Drawing on connections among musical, literary, and cinematic texts, the author explores the origin of Cuba's national anthem in an aria by Mozart, as well as its possible ties with the mostly unacknowledged intersection of opera and homosexuality in discourses of the Cuban nation, especially in Gutiérrez Alea and Tabío's Fresa y chocolate and Arenas's El color del verano.


Observational studies reveal the oscillatory nature of coupled stratosphere-troposphere variability, which is characterized by a slowly downward propagating anomalous zonal-mean zonal wind during the winter. The term "slowly" is employed compared to the rapid variation associated with stratospheric sudden warmings. In fact, strong stratospheric warming events are embedded in this slowly propagating variability as is shown in a companion paper [Kodera et al., this issue]. In the present study, the mechanism producing such variability at all levels of the atmosphere is investigated by developing a simple model that extends from the Earth's surface to 80 km altitude. The model is a quasi-geostrophic channel model similar to that used by Holton and Mass [1976], but it includes two meridional Fourier components and latitudinal variation in the gradient of the Coriolis parameter. By this extension, the present model can incorporate both the subtropical and polar night jet and also treat the horizontal propagation of planetary waves as well as vertical propagation. The results of the simulation reproduce qualitatively well the main observed features: Interaction between the planetary waves and zonal-mean flow produces oscillations in the winter stratosphere, and zonal wind anomalies created in the subtropics of the stratopause propagate downward into the polar region of the troposphere, which provoke changes in the meridional propagation of tropospheric planetary waves.


Ebola virus disease (EVD) is an emerging and remerging zoonosis associated with high fatality rate, mainly caused by the Zaire Ebola virus (ZEBOV) and Sudan Ebola virus (SEBOV) strains. Approximately 20 epidemics of EVD have been documented mainly in Central African countries since 1976. Currently, there are no therapeutics agents and vaccines yet approved for EVD. However, several promising therapeutics and vaccines candidates are actively undergoing various phase of clinical development. This study aims to study the EVD dynamics and evaluate the potential impacts of vaccines and other preventive measures on EVD transmission control and significance of medical intervention on outcome of the disease. An initial branch chain model of EVD dynamics was built based on data obtained from previous study. Different epidemiological scenarios for EVD with impacts of intervention were simulated using Berkeley-Madonna Version 8.3.18 software. Every reduction in the exposure rate of EBV infection by 10% produces two- to five-fold improvement in protection against EVD. Transmission control is optimum when the rate of exposure to EBV infection is reduced below 1%. Optimal control of EVD transmission can be achieved through strategic implementation of successful vaccination programme, and other preventive measures as well as rapid delivery of supportive medical care.


. We present global fits of the constrained Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (cMSSM) and the Non-Universal Higgs Model (NUHM), including the most recent CMS constraint on the Higgs boson mass, 5.8 fb − 1 integrated luminosity null Supersymmetry searches by ATLAS, the new LHCb measurement of BR ( B s → µ + µ − ) and the 7-year WMAP dark matter relic abundance determination. We include the latest dark matter constraints from the XENON100 experiment, marginalising over astrophysical and particle physics uncertainties. We present Bayesian posterior and profile likelihood maps of the highest resolution available today, obtained from up to portions of the currently favoured cMSSM and NUHM parameter space. The LHC operating at 14 TeV collision energy will explore the favoured regions in the cMSSM, while most of the regions favoured in the NUHM will remain inaccessible. Our best-fit points achieve a satisfactory quality-of-fit, with p-values ranging from 0.21 to 0.35, so that none of the two models studied can be presently excluded at any meaningful significance level.


To the Editor. —I could not agree with the conclusions of Drs LaPuma and Priest 1 any more strongly. It is common for us to treat our own family members, particularly our children, for what we consider "routine exams," especially when this involves filling out forms for athletic, school, or employment physicals. Recently, my oldest daughter, a healthy-looking 21-year-old and a senior in college, needed a physical examination as part of postgraduate pursuit. In bold letters on the top of the physical examination sheet was printed "May Not Be Completed by a Family Member." With this, my daughter went to our family physician who performed a thorough examination. He found a very small lump at the base of her neck. I found the lump difficult to even feel, and I am quite sure I would have discounted it on my examination. After a few weeks, definitive diagnosis of stage II


Lithiation of pyridylethyl sulfones (I) and (X) with excess BuLi and subsequent addition of a variety of aldehydes results in direct formation of sulfone-eliminated vinylpyridine allylic alcohols in high or complete (E)-selectivity.


102 SELECTION OF COMBINATORIAL ALGORITHM FOR OPTIMIZATION IN MULTISERVICE NETWORK TRAFIC CONTROL А.А. Kovalenko, G.А. Kuchuk, А.А. Mozhaev The combinatorial algorithms for discrete optimization problem solution, applied to switching nodes of multiservice networks, are considered. Conditions for selection of algorithm type, depending on nature of the problem, are determined. Implicit enumeration algorithms on lacing and tree, as well as algorithms of dynamic programming method are analyzed in details.


and do not mention the uncommon but frequently fatal complication of cardiac tamponade due to extravasation of fluid into the pericardial sac. This complication may occur soon after insertion but usually there is a delay between insertion and perforation of the myocardium by the catheter tip, indeed this has been reported up to 55 days after catheterisation (1). We have recently encountered such a case. A 59-year-old woman with advanced ovarian cancer required parenteral nutrition due to a spontaneous, high output, small bowel fistula. An 18G Silastic® catheter was inserted into the right subclavian vein using the Seldinger technique. Blood was easily aspirated and there was a positive flashback ofvenous blood on lowering the infusion bag. Chest radiography confirmed correct positioning of the catheter. Parenteral nutrition was commenced and proceeded apparently uneventfully for 12h whereupon the patient suddenly collapsed and died. Post mortem revealed the tip of the catheter to be lying in the pericardial sac resulting in hydropericardium. Cardiac tamponade is a rare but well-described complication of central venous catheterisation (2) which occurs particularly when arm veins are used to insert long lines, but also when the subclavian or internal jugular vein is used (3,4). In a recent review Harford and Kleinsasser (5) found that only 6 of 35 reported cases survived. This complication may be overlooked if autopsy is not performed as the signs may mimic those of the condition necessitating catheterisation. Emergency management includes placement of the infusion bag on the floor and immediate pericardiocentesis. There is no foolproof method of avoiding this complication, which usually occurs after initially correct catheter placement. However, increased use of the peripheral route for parenteral nutrition might reduce the need for central venous catheterisation and its associated potentially fatal complications. MALCOLM W R REED FRCS Surgical Registrar Royal Hallamshire Hospital Sheffield


A. NONLINEAR MAP INTERVAL ESTIMATION We shall consider two problems related to the equations specifying the nonlinear interval estimator. In the first part, we shall discuss a method for solving these equations which involves the optimum nonlinear realizable filter. In the second part, we shall present a technique for determining the optimum nonlinear realizable filter from the equations specifying the nonlinear interval estimator. We shall assume that the following equations describe the system of interest: dx(t) dt -f(x(t),t) + g(x(t),t) u(t) nonlinear state equation


Post-procedural bleedings have a significant impact on mortality in patients undergoing transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR). Unfortunately, the source of these bleedings is often undetermined, causing difficulties in diagnosis and related treatment. Furthermore, the frequency and determinants of 'non-overt' bleeding are largely lacking in TAVR studies. Accordingly, in this analysis, we aimed to assess the frequency and determinants of haemoglobin drop without overt bleeding in patients undergoing TAVR.

