authors emphasise that considering this negative impact on power economy is of crucial importance while optimising such a damping network.


A seasoned nurse-midwife shares her experience identifying and managing potentially serious fetal heart changes during the crucial second stage of labor.


Systems Engineering (SE in the following) has not received much attention as a subject matter in engineering curricula. There are several dozens of universities
around the world offering programs (most of them at the graduate level) on systems science and engineering. However, SE is, per se, rarely found among the courses offered by engineering schools. This observation does not strictly mean that systems concepts be left apart. For example, it is usual to find specialized courses for systems of some particular classes (e.g., courses on software systems engineering for computing curricula) or for particular phases of the system life cycle (e.g., courses on systems analysis). Even so, these kinds of courses tend to over-emphasize the importance of specific methodologies and, in consequence, to deviate the attention from the realm of systernness


Background: As patient's basic rights, privacy and confidentiality are paramount elements to establish a trusting and open doctor-patient relationship. Sometimes, however, there are situations when healthcare providers face some dilemma and fail to provide this to all patents, like in a maternity setting. Therefore, this study is an attempt to design a valid and reliable tool to assess patient's knowledge, experiences, concerns, and attitudes to regulations pertaining to confidentiality and disclosure of patient information in a maternity setting. Methods: A comprehensive review of literature formed the basis for the design of the 28-item Self-Report Confidentiality Instrument which bridged the gap for the absence of a valid and reliable tool in a maternity setting. The said instrument comprised of four sections. The study was conducted in three phases: Inductive and deductive item generation process, theoretical analysis/ "content validity" or quantitative evaluation, and psychometric analysis/ "construct validity and reliability" or validation. Results: The four dimensions and number of items for the scale are as follow: patient's knowledge about confidentiality (9 items), experiences with disclosure and confidentiality (4 items), effects of confidentiality concern on seeking care (3 items), and attitudes toward regulations pertaining to patient confidentiality (8 items). The said instrument has both an English and Arabic translations. All the questions were confirmed as valid and reliable. The final version of the Confidentiality Self-Report Instrument (CSRI) had 24 items after deleting four items. Scale reliability was assessed by Cronbach's Alpha, which is a measure of internal consistency and how closely a set of items are related as a group. The obtained result of the Cronbach's Alpha value of 0.71 in this study is greater than widely considered to be an acceptable level of 0.70.


A comparison of conservation measures directed towards terrestrial and aquatic environment revealed the magnitude of loss yielded by this sector only due to want of less attention from conservation biologists. For a considerable time frame, except marine mammals, the activities relating to preservation of aquatic biodiversity seem to be lagging far behind than that of the terrestrial component. Now at this space when a considerable number fishes and other important aquatic animals has disappeared and with the realization that fish is the only feed resources harvested from natural population, a growing concern has come up for proper management of this unique natural resources.


Having examined empirically on 101 list corporations in China, it is found that: (1) no correlation exists between the number of independent directors and the level of board's involvement in strategic decision-making, (2) the separation of CEO and chairman can improve the level of board's involvement in strategic decision-making more efficiently than CEO duality, (3) the size of board is negatively correlated with the level of board's involvement in strategic decision-making, and (4) the level of board's involvement in strategic decision-making is positively correlated with firm performance. It is needed to strengthen the reform of board composition for Chinese companies for that they have played little of their functions.


Video object tracking is an important method of traffic data collection in ITS. This paper implements an approach for detecting traffic objects in urban traffic scenes by means of feature-based reasoning on visual data, and tries to track and classify traffic objects with self-defined features. An adaptive Kalman prediction algorithm is presented to improve the prediction accuracy of location. Experimental results are also shown to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.


`IT skills framework` provides a common reference model for the identification of the skills needed to develop effective information system making use of information and communications technologies. It is a simple and logical two-dimensional framework consisting of areas of work on axis and levels of responsibility on the other. It uses a common language and a sensible, logical structure that can be adapted for the HRD(human resources development) For example (1) gather labour market intelligence coherently and consistently (2) quantify the skill requirements of the ICT market (3) set up the career path for IT workers and so on.


A Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South Politics, and Climate Policy. By J. Timmons Roberts, Bradley C. Parks Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007. 384 pp., $65.00 cloth (ISBN: 0-262-18256-4), $26.00 paper (ISBN: 0-262-68161-7).

In A Climate of Injustice , J. Timmons Roberts and Bradley Parks identify global inequality as the root cause of the failure to adequately address global climate change. In short, they believe that the distrust emanating from inequality makes North-South cooperation on climate change impossible. In response, they advocate a broad set of reforms addressing inequality as a foundation for making adequate progress on climate change. They assert, for example, that more international aid and the reform of global economic law will be needed to make progress on climate change possible. We can only hope that they are wrong. Climate change negotiations by themselves have proven daunting enough, thanks to the US fetish with emissions trading and the inherent complexity of the climate change problem. If the world must remedy unfairness in global intellectual property law and agricultural protectionism before we can make real progress, we are truly in trouble. Unfortunately, Roberts and Parks may be right (see, for example, Gupta 1997; Goldstein and Keohane 1993).

Roberts and Parks devote most of their energy to developing a picture of global inequality and how it affects the various impacts of climate change and the policies designed to deal with them. This picture blends insights from the literature (primarily structuralist accounts of globalism as exemplified in Krasner 1985 …


The intake system of a 2Valve TJ376QE gasoline engine was modified and its intake swirl and tumble motions were intensified. The results of stronger air motions are helpful to organize air and fuel mixture strength distribution and consequently to realize lean mixture combustion in the 2valve gasoline engines. The previous port electronic fuel injection system was modified and the technique of twice electronic fuel injection (TEFI) was employed. Through regulations of the two injection timings and proportions, an adequate air and fuel charge stratification was produced,we call it quasihomogenous mixture, the fuel consumption and exhaust emissions were optimized and the lean burn was successfully realized in a mass produced 2valve SI engine.


Objective: To review, examine and propose a common mechanism for anxiety and depression based on modifications observed in neurotransmitter systems (mainly noradrenergic and serotonergic) and dysregulation of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis.


ii The contents of this paper are the authors' sole responsibility. They do not necessarily represent the views of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies or any of its members. This publication may be reproduced in part for educational or non-profit purposes without special permission from the copyright holder, provided acknowledgment of the source is made. No use of this publication may be made for resale or for any other commercial purpose whatsoever without prior permission in writing from the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. Abstract This paper suggests a new approach to analysing the distribution of natural resource revenues and applies it to the case of Mexico. It defines a natural resource entitlement as a citizen's per capita share of their country's natural resource rents. The main finding is that, according to official estimates, Mexican fiscal policy transfers oil entitlements from the bottom 90 percent of the population to the top 10 percent of the population. This implies that, although fiscal policy is progressive relative to market income, it is regressive once oil entitlements are taken into account. I consider a fiscal reform that would ensure that every citizen received their oil entitlement, and in doing so would eliminate extreme poverty.