 Patients undergoing TAVR at Magna Graecia University in Catanzaro from September 2008 to November 2020 were included in this study. Post-procedural haemoglobin (Hb) drop was calculated subtracting the lowest value observed after the procedure to the one obtained at admission (Hb drop). The association between baseline clinical and procedural variables with Hb drop was investigated with a linear regression model.

 Out of 407 patients undergoing TAVR at our institution, 119 (29.2%) were excluded because experiencing overt bleeding, red blood cells transfusion, were treated with only balloon angioplasty, or for procedural unsuccess. Among the 288 patients included in the final analysis, 239 (83.0%) were older than 74 y.o., 148 (51.4%) were female, 94 (32.6%) were diabetics, and 69 (24.0%) had CKD. All the patients were deemed at intermediate/high operatory risk and treated using the transfemoral approach. After TAVR, Hb significantly decreased (12.6 ± 1.6 g/dL to 9.7 ± 1.3 g/dL, P < 0.001), with an absolute mean reduction of 2.9 ± 1.23 g/dL 126 patients (43.8%) had Hb drop ≥ 3 g/dL, while 11 (3.8%) had Hb drop ≥ 5 g/dL. The table below summarizes the determinants of Hb drop. Among them, the new generation of self-expandable and balloon-expandable devices were associated with a lower post-procedural Hb drop compared to the previous generation of self-expandable devices, alongside, higher body mass index and hypertension.

 Post-procedural reduction of Hb without overt bleeding or RBC transfusion is frequent, involving almost half of the patients undergoing TAVR. The introduction in clinical practice of new-generation valve devices is significantly associated with a reduction of this adverse event. However, further and thorough investigation should be accomplished to reclassify this large part of patients into a well-defined category.


Application of shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators is limited to low frequencies due to slow cooling time especially in the embedded conditions where heat transfer rate is the controlling factor. In this study, we investigate various active cooling techniques and effect of pre-stress to improve the response time of two commercially available SMAs: Flexinol from Dynalloy Inc. and Biometal fiber from Toki Corporation. Flexinol and Biometal fiber of equal length and diameter were found to exhibit different actuation behavior under pre-stress. Time domain force response of SMA actuators was found to be dependent upon the applied pre-stress, heating rate, and amplitude of applied electrical stimulus. Compared to Biometal fibers, time domain response of Flexinol was found to decrease significantly with increasing pre-stress indicating the difference in transformation behavior. Fluid flow and heat sinking were found to be suitable methods for improving the response time by reducing the cooling cycle from 1.6 s to 0.30—0.45 s. This is a significant improvement in the actuation capability of SMAs.


Introduction: After coronavirus infectious disease (COVID-19) infection, many patients have residual and persistent neurological symptoms. The severity and extent of these symptoms is still unknown Methods: Over 1 year, a virtual questionnaire was applied, using Google Forms, to people who had confirmed COVID-19 infection in Brazil, analyzing the neurological symptoms that persisted after infection, their duration and the relationship between them and the severity of the acute infection. Findings: Out of 1194 people who answered the questionnaire, 947 (79.5%) were eligible for symptoms analysis. Among these patients, 6.8% needed hospitalization (39.2% of them required oxygen therapy and 26.6% needed orotracheal intubation). The incidence of symptoms were headache (65,8%), smell disfunction (59,6%), taste disfunction (51,8%), muscle weakness (51,8%), memory impairment (42,8%), dizziness (37,7%), mental confusion (22,4%), difficulty walking (20%), and visual changes (9,1%). In most cases, symptoms improved within a month, despite a significant percentage of patients persisting with symptoms for several months. However, memory impairment was significantly more persistent, with 39.7% of the patients having it for more than a year. And this was frequent even in those who did not need hospitalization in the acute phase of the disease, with 24.2% of all nonhospitalized patients having this complain for more than 6 months. Interpretation: Many COVID-19 patients have persistent neurological symptoms after the acute infection has ended. In some cases the symptoms can last a long time. Despite being a self-reported study, it is very likely that there is a significant functional impact in this population and it is clear that we need to research effective therapeutic strategies for these conditions.


Democratization and the Islamist Challenge in the Arab World By Najib Ghadbian

Sovereign Creations: Pan-Arabism and Political Order in Syria and Iraq By Malik Mufti


Several extensively used segregation measures have known limitations in differentiating various spatial configurations of population distribution. Recently, new segregation indices overcoming this deficiency were introduced, but are only applicable to unrealistic two-group situations. In this paper, I attempt to model multiethnic segregation on the basis of the notions that segregation refers to the spatial separation among ethnic groups and that interaction among population groups can reduce segregation. The level of segregation is reduced when interaction among ethnic groups increases. The spatial index introduced here is based on an existing segregation measure for a multigroup setting. I demonstrate that the proposed index is efficient in distinguishing different spatial patterns of multiethnic population and is able to reflect the potential for spatial interaction among groups. A simulation and an empirical study are used to illustrate the utility of the proposed index.


The article deals with the use of test technologies when teaching Russian to foreign students at the elementary and intermediate levels. Some problems of testology are also discussed.


Medicine related problems resulting in hospitalizations constitute an important public health problem that should influence prevention strategies defined by healthcare decision makers. Systematic reviews are useful to provide evidence on the magnitude of this problem. Al Hamid et al. 1 are to be congratulated for the relevance of their research. However, several concerns arise that may hinder the conclusions of their study.

The authors applied two exclusion criteria that may limit the external validity of their study. Although they declared in the methods section that studies were eligible when having at least an abstract written in English, ultimately they excluded articles written in any other language. In addition, they only considered studies published after 2000 without providing any reasons for that time limit. We could identify 21 studies published before 2000 and 16 studies published in non-English languages, that could be included in this systematic review.

Apart from these limitations, this review does not fully comply with the Prisma statement 2 and AMSTAR instrument 3, which may also affect its internal validity and reliability. We could not replicate the studies selection process for two reasons. Al Hamid et al. 1 retrieved 1950 articles, including duplicated records, from 14 databases. However, using the strategy provided and limiting the search until May 2013, we could only retrieve 2146 articles in Pubmed. Additionally, Prisma recommends providing the reasons of exclusion at each stage of the eligibility process, while AMSTAR requires the full list of excluded papers, both of them not included in the article or in supplementary materials.

But even more important, the authors did not perform an appropriate quality assessment of the included studies, and consequently they could not issue any conclusions according to their quality. Loney et al. 4 developed an instrument to assess the quality of studies measuring prevalence of a health problem. As Al Hamid et al. 1 have not reported if the included studies used any sampling method, selection bias cannot be excluded, which is highly relevant in cross-sectional studies. Information regarding whether randomization existed or not, and the response rate are crucial to determine the representativeness of the results.

The Loney instrument 4 also allows the identification of information bias derived from poor quality outcome measurements. In Al Hamid et al.'s study 1 two concerns may arise regarding this topic. Information about causality assessment within the studies was lacking. Some studies used only pharmacists to establish the association between hospitalization and medicines, while others also included physicians. Even more important is the muddled use of the main outcome variable. Although in the introduction the authors stated that medicine related problems (MRPs) comprise adverse drug reactions (ADRs), adverse drug events (ADEs), and medication errors, they divided the results into ADRs, ADEs and MRPs. This inconsistency reinforces the existence of a conceptual chaos around terms used in patient safety related to medication 5. The lack of commonly accepted definitions is a major limitation when attempting to determine the prevalence of an event.

Additionally, the authors recognized a large heterogeneity of results preventing them to perform meta-analysis, although they did not use a robust subgroup analysis to manage it. The study presents only two subgroup analyses: One was based on the outcomes assessed, despite the conceptual confusion around them, as previously mentioned. The other subgroup analysis was based on the orientation of included studies (retrospective vs. prospective). Notwithstanding the latter, prevalence obtained ranged from 0.76 to 54.5% in ADRs, from 1.99 to 30.4 % in ADEs and from 1 to 72 % in MRPs, even ignoring the confidence intervals of these distributions. The authors associated the higher prevalence in prospective studies with 'closer contact with the patient'. Study orientation could be a confounder of the other underlying variable, the data collection method. Retrospective studies usually evaluate medical records or databases, whereas prospective studies may evaluate these two sources of information but also patient interviews, which provide an actual closer contact with the patient. In addition, other heterogeneity causes were not considered with appropriate subgroup analyses. For instance, reported patients' average age in the included studies ranged from 41.92 to 81.8 years, duration ranged from 0.24 to 120 months and sample sizes ranged from 48 to 6 830 067 patients. Moreover, one of the most important variables to segment the studies, the average number of medicines per patient, was ignored.

We could obtain data to perform meta-analyses from 19 out of the 45 studies included in Al Hamid et al. study 1. Specially, out of the 21 studies reported as investigating ADRs related hospitalizations, 17 contained enough data to perform a meta-analysis. From the 21 studies we identified published before 2000, three could be included in a meta-analysis, resulting in a total of 20 studies. A sub-group analysis by age produces event rates of 13% in elderly studies, 7.5% in adult/elderly and 2.3% in unrestricted age studies. Another relevant sub-group analysis could be the data collection system, resulting in event rates of 11.7% when patient interview existed and 5.9% when interviews were not used.

As a result of not having performed a subgroup analysis considering the quality of included studies or their heterogeneous characteristics, central tendency measures of prevalence reported by Al Hamid et al. 1, like median, may be misleading. This limitation could be overcome by analyzing the sources of heterogeneity and carrying out meta-analyses by subgroups, considering normality adjustment and adequate statistical methods and models.


Received: 26/08/2022 Accepted: 07/05/2023 This article provides a brief overview of the main ideas in Adler's Individual Psychology. Adler began his career in psychology working with Sigmund Freud. However, while Adler developed Freud's psychoanalytic theory over time, he did not agree with Freud that behavior was founded on sexuality and violence. As a result, he abandoned psychoanalysis and established his own theory, known as "Individual Psychology". According to Adler, the phenomena that shape human life are not childhood traumas and bad events, but socio-cultural effects. He also argues that it is our present wishes and expectations, rather than the unconscious, that regulate human behavior. Not only our previous experiences shape us; As human beings, we constantly reinvent ourselves. Creative self-perception is based on the belief that each individual shapes their own personality. Adlerian Psychology (Individual Psychology) has a lot of similarities with newer therapeutic approaches such as humanistic and cognitive therapies. In this article, t he founder of individual psychology, Alfred Adler's views on human nature, basic concepts, counseling relations and principles are discussed. In this study, which shows a qualitative research feature, document analysis technique was used.


Nigeria's abundant solid minerals constitute some of the largest known deposits in recent years under different categories. With the activities in the sector characterized by production and a growing environmental decline often overlooked. This research uses a mix scale approach of descriptive statistics and GIS methodology in analyzing the ecological impacts of mining in Nigeria. Emphases are on the issues, environmental and spatial analysis of the trends, factors associated with the issues and current efforts. The results not only reveal large deposits and changes in production, Nigeria's mineral deposits showed continual growth much of the time despite a few declines. From a -16.98% drop in 2010-2011, aluminium deposits rose by 22.64-63.08% in 2008 to 2009 and the other years. With time, Illegal mining in Pandogari, Niger state stretched through a 17.5 km2-130 km2 radius from 1992 to 1998. By the year 2000, mining operations extended further into a vast area measuring 200 km2 and continued in 2004-2006 with more incursions onto 254-312 km2. The heavy toll of mining on the environment comes with the declines in forest land area in Bukuru, Plateau state where forest area of 420.52 km2 in 1975 fell to 399.56 km2 by 1986. The downward slide continued almost 20 years after in 2005 with only 155.63 km2 area left with green cover. The other burden of pollution risks involves the 1,000 abandoned mine ponds, alongside 1,100-4,000 tin and columbite mines left behind from the mining booms of past eras in the 1960s and spread all over Jos, Plateau. These threats are compounded further by the 400 fatalities from lead poisoning triggered by illegal quarrying in Zamfara in 2010. The GIS mapping of the trends showed clusters of areas prone to hazards and the dispersion of solid mineral potentials in the nation with the impacts linked to socio-economic elements. For mitigation, the study offered suggestions ranging from education to regular assessment of ecological liabilities and the need for policy enhancement.


The potential of gas chromatography / tandem mass spectrometry with triple quadrupole analyzer for determination of 12 polybrominated diphenyl ethers in human breast tissues has been investigated. After extraction with hexane, two purification procedures -automated normal-phase HPLC and solid phase extraction – were assayed. Both electron impact ionization, in selected reaction monitoring mode, and negative chemical ionization, in selected ion recording mode, were tested for the optimum determination of analytes. Isotopically labelled standards were added before extraction as surrogates: [ 13 C] BDE47, [ 13 C] BDE99 and [ 13 C] BDE153 for EI, and p,p' -DDE-D 8 for NCI. The method was validated in terms of accuracy, precision, limits of detection and limits of quantification, using human breast tissue spiked at three levels in the range 1-50 ng/g (5-250 ng/g for BDE 209). The analytical approach using SPE clean-up followed by GC-MS (NCI) led to lower detection limits (0.006-2 ng/g) and allowed the determination of the most problematic congener, BDE 209, whose poor sensitivity made difficult its determination at low residue levels. Special attention was given to the confirmation of the compounds detected in samples in order to avoid reporting false positives. Two MS/MS transitions or three m/z ions were selected for each analyte when using EI or NCI modes, respectively. In both cases, the transition/ion intensity ratio was used as confirmation parameter. The developed methodology was applied to the analysis of real human samples. Several BDEs (BDEs congeners 47, 100, 99, 154, 153 183 and 209) were detected in the range of 0.08-0.23 ng/g.


This thesis describes protein structure characterization by solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (ssNMR), including structural investigation of mouse alpha-synuclein (maS) fibrils and the comparison to human apha-synuclein (aS) fibrils, sparse 13C labeling schemes based on [1-13C]Glucose ([1-13C]Glc) and [2-13C]Glucose ([2-13C]Glc), and stereospecific assignment of Val and Leu prochiral methyl groups by the [2-13C]Glc labeling scheme.
Fibrillar aS is the major component of Lewy bodies, the pathological hallmark of Parkinson's disease. maS aggregates much faster than haS, although maS differs from haS at only seven positions in its primary sequence. Currently, little is known about the site-specific structural differences between maS and haS fibrils. In Part I of this thesis, we applied state-of-the-art ssNMR methods to structurally characterize maS fibrils. The assignment strategy employed a set of high-resolution 2D and 3D ssNMR spectra recorded on uniformly [13C]Glc-, [1-13C]Glc-, and [2-13C]Glc-labeled maS fibrils. Proteins produced with [1-13C]Glc or [2-13C]Glc are very sparsely labeled and the resulting 2D ssNMR spectra exhibit smaller linewidths and contain a reduced number of cross peaks. This allows for an accelerated and straightforward resonance assignment using a limited set of simple 2D experiments. The approach is successfully demonstrated with the de novo assignment of maS fibrils.
The unambiguous stereospecific assignment of the prochiral methyl groups in Val and Leu plays an important role in the structural investigation of proteins by NMR. In Part II of this thesis, we present a straightforward method for the stereospecific ssNMR assignment of the prochiral methyl groups of Val and Leu using [2-13C]Glc as the sole carbon source for the biosynthesis of amino acids. The approach is fundamentally based on the stereoselective biosynthetic pathway of Val and Leu, and the co-presence of [2-13C]pyruvate produced mainly by glycolysis and [3-13C]/[1,3-13C]pyruvate most probably formed through scrambling in the pentose phosphate pathway starting from [2-13C]Glc. As a consequence, the isotope spin pairs of 13Cb-13Cg2 and 13Ca-13Cg1 in Val, and 13Cg-13Cd2 and 13Cb-13Cd1 in Leu are obtained. The approach is successfully demonstrated with the stereospecific assignment of the methyl groups of Val and Leu of type 3 secretion system PrgI needles and of microcrystalline ubiquitin.