The effect of ABA on the germination of rice seed, growth of rice seedling and drought resistance of rice seedling were studied. The results showed that ABA at lower concentration (less than 0. 5 mg/L -1.0 mg/L) has no effect on the seed germination, but could effectively inhibit the elongation of bud and roots. ABA at high concentration ( 5. 0 mg/L) effectively inhibited the seed germination and elongation of bud and root. ABA could inhibit the increment rate of plant height significantly, and the plant height was decreased. ABA could effectively enhance the relative water content in the leaves of rice seedling during the drought stress period, as well as enhance the tolerance of rice seedling to the drought stress, the activities of superoxid dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) were found to be kept at higher levels in ABA-treated seedling leaves than that of the control (water) , the content of malondialdehyde ( MDA) was decreased in ABA-treated seedling leaves than that of the control (water) , while the ascorbic acid content was increased in ABA ?treated seedling leaves than that of control(water) .


Cyanobacteria are autotrophic bacteria which perform oxygenic photosynthesis. Since cyanobacteria have been traditionally treated as a cluster of the plant kingdom in the past, they have been classified mainly based on cell morphology. Woese (1987) analyzed the phylogeny of the organisms by means of small subunit ribosomal RNA gene sequence divergence, and placed cyanobacteria within the eubacteria of prokaryotes. The taxonomy of cyanobacteria has been based only on their morphology up to now, and cyanobacteria are divided into five orders at present (Castenholz and Waterbury, 1989). These are Chroococcales, Pleurocapsales, Oscillatoriales, Nostocales, and Stigonematales. Cyanobacteria which are filamentous and do not form heterocyst are accommodated in the order Oscillatoriales (Castenholz, 1989a). One of the differential characteristics to classify the genera of Oscillatoriales is whether or not a sheath is present, but this characteristic is known to change due to culturing conditions (Pearson and Kingsbury, 1966). Consequently, the definition of the genera belonging to Oscillatoriales is obscure. In this study, to grasp a general image of Oscillatoriales, the phylogenetic position of the eight genera of Oscillatoriales was investigated based on 165 rRNA gene sequences which have proven to be very useful for the study of bacterial phylogeny (e.g., Giovannoi et al., 1988; Stackebrandt,1992; Woese,1987). The axenic cyanobacterial strains used in this study are Oscillatoria neglects M-82, Oscillatoria rosea M220, Phormidium ambiguum M-71, Phormidium sp. M99, Phormidium sp. M-117, Phormidium mucicola M221, and Spirulina subsalsa M-223; these were obtained from the IAM culture collection. Oscillatoria neglecta M-82, Ph. ambiguum M-71, Phormidium sp. M99, and Phormidium sp. M-117 were grown in medium A-1 (Yamasato et al., 1993), 0. roses M-220 in medium f/2 (Watanabe and Nozaki, 1994), Ph. mucicola M-221 in medium Csi (Watanabe and Nozaki, 1994), and Sp. subsalsa M-223 in medium MA (Watanabe and Nozaki, 1994). These seven strains were cultured by incubation in test tubes without aeration at 20°C with fluorescent lamp illumination of 500 lux. Cells from 1.5 ml culture broth were harvested by centrifugation, washed with 1 ml of deionized water, and suspended in 100 μl of 20 mM Tris (pH 8.0) containing 0.1 mM EDTA, 0.5% Tween 20, and 0.1% Nonidet P-40 (Boehringer Mannheim, Germany). Final lysis was achieved by adding 10μg of Proteinase K and incubating for 20 min at 60°C. The almost complete 165 rDNA from the genomic DNA of the respective strains was amplified by PCR using oligonucleotide primers by the combination of 1 and 11, 8, and 16 as described by Wilmotte et al. (1993). PCR was performed for 5 min at 94°C at first and consisted of 33 cycles with the following features: 1 min at 94°C, 1 min at 52°C, and 2 min at 72°C followed by a final elongation step for 10 min at 72°C. The PCR product generated with Takara EX Taq polymerase (Takara Shuzo Co., Ltd., Japan) was cloned using an Original TA Cloning Kit® (Invitrogen Corporation, CA, U.S.A.). The sequencing reaction was performed with a SequiThermTM Long-ReadTM Cycle Sequencing Kit-LC (Ar Brown Co., Ltd., Tokyo, Japan) using IRD-41 labeled primers, M13 forward primer and M13 reverse primer. Sequencing was carried out on a LI-COR * Address reprint requests to: Dr. Akira Yokota, ular and cellular Biosciences, The University Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113, Japan. Institute of Molec-


The risk of developing parenterally transmitted infections in health-care personnel has become a challenge because of high costs laboral incapacity and mortality and social stigmatization. The aim of the study was to assess the incidence of occupational exposure in their institution to determine the type of personnel affected and the circumstances of the injuries and to assess the serological follow-up of these employees. The occupational injuries spontaneously reported to their infection control program from June 1987 to December 1993 were reviewed. Personnel categories type of accident instrument and circumstances of the injury as well as serologic follow-up for hepatitis B virus (HBV) hepatitis C virus (HCV) or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections baseline and every three months during the first year were evaluated. In 6.5 years 260 injuries were registered in 240 workers. Two cases were registered in the second semester of 1987 23 in 1988 25 in 1989 23 in 1990 36 in 1991 90 in 1992 and 61 in 1993. Housekeeping and maintenance staff were mainly affected (32%) nursing staff in second place (27%) followed by senior medical students (20%). 88% were sharp injuries (20% considered deep injuries). Most of the injuries occurred after instrumental utilization: sharp devices disposed without the use of adequate containers (18%) inappropriate handling of sharp containers (14%) and recapping needles (11%); 36% of the injuries occurred during specific procedures. One HBV seroconversion occurred in 10 surface antigen exposures one in nine exposures with an HCV contaminated source and none in 54 accidents with HIV contamination. The increase in the annual incidence of occupational exposures is due most probably to more awareness to report the injuries. 88% were sharp injuries and at least 43% could have been prevented. The main educational and preventive efforts should be directed to housekeeping staff nursing staff and medical students in their institution. (authors) (summaries in ENG SPA)