The thesis analyzed the development structure application of image monitoring control in substation of power system,also submitting the situation viewing of application in power system.


Background and Objective: The purpose of the present study was to assess the radiological changes involving the articular surfaces of temporomandibular joints (TMJs) in patients with osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) using computed tomography (CT) scans. Materials and Methods: A total of 20 patients with OA and 20 patients with RA were subjected to a detailed examination, routine radiography, and CT imaging of the TMJs. CT scanning was carried out for the direct axial view and reconstructed to coronal and sagittal planes with contiguous slice thickness of 2 mm using bone window. All the images were evaluated for the presence of osteophytes, flattening of the articular surfaces, sclerosis, and narrowing of the joint space and subjected to statistical analysis. Results: The female to male ratio of the study group for OA and RA was 2:1, respectively. Of all the CT findings, namely, osteophytes, flattening of the articular surfaces, sclerosis, and narrowing of the joint space, statistically significant values (P = 0.056) for osteophytes were obtained. Flattening and narrowing of joint space were seen in both types of arthritides, however, a relatively higher percentage of such patients was seen in RA group. Conclusion: OA and RA of the TMJ are the two most commonly seen conditions which can impair the functional capacity of the entire masticatory system. Their in-depth clinical and radiological evaluation is a must to assess the disease activity. Likewise, CT is a valuable tool in assessing osseous abnormalities and should be used in cases where osseous involvement of the TMJs is suspected.


In this paper design and analysis of a tunable microwave photonic delay line is presented. Challenges and practical considerations of microwave and optical components are discussed. The design process and important parameters of the structure are considered. A 100 ns to 12.7 μs variable delay with 100 ns step is achieved with 8–12 GHz bandwidth. To enhance the system performance bias angle of the modulator is optimized to 137 degrees. Noise figure, gain and spurious free dynamic range of the proposed structure are 8 dB, 19 dB and 110 dB respectively. The performance of the structure is superior to other structures reported in the literature.


Small pelagic fish are key elements of marine trophic networks and are of great importance to the total landing of marine species. Over the last decades, a decrease in biomass and catches of European sardine has been described, especially in the Mediterranean Sea, as an indication of a drop in stock condition. Multiple causes, including direct and indirect anthropogenic factors, seem to affect this ecologically and economically important species. To address this issue, it is important to identify the current variability in sardine status and understand the strategies for energy allocation, which are intimately related to reproductive potential and recruitment. We analyzed the somatic condition through tissue and mesenteric lipid measurements, relative condition (Kn) and hepatosomatic (HSI) indices, and reproductive condition with the gonadosomatic index (GSI) in four subareas of the Mediterranean (Northern Alboran, Northern Spain, the Northern Adriatic, and the Aegean Sea) and an outgroup from the Atlantic. The analyses were performed within the gonadal development cycle since translocation to reproduction may mask the state of actual energy reserves for comparison. The results revealed marked differences in health status among subareas, highlighting the low condition of Northern Spain sardines throughout the annual cycle. The uniform condition throughout gonadal development in the Northern Adriatic suggests that resource availability modulates the reproductive strategy since in this locality, sardines would have high dependence on immediate reserves, not behaving as strict capital breeders. Moreover, similarities between Alboran and Atlantic stocks are discussed, highlighting the marked energy replenishment of the latter after reproduction compared to the Mediterranean stocks. The Aegean stock was the fastest to reach its maximum after spawning, presenting low condition values from the developing to actively spawning period, but with the greatest recovery at the regressing phase, coinciding with a peak in productivity. Finally, the role of the liver in sardine energy storage is analyzed considering stock heterogeneity, potentially indicating that HSI is intimately related to feeding activity. Given the divergences among stocks, we propose concrete measures for managing this resource (i.e., the need for adapting the close seasons), which could be applied to other species in similar contexts.


Brouwer, R. W., et al. (eds.). Coherence and Conflict in Law. Proceedings of the Third BeneluxScandinavian Symposium in Legal Theory: Amsterdam, January 3-5, 1991 (Serie Rechtsfilosofie en Rechtstheorie 7). Deventer, Boston: Kluwer Law and Taxation Publishers/ Zwolle: W.E.J. Tjeenk Willink, 1992. Pp. xii, 287. f 79. Brownlie, Ian, and D. W. Bowett (eds.). The British Year Book of International Law 1991. Vol. 62. Oxford: Clarendon Press/New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. Pp. ix, 728. Index. $169. Gamble, John King. Teaching International Law in the 1990s. No. 24, Studies in Transnational Legal Policy. Washington, D.C.: ASIL/Survey of International Law (SAIL) Project under the sponsorship of the Ford Foundation, 1993. Pp. xix, 187. $15 plus $5 postage. Partan, Daniel G. The International Law Process. Cases and Materials. Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1992. Pp. xxxi, 874. Index. $65; students $45. Wasilkowski, Andrzej, et al. (eds.). Institute of Law Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences. Polish Yearbook of International Law 19891990. Vol 18. Wroclaw, Warsaw, Krakow: (Ossolineum Publishing House) Zaklad Narodowy Imienia Ossoli skich Wydawnictwo Polskiej Akademii Nauk, 1992. Pp. 205.


In this article, the limiting characteristics of a digital optoelectronic processor are explored. The limits are defined by diffraction effects and a matrix structure of the devices for input and output of optical signals. The purpose of a present research is to optimize the parameters of the processor's components. The developed physical and mathematical model of DOEP allowed to establish the limit characteristics of the processor, restricted by diffraction effects and an array structure of the equipment for input and output of optical signals, as well as to optimize the parameters of the processor's components. The diameter of the entrance pupil of the Fourier lens is determined by the size of SLM and the pixel size of the modulator. To determine the spectral resolution, it is offered to use a concept of an optimum phase when the resolved diffraction maxima coincide with the pixel centers of the radiation detector.


t l ody Miller's One of the Guys: Girls, Gangs and Gender presents an exciting, infor mative, and original examination of the structure, activities, and place of gang mem bers in urban society. This is a fresh and different approach to the study of girls and gangs, which identifies the roles and place of girls in contemporary urban street gangs; it also looks at if, how, and why girls in gangs differ from boys in gangs and how and why girls in gangs differ from girls who are not in gangs. Miller breaks from the traditional approaches of studying girls in gangs by not simply searching for gender differences or similarities in experiences between girls and boys. Rather, Miller takes a staunchly feminist approach that looks at the lives of gang girls in the situational contexts in which the girls locate themselves. This goes beyond seeing these girls as victims of circumstances or communities. Instead, it situates girls as able, socially competent, and decision-making people who are guided by their communities' cultural and economic conditions. This approach, however, is imbedded in a feminist belief that gender is important and clearly influential on the ways that gang girls function as individuals and as gang members. What emerges is a challenge for readers' insights regarding gangs, feminism, and women's criminality. The analysis is based on two comparative analyses: the first between gang girls in two different Midwestern cities (Columbus and St. Louis) and the second between urban girls who are and are not gang members. In addition to the comparative approach, Miller nicely integrates a mix of qualitative and quantitative data collected via interviews with a sample of 94 urban girls. While the qualitative interviews pro vide the primary data, they are supplemented with statistical illustrations and expla nations that provide a grounding not typically found in interview-based inquiries. The research is a well-designed, well-executed, and methodologically sound piece of research. The result is a rich and easily understood examination of the lives and experiences of girls in urban street gangs. The book moves from how and why girls choose (or choose not) to join gangs; gang initiation methods; the structure of and variation in gang life; the forms of delinquency in which gang girls are involved; girls' perceptions of their roles relative to those of gang boys; how girls' activities are constrained by their own and boys' choices; boys' forms of victimization of gang girls; how gang girls perceive, explain, and manage gender relations; and issues of equality/inequality within their gangs. Throughout the book, girls' experiences are presented in simple and straightforward ways, illustrated by the voices of the girls themselves. The analysis goes far beyond simple documentation and description, however. Feminist theoretical underpinnings are brought out throughout the text. Theory is definitely present, although many readers will not necessarily notice; instead, the theoretical contributions of the work flow "naturally" in Miller's discussion. This is one of Miller's most significant accom plishments: she deftly infuses theory into colorful and engaging description. Readers


Over the past few years, there has been a resurgence of interest in the investigation of spatial patterns in body size over large-scales to explore Bergmann's rule at different phylogenetic scales across a range of taxa (Blackburn et al. 1999, Gaston et al. 2008). In its original formulation Bergmann's rule predicts that among closely related endotherms those living in colder regions tend to be larger than those in warmer environments as a result of their reduced surface-to-volume ratios and, hence, better heat conservation (Bergmann 1847). Remarkably, the debate around the validity of this ecogeographical ''rule'' has long been fostered by the conflation of pattern (increasing body size towards colder regions) and mechanism (heat conservation) (Blackburn et al. 1999). However, there is increasing recognition that the geographical distribution of body size is markedly idiosyncratic and Bergmann's physiological mechanism cannot explain the observed size clines everywhere (Rodriguez et al. 2008, Diniz-Filho et al. 2009). Accordingly, a differentiation has to be made between pattern and process, so that the latter is not explicitly inherent to the former. In doing such distinction we do not only spur the scientific debate around the validity of the ''rule'', but the search of alternatives to Bergmann's original mechanism that are able to account for the observed size clines. Part of the controversy around Bergmann's rule stems from the seminal papers of Ray (1960) and Lindsey (1966) suggesting that some ectothermic organisms display intra and interspecific body size variation as a response to environmental gradients, which apparently requires alternative explanations to the ones offered for endotherms (Cushman et al. 1993, Ashton and Feldman 2003, OlallaTarraga and Rodriguez 2007). Since then, workers have tried to identify ecological or evolutionary mechanisms accounting for body size clines in ectotherms, but we are far from a consensus on a unifying mechanism. A critical step before searching for underlying mechanisms is indeed examining what the patterns look like in nature. Because Bergmann's rule was originally formulated for endothermic vertebrates, an abundant number of studies have reported the existence of body size gradients in mammals and birds (Ashton et al. 2000, Ashton 2002a, Rodriguez et al. 2008, Diniz-Filho et al. 2009, Olson et al. 2009), whereas the geographical variation of body size for many ectothermic organisms remains mostly unknown (but see below). Several authors have documented the patterns and explored the causes of body size variation in ectotherms at different levels of biological organization (Ashton 2002b, Belk and Houston 2002, Ashton and Feldman 2003, Blanckenhorn and Demont 2004, OlallaTarraga et al. 2006, Olalla-Tarraga and Rodriguez 2007, Adams and Church 2008). Notwithstanding, the variety of methods and terminologies involved not only prevent a comparison of results from different studies but also indicate the lack of agreement on a single standard approach to investigate Bergmann's rule. Gaston et al. (2008) recently attempted to clear up part of the confusion by identifying three kinds of approaches to studying spatial patterns in biological traits in general and Bergmann's rule in particular: intraspecific, interspecific and assemblage-based. They stressed that the distinction between intraand interspecific approaches seems to be clear, but there is some confusion on the methodological differences between interspecific (hereafter ''cross-species'') and assemblagebased studies. Beyond semantic considerations (e.g. the assemblage-based approach has also been termed as the ''community'', ''interspecific'' or ''grid-based'' approach) (Blackburn and Hawkins 2004, Olalla-Tarraga et al. 2006), the methodological disparities between cross-species and assemblage-based approaches may not be trivial in terms of interpreting patterns and processes (Ruggiero and Hawkins 2006). In our view, this requires particular attention. Ecography 33: 362 368, 2010 doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0587.2010.06244.x # 2010 The Authors. Journal compilation # 2010 Ecography


Objective:To investigate the status of Helicobacter pylori(Hp) infection and drug resistance in gastric disease patients from Xianning area.Methods:267 Hp isolates were collected and identified from the gastric mucosa of 402 patients with peptic ulcer and gastritis.Kirby–Baner method was used as antimicrobial susceptibility test for assaying the drug resistance rate of Hp to metronidazole,clarithromycin,amoxicillin,levofloxacin and gentamycin.Results:In Xianning area,the infection rate of Hp in 402 patients with gastric disease was 66.4%,there was statistic significance between different regions and gastric diseases(P0.05).The drug resistance rates of Hp isolates to metronidazole,clarithromycin,amoxicillin,levofloxacin and gentamycin were 71.5%,11.0%,12.2%,6.2% and 2.2%.Conclusion:The higher Hp infection rates were showed in Xianning area.Hp infection rates in rural areas were higher than those in urban areas.Hp infection is correlated with he occurrence of gastric diseases.The drug resistance of Hp isolates to metronidazole is serious.Clarithromycin and amoxicillin are the first choice drug in treating Hp infection in the native area.


To improve the agility and efficiency of the highway decision-making system and overcome the local optimal dilemma of the existing safety field, this paper builds an improved safety field to reflect the advantage of the reachable states and the learning process is further employed to make the decision long-term optimal. Firstly, the improved safety field is prepared by the kinematic model-based prediction of surrounding vehicles and the boundary is determined elaborately to ensure real-time performance. Then, the field is constructed by three individual fields. One is the kinematic field, which is built based the safe-distance model to measure the colliding risk of both moving or no-moving objects accurately. Another is the road field that reflects the lane-marker constraint. The last is the efficiency field, which is introduced creatively to improve efficiency. Furthermore, the learning algorithm is adopted to learn the long-term optimal state-action sequence in the safety field. Finally, the simulations are conducted in Prescan platform to validate the feasibility of the improved safety field in complex scenarios. The results show that the proposed decision algorithm can always drive autonomous vehicle to the state with a long-term optimal payoff and can improve the overall performance compared to the existing pure safety field and the interaction-aware method.


Currently more than half a million international students are enrolled at U.S. colleges and universities. All of these students face challenges associated with integrating into their new host education environments and learning how to make their way through the rules and regulations of their host university and community. Social network theories attribute behaviors to the structural and relational attributes of one's social network including access to resources and information. The social networks of most international student's are insular, dense, and homogeneous and serve to reinforce cultural norms in the host society. Further, they provide little to no access to dissimilar others and limit information flow to redundant information. China and India are the countries of origin of over 20% of U.S. international students. The goal of this research was to understand the constructs of the Chinese and Indian students' social networks and ascertain factors affecting satisfaction and influencing academic progression. Support related to making their way through the university system and residing in the host community framed the social networks. Among the variables studied were tie strength, homogeneity, roles and relationships of network members. Results indicated that while significant differences existed within the Chinese and Indian student populations, their networks contained many similarities. Males' networks were more homogeneous and dense than females' networks and weak links were more prevalent in females' networks. Chinese males had the most insular networks. The networks of Indian students and Chinese females were in many cases more similar with one another and different from those of Chinese males. Network members were predominately friends and most were students. University faculty and staff were present in only 12% of Chinese males' networks and at least 25% of all other groups.