It has been a hot topic to assess the effect of state shareholding on corporate performance in the context of China. The assessments are mainly empirical and the findings are diverse. In this paper we present a formal model to investigate the choices of risk and effort by listed state-owned enterprises (SOEs). The model establishes a behavior-based link between state shareholding positions and corporate performance. It suggests a significantly negative relationship between state shareholding ratio and corporate performance when the perceived level of profitability is high, and an insignificant relationship otherwise. The estimations of conditional quantile regression models based on a panel dataset of China's listed companies during 1994-2000 confirm the predictions of our theory. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D82, G32, G34, P31. Corresponding Author: Prof. Laixiang Sun, Department of Financial and Management Studies, SOAS, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG, UK. Tel. +44-20-78984821, Fax. +44-20-76377075, Email: email@example.com . State Ownership and Corporate Performance: A Quantile Analysis on China's Listed Companies SOAS, University of London 2


Analysis of data streams generated from devices collecting data from patients, which are monitored within both clinical and home environments, provide useful information for decision making processes. Nevertheless, medical personnel are still required to review and process the data and therefore spend a lot of time and effort to detect situations of concern such as exacerbations with conditions or the occurrence of anomalies in the measurements. In this paper, we propose a methodology for the real-time linguistic analysis of data streams generated from medical monitoring devices based on a rule-based inference engine exploiting a fuzzy linguistic approach. A case study based on health data provided by the Physiological Data Modeling Contest is used to illustrate the proposed methodology and to demonstrate the flexibility to interpret, in a linguistic manner, data streams and the detection of risk situations of interest based on linguistic expressions.


ABSTRACT Diversity is one of the defining characteristics of complex adaptive systems – systems made up of heterogeneous agents whose interactions form a dynamic network resulting in emergent behaviour. Recent research shows that various types of diversity increase with the scale of the system. This paper uses ideas and methods from community ecology to define business types as functional traits and to calculate functional diversity as a measure of the economic diversification in an urban system. It asks how functional diversity changes with the size of the city within an urban region. Using Keihanshin Metropolitan Area in Japan as an example, the paper concludes that while functional diversity scales with city size, it reaches saturation due to the limitations of the business types classification systems. It argues that regardless of the observed saturation, the method can reveal the structural complexity of the city, showing what types of industries form its economy. It also discovers functions common to all cities in the region, and calls for further development of the method by introducing the multidimensional analysis and additional measures of diversity.


The government of Panama and Northville Industries in the United States have announced a plan to speed surplus Alaskan oil to the Midwest through a transshipment and storage facility. The proposed facility of 450,000 barrels-per-day capacity is designed for easy expansion and is expected to be utilized after proposed pipelines to the Midwest and East are operating, as well as handling the oil until they are completed. This proposal is felt to be less costly than the suggested exchange of Alaskan oil to Japan and Arabian oil to the U.S. East Coast, although the world price for oil will put the savings in company profits rather than lower prices for consumers. The facility, planned for the west coast of Panama, will transship crude oil from very large to small carriers able to pass through the canal. A storage facility in Panama will relieve supply problems due to bad weather delays in shipments from Alaska. (DCK)


Introduction Demineralised Bone Matrix (DBM) is widely used in Orthopaedics and dentistry as a bone graft substitute and may be used to augment bone formation in load bearing applications.

In this study we examine the effect of gamma irradiation and freeze drying on the tensile strength of Demineralised Cortical Bone (DCB).

Methods Tibias were harvested from mature ewes and cut into bony strips. Demineralisation was done using 0.6M HCL and confirmed by X-ray. Specimens were washed until a pH of 7.0 +/_ 0.2 was achieved in the washing solutions.

Specimens were allocated into 4 groups; group (A) non freeze dried non gamma irradiated, group (B) freeze dried non gamma irradiated, group (C) non freeze dried gamma irradiated mention the level of gamma irradiation and group (D) freeze dried and gamma irradiated. The maximum tensile force and stress were measured. Statistical analysis using the Mann-Whitney U test was carried out.

Results The Median of maximum tensile force for group (A) was 218N, group (B) was 306N, group (C) was 263N and for group (D) was 676N.

Group (D) results were statistically higher (p=< 0.05) compared to group (A) and (C), while there was no statistical significance compared to group (B).

Conclusion Previously published studies suggested the possibility of using DCB as ACL graft substitute. We examined the effect of gamma radiation as the most common sterilisation technique in medical field and the freeze drying as a possible technique for long term storage on the tensile strength of the DCB.

Freeze drying significantly increases the tensile strength of the DCB while gamma irradiation has no significant effect. Our results indicate that freeze dried gamma irradiated DCB can be used as a ligament substitute.


A model is introduced for asynchronous concurrent communication, where each agent's perception of the system is represented by a game of interaction. The model combines strict fair merge with full recursion, and the main mathematical results provide evidence for the robustness and naturalness of his interpretation of recursive definitions of nondeterministic processes. The approach is closest to D. Park's (1980, 1983) whose ideas are starting points for this work.<<ETX>>


The electron evaporation model of the collision-ionization procsss that occurs when atoms collide at high energies is extended to include atoms with from two to eight electrons in the outer shell. Application of the model to data from collisions of N/sup +/ on Ar and Ne/sup +/ on Ar gives evidence for a resonant electron capture effect taking place in high-energy violent collisions which was heretofore masked by the multriple ionization consequent on such collisions. (auth)


Although publication in microformat is becoming increasingly accepted by scholars in many disciplines, the typical art scholar has not often found it necessary or desirable to be concerned with material available in this format. Part of the reason for this neglect has been that, until recently, the amount of visual material available in microformat has essentially been limited to text illustrations. However, the art world must now be alerted to the unique visual archives which publishers are beginning to offer on microfiches. The art world must also begin to exercise its powers of review to guarantee that micropublications meet the standards of art scholars. Most library users have readily accepted the financial and physical advantages of obtaining and storing certain types of written, previously-published material in microformat: unwieldy periodical runs, dissertations, out-of-print books and fragile newspaper backfiles. Monochromatic microfilm has been the standard format used to distribute these items despite longstanding complaints from users about uncomfortable viewing conditions and disappointing quality of images. However, as the technology of miniaturized photography improves and the microfiche format is accepted, these inconveniences are being reduced. The high resolution factor of microfiche film makes it now acceptable for recording visual detail; fiche itself is simple to store and to handle; the machine reader is small and easy to operate. At present the newest and most exciting visual microfiche projects in the fine arts are of four types: 1) reproduction of an existing visual archive; 2) development and publication of an entirely new visual archive; 3) photographic reproduction of all the works in a single art collection; and 4) publication of an original text accompanied by extensive visual material on microfiches. Although these projects may require innovative handling in libraries accustomed to books, they offer an extraordinary wealth of visual documentation otherwise unavailable for distribution.