213 soil macrofauna,which belong to 2 phylums,6 Classes,13 kinds,were captured.Research shows that: superiority groups are Oligochaeta and Formicidae;rare groups are Millipedes、Scolopendromorpha、Hemiptera、Diptera和Lepidoptera.Individual density of Soil Macrofauna in different forest land use,cultivated forest landnatural forest land,the H' index and the e index of cultivated forest land is highest,the c index of natural forest land is the highest.The number of groups is natural forest landcultivated forest land, the number of individual macrofauna is: cultivated forest landnatural forest land.Oligochaeta of Superiority group is natural forest landcultivated forest land,Formicidae of Superiority group is cultivated forest land natural forest land.In the vertical direction,the number of individuals and groups of soil animals is highest in soil 0~5 cm up,the number of individuals and groups overall rendering a layer-by-layer decrement state.


Proper Sequencing and Level-Bridging Scaffolding in Learning a Chemical System with Graphical Simulations Na Li (email@example.com) th Teachers College, Columbia University, 525 W. 120 street New York, NY 10025 USA John Black (firstname.lastname@example.com) th Teachers College, Columbia University, 525 W. 120 street New York, NY 10025 USA Abstract Secondary-level students encounter many difficulties in learning complex systems with hierarchical levels. Scaffolding is very critical in teaching complex systems. We have two complementary research questions on scaffolding: 1. How can we chunk and sequence the learning activities in teaching complex systems? 2. How can we help students make connections across system levels? A simulation-based environment teaching a chemical system was used as the research instrument, and the study was conducted at a middle school setting. The results showed that the sequencing method following the "from concrete to abstract" principle produced better recall and comprehension of the system concepts (knowledge integration), while the sequencing method aligned with the casual structure of the system facilitated the construction of a better causal model for transfer. The results also demonstrated that explicit level-bridging scaffolding had positive effects on both knowledge integration and learning the deep causal structure. Keywords: Complex systems; sequencing methods; level- bridging scaffolding; secondary-level science Research Background Complex systems have become an important topic in today's science education. It is usually difficult for students to learn complex systems with hierarchical levels and abstract system dynamics (Jacobson & Wilensky, 2006). Complex systems can be difficult from different perspectives. 1). Spatial- temporal extension of a system, e.g., there are many system levels with complex formation and interactivity 2). Abstract system levels and causal structures in a system, e.g., higher- level patterns emerging from lower-level dynamics (Bar- yam, 1997). Although two types of difficulties always coexist in various complex systems, one may define the complexity more than the other in a specific context or at a certain learning stage. Biological and natural systems often have many system levels, diversified local behaviors and interactivity (Hmelo-silver & Azevedo, 2006). For example, the human circulatory system has a "downward tree" structure with a large number of elements, and varied local element interactivity. Effective knowledge integration is a learning difficulty students have to conquer before learning the emergent processes involved in this type of system. Abstract levels and causal structures are often found in chemical and physics systems (Stieff, 2011). For example, it is difficult to visualize "voltage in an electric circuit" emerging from electrons' behaviors and "gas pressure" from gas molecular activities. Agent-based modeling and visualizing tools can create visual acuity of system levels and demonstrate cross-level dynamics (Levy & Wilensky, 2009). However, given the complex nature of the learning content, mere perceptual grounding is not sufficient for effective learning. Scaffolding is a critical factor in learning complex systems (Jacobson et al., 2011). The first research question of this study: How can we chunk and sequence the learning activities in teaching complex systems? There have been contradictory findings to this question. However, analyzing the learning difficulties from different perspectives may address the debate over the sequencing methods. Knowledge integration refers to students connecting scientific concepts and normative ideas, and providing coherent explanations to scientific phenomena (Linn, 2006). From the perspective of knowledge integration, the "top- down" approach starting from the concrete macro-level function of a system is effective. In Liu & Hmelo-Silver (2009)'s study, participants learned the respiratory system with either the "top-down" or the "bottom-up" sequencing method, and the results showed that starting from the system- wide function ("how do we breathe") was better than starting from the lower-level substructures and entities. As can be seen, in this type of biological system, a higher-level function is concrete and easy to understand. And a function is often realized by the interactivity of a large number of diverse lower-level substructures. "Making science accessible" as a knowledge integration guideline informs us that concrete levels of a topic should come before abstract ones (Linn, 2006). Additionally, a top-down function-oriented sequencing method provides a good conceptual structure for knowledge integration (Liu & Hmelo-silver, 2009). Many studies demonstrate that the "bottom-up" approach is effective in teaching the implicit and abstract causal structure (e.g., emergence) of a complex system (Wilenky & Stroup, 2002). This sequencing method allows students to experience the causal process of how the small effects of the micro-level elements can lead to the macro-level patterns. For example, in the Connected Chemistry Curriculum (Levy & Wilensky, 2009), the approach is to let students manipulate and articulate the micro-level entity behaviors (e.g., how a


The study presented in this manuscript deals with a non-contact structural health monitoring approach based on the use of smartphone and computer vision algorithm to estimate the vibrating characteristics of a cantilever slender beam. We hypothesize that the vibration of the beam can be captured using a smartphone in slow-motion modality and the natural frequency of the beam can be extracted using a computer vision algorithm. The results show an excellent agreement between the conventional contact method and the non-contact novel approach proposed here.


MM3 (version 1992, ϵ=3.0) was used to study the ring conformations of d-xylopyranose, d-lyxopyranose and d-arabinopyranose. The energy surfaces exhibit low-energy regions corresponding to chair and skew forms with high-energy barriers between these regions corresponding to envelope and half-chair forms. The lowest energy conformer is 4 C 1 for α- and β-xylopyranose and α- and β-lyxopyranose, and the lowest energy conformer is 1 C 4 for α- and β-arabinopyranose. Only α-lyxopyranose exhibits a secondary low-energy region (1 C 4) within 1 kcal/mol of its global minimum. Overall, the results are in good agreement with NMR and crystallographic results. For many of these molecules, skew conformations are found with relatively low energies (2.5 to 4 kcal/mol above lowest energy chair form). The 2 S O and 1 C 4 conformers of crystalline benzoyl derivatives of xylopyranose are in secondary low-energy regions on the β-xylopyranose surface, within 3.8 kcal/mol of the global 4 C 1 minimum.


ABSTRACT Arid and semi-arid areas are often subject to sudden and flash floods, causing extended damages to the population and infrastructures. This paper presents a method for flood assessment in the Zat watershed (sub basin of the Tensift catchment) via 10-minute numerical modeling using the HEC-HMS numerical model. To illustrate the calibration and the validation process four flood events recorded during (2011-2014) were used and two different validation methods were adopted. The comparative analysis of simulation results obtained during the calibration and validation showed a good compliance with measured data. A Nash-Sutcliff of 82.38% on average over the four events, and an R2 of 0.65 are considered as satisfactory results for the correlation between the initial soil moisture conditions and the Curve Number. As part of the future steps, this approach could be extrapolated to other watersheds with similar contexts, both in Morocco and in other Mediterranean regions


This study aims at finding the most likely parameter sets for an ungauged catchments, when an ensemble of parameter sets has been generated for one or more hydrologically similar donor catchments. We find ourselves in a situation where we suspect that these parameters, although equally acceptable for the donor catchment, are not equally valid for the ungauged catchment we are interested in. We need to add an additional constraint to sort the parameter sets. Here, we want to use as additional constraint the output of previous regionalization studies, i.e. studies which aimed at identifying 'simpler' caracteristics of the ungaged catchments (long-term annual flow, high-and lowquantiles of the long-term catchment behavior, etc.) The interest of such a procedure comes from our experience with the regionalization of statistical flow values: it is a somewhat easier exercise, compared with the regionalization of model parameters (physiographic information seem to be a better explicans for statistical flow values than for model parameter values). We show here that we can find a solution to combine constraints from different regionalization relationships, to reflect their uncertainty and possible complementarity. We illustrate our method on a large set of 900 French catchments. The application on a large dataset allows us to evaluate the strenghts and weaknesses of the proposed method.


The purpose of this article is to analyse the strategies that incumbent market participants are using to fight collabora tive platforms. Due to space limitations, the focus is on the battle between taxi drivers and Uber in Spain. The first strategy is imitation. Established operators try to copy technological advances to increase competitiveness. It is the most desirable strategy, because it improves competition and encourages innovation. Besides, some incumbents are collaborating with the platforms. Although the assessment of this strategy is positive, it is not easy to achieve due to the lack of willingness of incumbents. Traditional operators have confronted collaborative platforms through different channels. The two most important are judicial and legislative. Regarding the former, incumbents have based the lawsuits on unfair competition. The Spanish experience shows that this strategy is not efficient, as the result is conditioned by several uncertainties. Concerning the second channel, traditional operators put pressure on legislative powers, demanding laws that forbid or restrict the activities of collaborative platforms. The Spanish experience is that this strategy works. Nonetheless, success is not guaranteed, as the outcome relies heavily on the political conjuncture. In addition, it is detrimental to the economic and legal system.


An 87−year−old woman presented at the emergency room with breathlessness and acute chest pain following an outpatient colonoscopy that was carried out 2 hours earlier. She suffered from chronic coro− nary disease and hypertension, and was taking medication for both conditions. The endoscopy was very painful. Abdomi− nal discomfort was accompanied by a dull, heavy pain in the center and right side of the chest, radiating to the right shoulder. Retrosternal ailments were worsening (hypoxia, hypotension, tachy− cardia). Physical examination revealed moderately, dull respiratory murmur, and tympanic percussion note on the right side. Lower abdomen discomfort was also worsening. Radiographs revealed perforation, intestinal pneumatosis, and right−sided pneumothorax (Figure 1). Concomitant myocardial infarction and other pathologies were excluded.


A novel system was developed for the rapid determination of fat-soluble vitamin A,D3,and E with microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography(MEEKC).The microemulsion consists of 1.2%(ww) sodium lauryl sulphate(SDS),21%(VV) 1-butanol,18%(VV) acetonitrile,0.8%(ww) n-hexane,20 mmolL borax buffer(pH 8.4).1-Butanol as the cosurfactant and acetonitrile as the organic solvent modifier in MEEKC running buffer played an important role for separation of three fat-soluble vitamins.The three analytes were baseline separated within 13 min at 25 kV and 25 ℃.The RSD values(n= 5)of migration time and peak areas of the analytes were less than 2.5% and 4.5%,respectively.Good linear relations between peak areas and concentration of analytes were established in the range of 20-1000 mgL for vitamin A,5-1000 mgL for vitamin D3,and 5-1000 mgL for vitamin E.the detection limits(SN=3) were 12,0.72 and 0.29 mgL,respectively.This method has been successfully applied for the analysis of commercial vitamin E capsules,the determination results were accorded with the declared in the label.


Tea (Camellia sinensis (L.) O. Kuntze, Theaceae) flowers possess many physiological functions and have been used in traditional medicines for deodorization, skin care, cough suppressant and expectorant in China. However, there is little information about its effect on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). In this study, an oleic acid-induced HepG2 cell model of steatosis was established, and the anti-NAFLD effects of tea flowers and the related mechanisms were investigated. Three tea flower extracts, 40% TFE, 80% TFE and TFRE couldn't prevent triglyceride (TG) accumulation in oleic acid-treated HepG2 cells (p > 0.05), but significantly decreased the TG level in lipid-overloaded HepG2 cells after 48 h treatment (p 0.05), but up-regulated the mRNA level of carnitine palmitoyl-CoA transferase (CPT) (p < 0.05). Moreover, tea flower extracts could significantly reduce intracellular reactive oxygen species (ROS) level (p < 0.05). These results indicated tea flowers may be a potential natural resourse for the treatment of NAFLD.


Background and Aim: One of the high risk groups due to the prevalence of COVID-19 are patients with chronic heart disease The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the electronic health care and drug monitoring program to prevent COVID-19 and adherence to therapeutic regimen of patients with chronic heart disease (ischemic heart disease) Methods: This pilot study is a quasi-experimental study with control group 10 patients with ischemic heart disease were randomly assigned to two groups of 5 individuals (intervention and control) Data collected using demographic questionnaire and Beigi's treatment follow-up questionnaire (2012), researcher-made questionnaire for prevention of SARS-CoV-2 Data analyzed with SPSS-22 software Results: Patients in both groups were matched in age, sex, and BMI (P 0 05) The adherence to the medication regimen and adherence to diet and physical activity, and adherence to the preventive issues of Covid-19 during 10 training sessions, showed a significant increase in the intervention group (p 0 005) Conclusion: Electronic services and the use of e-visit in primary health care and adherence to home care regimen, using the mobile phones and the Internet, can enable accurate monitoring of patients' status and prevent patients at risk to avoid COVID-19 © 2020 Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences All rights reserved


Objective
To reveal the prevalence of human metapneumovirus (HMPV) among pediatric patients with acute respiratory infection (ARI).

Methods
Nasopharyngeal aspirates were collected from hospitalized young children (1-5 years) diagnosed as ARI in Department of Respiratory Disease, Shanxi Provincial Children′s Hospital, Taiyuan city. The nucleoprotein (N) gene of HMPV was amplified by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The positive products of PCR were sequenced, made homology and phylogenetic analysis.

Results
One sample collected in Feb. 2017 and two samples collected in Nov. 2017 were HMPV positive in RT-PCR detection. The homologies of nucleic acid and deduced amino acid sequences of the three positive PCR products with the corresponding HMPV sequences in GenBank were over 83% and 90%, respectively. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that HMPV B1 subgenotype was detected.

Conclusions
HMPV B1 subgenotype was the major epidemic HMPV in young children with ARI in Taiyuan city.

Key words:
Human metapneumovirus; Nucleoprotein; Children; Acute respiratory infection


Background: Comprehensive studies of family planning (FP) in displaced camps are relatively uncommon. This paper examines family planning knowledge, attitudes, and practices among in earth quake displaced population of Sindupalchok district of Nepal. Objective: To assess knowledge, attitude and practice of family planning and affecting factors for used of FP. Methodology: From January to March 2016 a cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted of 566 married women of age (15-49) years. Multi-stage sampling technique was used and data were collected for socio-demographics, practice of FP methods, knowledge, and attitude. Statistics were calculated for selected indicators. Results: The mean age of participants was 31.55 years. About 65.3 % of women reported using any method of family planning in the past, compared with 85.5 %of women reporting current usage of family planning methods. Recognition of at least one family planning method was nearly universal i.e.97.61%. Age, education status and age at marriage were significantly associated (p< 0.05) with contraceptive usage. It was observed that participants who were at the age group of 15-24 years had positive attitude by 2 and 11 time more than participants of age of 25-34 years and above 35 years respectively. Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that respondents have a high knowledge and a positive attitude towards, family planning methods. Spousal discussion can be a crucial step towards increasing men's participation in family planning issues. Distance to health facility play major role in utilization of FP methods.