The enzymatic transesterification of ethyl ferulate with triolein was investigated. Ferulyl oleins were synthesized by immobilized lipase from C. antarctica (Novozym 435) in organic phase, solvent-free system, and glycerol introduced system. The transesterification reactions in those three different solvent systems were compared. The yield in organic medium was the lowest and the selectivity to FMO was higher in glycerol introduced system than the other two system. 4Å molecular sieve was selected to control the reaction water content. The yield of ferulyl oleins increased with increasing the amount of molecular sieve to 20%. The radical scavenging activity of the products were evaluated using DPPH. Ferulyl monoolein was found to possess higher radical scavenging activity than one of the substrates, ethyl ferulate. The time to reach steady state of ferulyl monoolein also exhibited shorter than ferulyl diolein. The results showed that pure ferulyl diolein and ferulyl monoolein have antioxidant activities with IC50 values of 0.012 mg/mL and 0.476 mg/mL, respectively.


The advance directive is a medical and legal tool used for several years in the United states of America. It represents the written will expressed in advance by a patient or by healthy people regarding their wishes regarding future healthcare in case at some point they will not be able to express their will. Most poscommunist countries do not have advance directives regulated by law yet. Lithuania is also in this situation. Bioethicists represent one of the professional categories that should be involved in drafting the law introducing advance directives. We have performed 12 interviews with Lithuanian bioethicists regarding their views about the Lithuanian healthcare system and the opportunity of introducing advance directives in their country. Interviews were tape-recorded, typed and reviewed for accuracy. Transcripts of the interviews were compiled and then the phenomenological analysis was applied, aiming to identify the common views of the respondents, but also specific features. A hermeneutic phenomenological approach was used to analyze the data. The views of Lithuanian bioethicists are favorable towards advance directives being implemented, but the actual implementation is thought to be difficult, in a conservative country where medical paternalism still flourishes.


The Parque Estadual das Fontes do Ipiranga is within the urban area of the Sao Paulo city (Sao Paulo state, Brazil) and through the years has received air effluents from a smelter of the vicinity. The aim of this work is to verify the change of the park's lichen flora by comparison of the extant flora with that held at the SP herbarium. Only 9 species can be found nowadays. 7 of them are very rare and from youngless populations. Parmotrema tinctorum (Nyl.) Hale is rare. Pseudoparmelia texana (Tuck.)Hale appears in the collections after 1973 and is now abundant, covering great trunk extensions at exposed places.


Diagnoses of Alzheimer's Disease (AD) and Mild Cognitive Impairment (CCL) are based on the analysis of the patient's cognitive functions by administering cognitive and neuropsychological assessment batteries. The use of retelling narratives is common to help identify and quantify the degree of dementia. In general, one point is awarded for each unit recalled, and the final score represents the number of units recalled. In this paper, we evaluated two clinical tasks: the automatic identification of which elements of a retold narrative were recalled; and the binary classification of the narrative produced by a patient, having the units identified as attributes, aiming at an automatic screening of patients with cognitive impairment. We used two transcribed retelling data sets in which sentences were divided and manually annotated with the information units. These data sets were then made publicly available. They are: the Arizona Battery for Communication and Dementia Disorders (ABCD) that contains narratives of patients with CCL and Healthy Controls and the Avaliacao da Linguagem no Envelhecimento (BALE), which includes narratives of patients with AD and CCLs as well as Healthy Controls. We evaluated two methods based on semantic similarity, referred to here as STS and Chunking, and transformed the multi-label problem of identifying elements of a retold narrative into binary classification problems, finding a cutoff point for the similarity value of each information unit. In this way, we were able to overcome two baselines for the two datasets in the SubsetAccuracy metric, which is the most punitive for the multi-label scenario. In binary classification, however, not all six machine learning methods evaluated performed better than the baselines methods. For ABCD, the best methods were Decision Trees and KNN, and for BALE, SVM with RBF kernel stood out.


One hour, forty-six minute interview with University of Wisconsin-- Eau Claire Dept. of Geography and Anthropology professor Helaine Minkus concerning her life, education, and development of feminist thought.


Understanding organizations is essential to understand the construction of contemporary social dynamics. With the increasingly evident overlap between communication, society and culture, it is necessary to unveil the complex relationships that organizations establish in mediated society. This article aims to explore Erving Goffman's theory of social dramaturgy and its application in the mediated organizational context, articulating some central aspects of contemporary organizations: organizational and strategic communication, mediatization and innovation culture. For this, we carry out a review of the academic bibliography referring to these concepts, relating them to the theory of social dramaturgy, to then reflect on the metaphor of the stage in the contemporary environment. In the interaction scenes in mediated society, the roles of the organizational actors are reviewed and the scenarios are reconfigured, creating new possibilities for organizations as well as challenges and opportunities for organizational communication.


Phenomenology and HospitalityPhenomenology is the science of appearances.1 The appearance, however, of what? On the one hand, phenomenology attends to how the world of things manifests itself in a single flow of emergent and continuous processes that dissolve (human) subjects and (nonhuman) objects in shared fields of causation, movement, ambience, intentionality, and perception. In this tradition, the phenomenology of the earlier twentieth century bears fruit in the cognitive science and environmental psychology of more recent decades, as well as in the radical Heideggerianism pursued in the object-oriented ontology of Graham Harman and the actor-network theory of Bruno Latour. In Shakespeare studies, Bruce Smith's Phenomenal Shakespeare (2010) sets the standard for this line of inquiry, as does Evelyn Tribble's work on distributive cognition in theatrical practice and the object and science writing of Jonathan Gil Harris, Henry Turner, and Julian Yates.2 In these inquiries, phenomenology entails grasping how we intuit and inhabit the environments in which we live, move, act, and think, including the very special media environments of the printed page and the built stage, as well as the cognitive taskscapes and memory theaters of the kitchen, the street, the dock, and the farmyard.If phenomenology in this first tradition spreads out towards objects, networks and assemblages, leading from human consciousness into questions of the nonhuman and the posthuman, the phenomenologies of Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas, Jacques Derrida, and Jean-Luc Marion focus instead on the conditions of specifically human appearing; in these inquiries, how I approach the other person, and how I myself become a person in that approach, eclipse considerations of embodied perception and worldly cognition.3 For Hannah Arendt, human action concerns those substantial speech acts that set into motion a sequence of events that cannot be predicted or managed by the agent and that reveal who the speaker is, casting up a daemon or image of self visible only to others in the spectral space of publicity. For Arendt, acting in the political sense flows into acting in the dramatic sense, zoning theater as that distinctive scene of appearing, that special form of publicity (Offentlichkeit) established above all by the assembly of an audience in the clearing of performance.4Whereas the worlds of Smith, Harris, Yates, and Tribble are flush with the key of green, the effusions of gunpowder, the sociability of sheep, and the informatics of stage doors, drama in Arendt's account need not engage objects or environments at all. What Arendt says of the scene of politics - "Wherever you go, you will be a polis"5 - is also true of her account of theater: wherever persons are acting and witnesses are assembled, there is drama, whether we have gathered in a formal playhouse, a court of law, a classroom, a subway station, or a street corner. Yet Arendt, too, is doing phenomenology insofar as appearing - how significant affects, images, and actions manifest themselves for those who engage with them - is what is at stake in a political philosophy that is also a philosophy of drama.6 Writing in this vein, Paul Kottman argues that the theatrum mundi motif describes the "literal phenomenological horizon of actors and witnesses on the scene"; the world-stage metaphor both acknowledges the ephemerality of human life as transient appearance and affirms the dramatic significance of human action on both formal and informal stages.7 In related work, Bryan Lowrance asks that we step back from topical readings of Macbeth in order to attend to its ontological preoccupations, "the poetic and philosophical grandeur of the play's presentation of the problematic of action."8 In its humanist strain, phenomenology is affiliated with drama insofar as both the science of appearances and the art of appearances make the company of others into a condition of action in its double senses. …


Key words:Balkans, Turkish lnaguage. Bosnia, Phonology,Transformation,morphology
ABSTRACT
The concepts of culture closely interact with the language. The relations between culture and language are two separate aspects. In fact, two different aspects and opinions can be combined; on the one hand language is living and developing in the culture, on the other hand culture exists in the language.Every culture has its langugae, every langugae has its own culture. In relationship between language and culture, the people speak the language which is representing tradition and beliefs as well as information about lifestyle. Therefore, results of the changes in the lifestyle of people, directly affect people's life and language. Interaction betwen languages throughout the history of languages in the Balkan region which is the best known linguistic area of old OttomanTurkish culture for hundreds of years is still functioning. In this paper, based on linguistic relationship generated by Turkish speaking community, morphological and phonological transformation of Turkish loan words in Bosnian language in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been studied by indicating how some words have changed either in form or phonetically.


Since the early 1970s over 200 cities in the United States of America have enacted rent control. Currently 10% of the nation's renters are covered by some form of rent regulation, yet little is known about the economic consequences of rent control. Most evidence suggests that modern rent controls have little or no impact on the amount of investment in rental housing. Such a finding is primarily because of the nonrestrictive nature of most current rent control ordinances, which typically exempt newly constructed housing, guarantee a fair and reasonable return on investment, and allow for annual rent adjustments to cover increases in operating costs. Although this relatively mild type of rent control succeeds in limiting extreme rent increases, it does not result in significant relief from high rents in most regulated cities. Only with strong rent control ordinances will rents be significantly impacted.


Population administration services at the Kamal sub-district office are currently still using manual methods. This causes the administrative service process in the Kamal subdistrict office to not run efficiently. Therefore, an application for a web-based population administration service system is needed that is built with the Model View Controller architecture using a Codeigniter framework. Using the MVC architecture there are several benefits including software development that is easy to repair. By using the MVC architecture can bring changes that facilitate the demographic service process in the district Kamal, and can also can shorten the processing time of the service so as to reduce the buildup of queues and also facilitate the admin in the district office Kamal in the data search process of residents residing in the district Kamal. The result of the research show that MVC implementation on population administration service system applications can be easily used and developed again.


L-Glutamic acid-based novel dendritic phenylacetylene derivatives 1 and 2 were synthesized and polymerized with a rhodium catalyst to afford the corresponding polymers [poly(1) and poly(2)] with high molecular weights in 83–95% yields. Poly(1) formed a helical structure with predominantly one-handed screw sense in DMF, CHCl3, and MeOH, and poly(2) did in DMF. The helical conformation of poly(1) and poly(2) could be tuned by temperature. Poly(1) underwent solvent-driven helix-helix transition in CHCl3/DMF.


The use of ethephon in pineapple was proposed in the 1970s by CIRAD agronomists in Martinique and Cote d'Ivoire to reduce the time between the harvest of early ripe fruits and the harvest of the late ripe fruits in a pineapple field and to get a more homogeneous external colour of the fruits (Audinay, 1970; Poignant, 1971). Ethephon does not actually colour the fruit, it rather degreens the shell of the fruit by destruction of chlorophyll. The closer the fruit is to natural ripening, the more efficient is the degreening. If correctly applied at the right time, ethephon treatment does not reduce significantly the internal quality of the fruit. This technique drastically changed the management of the harvest because formerly the desired tonnage was harvested from many fields whereas with ethephon degreening the same tonnage could be obtained from only few fields. Few drawbacks to ethephon degreening have been identified as long as the application follows the recommendations (2 - 3 L ha-1 when ~1% of fruits begin to colour naturally). One drawback is that sometimes fruits are relatively insensitive to the treatment, for example when high levels of nitrogen have been applied during vegetative growth. This has generally a consequence, the farmer applies higher doses of ethephon, earlier (as many as 3 to 4 weeks before natural ripening sometimes). The result is fruit with poor quality, with a shorter shelf life, withered crowns after cold storage and fruit more sensitive to Internal Browning. With the development of new varieties and also the general evolution of customer sensitivity to the use of pesticides in agriculture, one could expect some changes in the use of ethephon. (Texte integral)


Government funding actively engages in private R&D investment to enhance firm innovation. At the same time, firms are forced to find additional sources of competitive advantage, e.g., through cooperation based on the triple- or quadruple-helix principles. This paper analyses whether government funding and cooperation based on the triple-helix and quadruple-helix principles spur firms' product and process innovation rather directly or indirectly, taking into account the role of firms R&D. For this purpose, we collect data from the Community Innovation Survey and analyse 5045 Norwegian firms by using partial least squares structural equation modelling. Our results confirm hypotheses that public funding and both triple-helix and quadruple-helix cooperation significantly influence firms' research and development activities. Surprisingly, on the one hand, we showed that neither public funding nor triple- and quadruple-helix cooperation affect firms' product innovation directly. Moreover, the results show a negative influence of government funding and triple- and quadruple-helix cooperation on Norwegian firms' product innovation. On the other hand, process innovation is influenced positively and directly by firms' cooperation based on the triple- and quadruple-helix principles. The results of our analyses clearly show the key role of firm's R&D, which has proven to be a mediator of the effects of public funding and triple- and quadruple-helix cooperation on the product and process innovation activities of Norwegian firms.


Abstract Much of the literature promoting environmental education as 'a just cause' assumes a rational discussion of curriculum options. In fact, the promotion of new curriculum areas threatens existing subject territories. Historically environmental education has threatened the boundaries of geography. Thus, by studying these 'border wars' we learn more about the process of promoting new curriculum areas. This paper seeks to build on previous work which has scrutinised the social history of school subjects. A conviction underlying this work has been that as well as studying the interactive nature of curriculum practice, also examining the conflict over the definitions of curriculum which precede classroom events (with the insights thereby provided into the vested interests involved) will further our understanding of 'what counts as education'.


Fiber optic sensors provide the opportunity for fabricating materials with internal sensors which can serve as lifetime health monitors, analogous to a central nervous system. The embedded fiber optic sensors can be interrogated by various techniques to measure internal strain, temperature, pressure, acoustic waves and other parameters indicative of structural integrity. Experiments have been conducted with composite samples with embedded sensors to measure strain using optical time domain reflectometry, modal interference and an optical phase locked loop. Fiber optic sensors have been developed to detect acoustic emission and impact damage and have been demonstrated for cure monitoring. These sensors have the potential for lifetime monitoring of structural properties, providing real time nondestructive evaluation.


Citation Shaikhomer M. Staphylococcus aureus masking tuberculous joint infection. JKAU Med Sci 2017; 24 (4): 41-45. DOI: 10.4197/Med. 24.4.6 Abstract Skeletal tuberculosis accounts for around 10 percent of cases of extrapulmonary tuberculosis. Hip and knee involvement are the most commonly aff ected sites after spine. Clinical manifestations include swelling, pain, and loss of joint function that progress over weeks to months. In the setting of tuberculous arthritis, local soft tissue swelling, osteopenia, and bone destruction (with relative preservation of cartilage space) occur early in the disease. Subsequent fi ndings include structural collapse, sclerotic changes, and soft tissue calcifi cation. Delay in diagnosing tuberculous arthritis can lead to functional disability and poor outcome. Superimposed infection with another organism occurs very rarely and can lead to delay in diagnosing the condition. We present a case of tuberculous knee arthritis that was superimposed with Staphylococcus aureus infection. The low index of suspicion at the initial presentation together with the superimposed infection led to a delayed diagnosis. Our patient's risk factor was immigration from a country endemic with tuberculosis. The case was diagnosed 32 months from initial presentation. In the presence of clinical and epidemiological risk for tuberculous arthritis, requesting the appropriate tests is crucial to avoid any diagnostic delay.


In this study, it was aimed to determine the effects of gender, marital status and branch variables on teachers' organizational commitment. For this purpose, a meta-analysis study has been carried out with respect to organizational commitment in Turkey. In this context, similar studies are grouped within certain criteria and quantitative findings belonging to these studies are combined and interpreted. The study group consisted of 28 thesis and articles. However, since the same variables were not used in all studies, the number of studies including meta-analysis for gender, marital status, and branch variables varied. As a result of the research; the emotional commitment of the organizational commitment of the gender, the continuing commitment and the normative commitment dimensions of the male teachers are more emotional than the female teachers. For marital status change, single teachers have more emotional attachment to emotional attachment, continuity and normative attachment than married teachers. For the branch change, the class teachers live more emotional attachment than the branch teachers in emotional attachment, continuity and normative attachment dimensions.


control. series. There are, of course, exceptions to this routine in both groups. These cases are mainly student and pupil-midwife deliveries. There have been 25 cases of post-partum haemorrhage in the control group (475 cases), an incidence of 5.260%0, whilst in the ergometrine and hyaluronidase group (361 cases) there have been 13 cases with a post-partum loss of 20 oz. (0.6 1.) or more, an incidence of 3.6o. This figure is similar to that given by Dr. H. E. Reiss (Journal, December 31, 1955. p. 1622). It is generally considered that the necessity for manual removal of the placenta is more frequent when ergometrine is used in this manner. The operation was carried out on six occasions in the ergometrine group (1.6%) and in seven cases (1.4%) in the control group. Our studies of this technique are continuing and it is hoped to make a fuller communication at a later date. I am impressed by the success achieved by Dr. Reiss using ergometrine without hyaluronidase by intramuscular injection. With such results it is reasonable that he should compare the respective prices of ergometrine alone and ergometrine with hyaluronidase. At the same time, I would venture to suggest that the cost of the latter, while appreciable, is small comp4red with that of at least one pint (0.6 1.) of blood, and negligible in terms of human life.I am. etc.,


NIMAL AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES is perilously vulnerable to deliberate attack with foreign livestock viruses. Traditional government responses to such an event—sweeping quarantines, mass slaughter and burning or burial of millions of carcasses under the ceaseless eye of television—together with staggering financial losses triggered by international trade embargoes are exactly what terrorists want to see and what makes these viruses potential biological weapons in the first place. U.S. policy to counter agroterrorism is fatally flawed, because it mistakenly conflates the threats of inadvertent and purposeful disease introduction. Moreover, this policy was developed without understanding that it is only the ways we have chosen to respond to foreign diseases in the past that allow terrorists to threaten us with them in the future. As American agribusiness has industrialized, animal health officials have stubbornly clung to 18th century ideas of epidemic disease control, despite abundant recent evidence from overseas that in the American context such medicine would guarantee catastrophe. If we try to counter deliberate assaults the same way, after a successful attack it will be the U.S. government, not a terrorist gang, that is killing, burning, filling mass graves, and wreaking economic havoc nationwide. In 2004 these are the wrong responses to either inadvertent or deliberate disease introduction, and the consequences of this mistake cannot be limited to farmers: there will be lasting damage to the rural economy and public confidence in government and enormous costs for taxpayers. And should the foreign disease infect humans as well as livestock, our families also will be at risk—all of which will greatly embolden and encourage terrorists. Terrorist attacks on U.S. agriculture are not about imperiling our food supplies: they are about terror, money, mass slaughter, and funeral pyres all day every day on CNN and al Jazeera. Our national policy for inadvertent and deliberate foreign animal disease introductions should be simple: we will minimize direct and indirect economic impacts, and we will not engage in mass slaughter. Fortunately, most of the tools and technologies to permit such a policy already exist. We now have rapid, on-farm tests for these diseases; effective vaccination strategies; Internet-based command, control, and communication systems; and the means to track animal products from farm to table, even internationally. These enable us to respond more effectively than was possible 300 years ago and permit a new national policy. If we choose this way forward, there will be little point in deliberate attacks, because the outcomes terrorists want to see will not be possible and inadvertent introductions will be eliminated with scarcely a footprint. But changing national policy will require input from a much broader group of policymakers than in the past. The purpose of this article is to explain the nature and magnitude of what is at stake and why this is not just a matter for agriculture anymore.


Using the method of characteristics and shock fitting techniques,this paper simulates numerically the evolution of MHD (Magnetohydrodynamic) intermediate shocks in interplanetary space.The main conclusions are:(1) For an intermediate shock of type 2→4,the downstream tangential magnetic strength decreases by launching reverse slow compression waves downstream,whereas the upstream tangential magnetic strength increases by launching forward fast compression waves upstream.Therefore,the intermediate shock of type 2→4 evolves rapidly into a slow shock via a switch-off shock.Meanwhile the forward fast compression waves become a fast shock through nonlinear steepening process.(2) An intermediate shock of type 1→3 becomes a critical intermediate shock of type 1→3=4 by by launching forward slow rarefaction waves downstream,and immediately evolves into a shock system consisting of a forward fast shock and an intermediate shock of type 2→4. The intermediate shock of type 2→4 may propagate a larger heliocentric distance in the downstream side of the leading fast shock and be observed possibly by spacecraft near 1AU,but it eventually becomes a slow shock via a switch off shock. Key words Interplanetary dynamics,Magnetohydrodynamics,MHD shock, Intermediate shock,Numerical simulation


This paper details mixed-language programming of C/C++ and FORTRAN, specially focus on method of dynamic link libraries(DLL). It is helped that the mixed-language programming of C/C++ and FORTRAN, will be advantageous complemention of the two languages. On the other hand, we can again utilize a lot of maturely FORTRAN program that handed down, and avoid programming again and wasting resources. It will save a lot of time of programming.


Numerical analysis is used to identify the physical phenomena associated with barometrically driven gas (air and water vapor) flow through unsaturated fractured rock at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Results from simple finite difference simulations indicate that for a fractured rock scenario, the maximum velocity of air out of an uncased 10 cm borehole is 0.002 m s{sub {minus}1}. An equivalent porous medium (EPM) model was incorporated into a multiphase, multicomponent simulator to test more complex conceptual models. Results indicate that for a typical June day, a diurnal pressure wave propagates about 160 m into the surrounding Tiva Canyon hydrogeologic unit. Dry air that enters the formation evaporates water around the borehole which reduces capillary pressure. Multiphase countercurrent flow develops in the vicinity of the hole; the gas phase flows into the formation while the liquid phase flows toward the borehole. The effect occurs within 0.5 m of the borehole. The amount of water vapor leaving the formation during 1 day is 900 cm{sup 3}. This is less than 0.1% of the total recharge into the formation, suggesting that the barometric effect may be insignificant in drying the unsaturated zone. However, gas phase velocities out of the borehole (3 m s{sup {minus}1}), indicating that observed flow rates from wells along the east flank of Yucca Mountain were able to be simulated with a barometric model.


In the last 40 years the concern for the man with the environment is increasing; however, the Environmental Management requests a compromising of the discharge direction of an organization with the participation conscious of all the members of the organizations. This new environmental culture does with that the organizations take the Norms ISO series 14000 into account. With this context, the objective of this work is to present a suggestion of the use of new technological tools in the process of training of a System of Environmental Management. With the use of new technologies of information in the training process, the members feel more motivated and they familiarize more quickly with the new environmental subjects that are imposed them. Besides, it stimulates and it motivates the participation in the presentation of solutions, proposed of actions and continuous reavaliacoes of the process of System of Environmental Management.


This paper introduces the characteristics of ADO technology, the main contents of attribute management and intensive processing in geographic information system and explains the process of realizing attributes management of GIS by ADO technology.


. Although reanalysis products for remote high-mountain regions provide estimates of snow precipitation, this data is inherently uncertain and assessing a potential bias is difficult due to the scarcity of observations, thus also limiting their reliability to evaluate long-term effects of climate change. Here, we compare the winter mass balance of 95 glaciers distributed over the Alps, Western Canada, Central Asia and Scandinavia, with the total precipitation from the ERA-5 and the MERRA-2 reanalysis products during the snow accumulation seasons from 1981 until today. We propose a machine learning model to adjust 5 the precipitation of reanalysis products to the elevation of the glaciers, thus deriving snow water equivalent (SWE) estimates over glaciers uncovered by ground observations and/or filling observational gaps. We use a gradient boosting regressor (GBR), which combines several meteorological variables from the reanalyses (e.g. air temperature, relative humidity) with topographical parameters. These GBR-derived estimates are evaluated against the winter mass balance data by means of a leave-one-glacier-out cross-validation (site-independent GBR) and a leave-one-season-out cross-validation (season-independent GBR). 10 Both site-independent and season-independent GBRs allowed reducing (increasing) the bias (correlation) between the precipitation of the original reanalyses and the winter mass balance data of the glaciers. Finally, the GBR models are used to derive SWE trends on glaciers between 1981 and 2021. The resulting trends are more pronounced than those obtained from the total precipitation of the original reanalyses. On a regional scale, significant 41-year SWE trends over glaciers are observed in the Alps (MERRA-2 season-independent GBR: +0.4 %/year) and in Western Canada (ERA-5 season-independent GBR: 15 +0.2 %/year), while significant positive/negative trends are observed in all the regions for single glaciers or specific elevations. Negative (positive) SWE trends are typically observed at lower (higher) elevations, where the impact of rising temperatures is more (less) dominant. simpler than estimating on glaciers with no observations. Store. The results contain modified Copernicus Neither nor is responsible for any use that may be made of the Copernicus information or data it contains.


The connotation and extension of furniture design, which aims to enhance the quality of people's lives, is constantly expanding and improving. The innovation of furniture design also demands us to take the users' prospective, focus on people's lifestyle, seek the designing elements and seize the designing inspiration so as to complete the design.


Abstract. Thomas Szasz, psychiatrist and philosopher, in many books and articles has sought to delineate a theory of personal conduct and social interaction based on individual freedom of choice. Using psychiatric issues as his basis, he asserts that freedom of contract is essential to liberty and autonomy, and that contractual consent must be "informed" in a legal sense. But the mere fact of choice is not sufficient for the individual's humanity and autonomy. For "informed" consent, even a non‐paternalistic State must be an active State, establishing the general norms even of the psychiatrist‐patient relationship, making explicit and maintaining the "implied terms" that must surround all contracts, including the education and social competence necessary for making them.


The teaching of argumentation has been advocated as a significant goal for science education worldwide. Argumentation involves the coordination of evidence and theory to support or refute an explanatory conclusion, model or prediction. Even though argumentation has gained popularity as a pedagogical strategy, there is limited understanding of how enculturation into pedagogical practices around argumentation influences science teachers. The main objective of this chapter is to present a case study of two middle-school science teachers who participated, over 5 years, in various school-based research projects on argumentation ranging from basic research in teaching and learning to the development of professional development programs for training teachers in argumentation. The projects took place between 1999 and 2004 in the United Kingdom. The teachers were asked to reflect as a pair on various aspects of teaching and learning of argumentation. The results address the teachers' views and knowledge of argumentation, their perceptions of the goals, constraints and successes in their teaching of argumentation, their perceptions of themselves as learners and teachers, and their reflections on the professional development that they received. Implications for professional development of pre-service and in-service teachers are discussed


GIS is the database management system, which captures, stores, analyzes,processes and displays spatial data It is a verv powerful tool to study spatial objects The paper presents the establishment of spatial database system for estimating area stability in Hubei province, based on namable GIS software Arc/info by using previous geo data and remote sensing data, which is an important source to capture and update data in the spatial database system And it elaborates the content, function, applications and sense of establishing the spatial database system


Abstract : The purpose of this thesis was to determine if a quantitative model of the efficient use of available resources could be developed for Base Level Civil Engineering organizations. Available resources included personnel, material supplies and vehicle resources and was limited to those resources used in the Operations Branch. The modeling technique used in this research effort was the Constrained Facet Analysis (CFA) which can evaluate an organization based on a set of multiple outputs and multiple inputs. The set of outputs and inputs were simultaneously evaluated to produce one efficiency rating for each organization in the data set. The model also identified the relative importance of each output/input variable and identified the surplus variables causing the inefficient rating in the inefficient organizations. The analysis was accomplished by collecting data from the civil engineering organization within the Tactical Air Command. The data was analyzed using the CFA program at the Univ. of Texas at Austin. The results illustrated that the efficient use of available resources could be modeled using the CFA technique. Originator-supplied keywords include: Productivity, and Resource Management.


Turbine blades are core components in turbine. It is of great significance to diagnose the blade failures at early stage and regularly inspect them at run time. Based on the analysis of blade failures, a comprehensive application summarize of different non-destructive testing techniques in blade inspection was made in this paper. The non-destructive testing techniques include visual testing, liquid penetrant testing, magnetic particle testing, radiological testing, conventional ultrasonic testing, ultrasonic phased array testing, eddy current testing and metal magnetic memory testing. The applicability and limitation of different methods were demonstrated through comparison and analysis.


With Shipu Town as a case, this paperanalyzes the manifestation of different cultures inrespect of fishing, coastal defense, maritime trade andfire-fight in the development of this historic town,then it concludes that the function of the culture as acapital for the development and construction of thetown.


Quasi-optical (QO) reflectometer of internal reflection (IR) on the basis of a hollow dielectric beamguide (HDB) and a number of beamguiding components and devices of THz frequency range is developed. The reflectometer is tested for detection of surface contaminations and sub-surface damages of carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP). The results of the study of CFRP samples with different contaminations in sub-THz frequency range (0.1...0.2) THz are shown.


the leading languages, but where the acquisition of Italian was strongly supported. Finally, Veronique Ferrer considers Agrippa d'Aubigné's playful use of the then already moribund Gascogne in his Les Aventures du Baron de Faeneste for his Protestant protagonist, indicating through this linguistic satire the end of the Protestant dream in France. The studies in the second group do not really differ specifically from those in the first; they pursue additional case studies, such as multilingualism at the courts of Munich and Augsburg (Johannes Klaus Kipf and Fabian Prechtl), where the German vernacular was strongly supported and managed to gain a solid position even within the circles of the learned and literati through the help of the local schools, the university of Ingolstadt, and the various print shops. In Heidelberg, under Frederic II of the Palatinate, Anna Kathrin Bleuler observes clear indications of efforts to introduce courtly poetry in German again, especially by Kaspar Scheit, who used Clément Marot as his role model. Aude Plagnard takes into view the role of Portuguese at the Habsburgian court in Spain, which can be reconstructed through the analysis of dedicatory poems, catalogues of private libraries, and Portuguese literature produced there. The Italian poets at the French court, which is the topic of Franco Tomasi's article, exerted a much higher influence and could trigger a whole movement of Italianism there. Multilingualism was mostly the norm in funerary poems created at the court of Marguerite de France, as Daniele Speziari elucidates (French, Italian, Latin, and Greek). In the third section, Klaus Conermann analyzes the rising importance of literary societies at German courts, such as the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft in Köthen (between Magdeburg and Leipzig), which strove to support the use of German versus Latin and introduced the concept of the natural accent for the poetic performance (Tobias Hübner, parallel to Martin Opitz with his famous Buch der deutschen Poetery [1624], that is, in 1625). Finally, Sarah Dessì Schmid and Jochen Hafner take into view the Italian and French academies, where language awareness occupied a central position. This valuable volume concludes with the English abstracts, an extensive index, the table of contents (a little hidden), and the list of authors.


Polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) as an active microwave imaging device employing pulse compression technology to obtain echo information of multiple polarization channels has been widely used in marine target detection. However, the detection of ship targets in PolSAR images is often disturbed by clutter interference, such as side lobes, ghost ships, etc. Additionally, the current common convolutional neural network object detection models are accompanied by a large number of parameters, thereby, their performance is greatly limited by available datasets. Therefore, aiming at solving the above questions, we propose a lightweight ship detection model driven by a polarimetric notch filter (PNF) feature for PolSAR ship detection. First, considering the scattering mechanism of target and clutter, the PNF feature is constructed with geometric perturbation information to overcome the vulnerability of existing amplitude feature-driven-based detectors to clutter interferences. Then, a lightweight ship detection network (LSDNet) is proposed, which uses a limited multilayer convolutional structure supported by a small-scale dataset and introduces dilated convolution during the extraction of high-level features to achieve spatial feature perception of weak and small ship targets. Finally, combined with the region-based fully convolutional head network, the model parameter is further reduced while training and inference efficiency is accelerated. Experimental results on a substantial number of PolSAR images show that the PNF-driven LSDNet model is better than the state-of-the-art detection models in terms of accuracy and efficiency, whose parameter quantity is 41.04% less than that of Faster R-CNN and achieves 0.92 of F1 Score and 0.9683 of average precision.