Background: Current bacterial methods to measure TM homodimerization are limited to only TM domains expressed in an inverted orientation. Results: We developed an assay (AraTM) to measure homodimerization of both TM and soluble receptor domains expressed in their native orientation. Conclusions: CYTO domain of RAGE drives homodimerization in multi-domain constructs, including extracellular and TM domain. Significance: AraTM enables identification of key receptor domains driving homodimerization in cell membranes.


In the clause economic tools of process of forming of sources of investment financing in agriculture, in particular orientation of investment projects on complex development of all technological chain from production of raw before end production realization reveal.


Water is an important natural resource for human life, but in some coastal areas, the availability of clean water is often a serious problem. One source of water used by communities in these areas is wells, which often do not meet health standards for consumption. Manual methods for detecting well water quality still require long, expensive, and inefficient processes. Therefore, the development of a system that can detect water quality in real-time and provide fast and accurate information to the community is needed. The Internet of Things (IoT) technology, which allows objects to be connected to the internet, provides a solution that can be utilized. In this study, a Smart System was designed using salinity and manganese sensors to monitor the real-time quality of well water in coastal areas. Data from these sensors are sent to a server through the internet and analyzed to provide information to users via the Blynk application on their smartphones. With this system, communities can directly monitor the quality of well water, take appropriate actions, and safeguard the health of local residents. Additionally, this system can also assist relevant government or institutions in monitoring and taking quick actions in response to changes in well water quality in coastal areas


On the bases of years of educational practice and selection work the authors of this paper have chosen 23 targets for selecting fashion models. By mathematically and physically analysing these targets, they have found 8 targets which objectively reflect the form of fashion models. They have also found a mathematical model which reflects the differences of form between models and the common people. Their research has solved the problem of classifying models from the common people, which takes the quanlitative but not the qualitative realization in model selection.


ABSTRACT Slurry erosion is one of the main failure modes of the hydraulic turbine parts, mud pumps and drill pipes. The high velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) spray process has been widely used for depositing protective coatings especially the cermet coatings that can significantly improve the slurry erosion resistance of substrate materials. In this work, conventional WC-10Co4Cr composite coatings and coatings with bimodal structures were deposited on the 35CrMo steel substrate by HVOF, respectively. Structures of the two kinds of coatings were analysed with SEM and XRD methods, and microhardness, porosity and roughness were also measured. Furthermore, the slurry erosion tests were carried out on the coatings to explore the effect of average particle size, slurry concentration and pH value on the erosion behaviours. The erosion failure mechanisms of the coatings were also explored. The results show that the bimodal coating has a denser microstructure, superior mechanical properties, lower porosity and better slurry erosion resistance than the conventional coating. The erosion-corrosion mechanism of the two kinds of coatings is spalling, caused by crack initiation and propagation under fatigue stress.


Abstract 1.1. Pathologic examination of pleural and abdominal effusions in tumor cases has been tried out routinely in the material of a medium-sized rural hospital. 2.2. Attention is called to the fact that even in the presence of an intraperitoneal or intrapleural tumor spread, malignant cells within an effusion cannot be expected in every case, their occurrence depending upon the special conditions of the neoplastic growth. 3.3. The difficulties arising from the interpretation of the cellular findings and the necessary differential diagnosis between cells of endothelial and neoplastic origin are briefly discussed. 4.4. The number of cases in which tumor cells could be demonstrated was comparatively small in this series. However, the absence of any misinterpretation of endothelial cells as tumor cells, gives a somewhat increased diagnostic value to the negative findings. 5.5. One case of prostatic carcinoma with metastatic spread exclusively to the lymphoglandular system, and one of an ovarian carcinoma with a metastasis within the mitral valve, are briefly described.


The main objective of this study is to explore empirically the corporate governance mechanisms in UAE that may affect the extent to which forward-looking information is disclosed. This study utilizes a sample of firms that are listed in either the Dubai Financial Market or the Abu Dubai Securities Market. It uses the accounting and market data available for 2007-2009. This study concludes that three of the corporate governance mechanisms [i.e., institutional investors; ownership (> 10%); debt ratio] have a negative impact on the level forward-looking information disclosure; whereas the governmental investors and ownership (5-10%) are found to have a positive effect on the level of forward-looking information disclosure. These results raise questions about the validity of the "active monitoring hypothesis", which states that the presence of institutional investors should increase the level of disclosure, and also about the agency argument which assumes that debt is a good mechanism to discipline management.


Using conventional quadruple induction therapy with CSA/ AZA/PRD/antibodies (ATG/OKT3, 10–14 days), the incidence of acute rejection episodes after simultaneous pancreas/kidney transplantation (SPK) reaches 56–85%. Here we describe the 6-month follow-up results using different immunosuppressive protocols. 38 patients (group I) received CSA/AZA/ PRD/10 days ATG. ATG and PRD were given prior to pancreas reperfusion. 32 patients (group II) were treated with TAC/ MMF/PRD/single-shot ATG, 16 patients (group III) with CSA/ MMF/PRD/single-shot ATG. ATG, MMF, PRD and TAC/CSA were given prior to surgery. The incidence of rejections period in the different groups was 34.2%, 18.8% and 18.8%, respectively. No pancreas graft was lost for immunological reasons. It seems to be possible to significantly reduce the incidence of rejection period after SPK. In combination with MMF, TAC and CSA appear to be equally efficacious. It seems that the long-term antibody induction therapy is no longer required.


ABSTRACT By employing in situ transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observation and cluster dynamics (CD) simulations, we studied the annealing behaviours of neutron irradiation-induced cavities in reduced activation ferritic/martensitic (RAFM) steel Eurofer97 subjected to heating up to 550 °C. Experimental results showed that the cavities behaved differently from the general coarsening behaviours of cavities formed by ion implantations. Rapid shrinkage of some cavities was observed when heating temperatures exceeded 500 °C. Three types of cavity annealing behaviours were identified: (i) cavity remained stable; (ii) cavity shrank to a smaller size and then kept stable; (iii) cavity shrank and eventually disappeared. The CD simulations, which were based on the rate theory, well reproduced these experimental observations. It was revealed that the shrinkage course can be terminated by the dramatic rise of helium density (helium/vacancy ratio) inside the shrinking cavity. Cavity stopping shrinkage and being stable at high temperatures, without being annealed out, potentially suggests the modification in cavity coarsening kinetics driven by the conventional Ostwald ripening mechanism.


Understanding the associations of the structural and functional patterns of the brain is vital. Recent studies have focused on utilizing this information within and across the different functional and anatomical domains (i.e., groups of brain networks) using neuroimaging data. In this work, we use a Bayesian optimization-based method known as the Tree Parzen Estimator (TPE) to identify variation in the nature of information encoded by different functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) sub-domains of the brain. We show by repeated cross-validation on a schizophrenia classification task that specific sub-domains may require more sophisticated learning architectures to contribute optimally to classification, while others require less complicated ones. Our findings reveal the need for adaptive, hierarchical learning frameworks catering to features from different sub-domains to optimally identify features enabling the prediction of the outcome of interest.


Studying the decision-making of agents can reveal group behavior and internal lines of influence. We work with systems of interacting agents, where the decision-making of each agent is affected by their neighbors within some graph structure. As agents make choices, the stochastic transitions between chosen group actions can be learned, and thus the group behavior can be characterized and predicted. We express each element of the transition matrix P as a product of factors that depends on the agent neighborhood structure and leading to a separable estimator for the unknown pij of interest. This enables us to find a maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) for each factor and thus effectively estimate each pij with reduced complexity. We derive analytical concentration bounds for the error rates of this approach and demonstrate it on data sets.


Active queue management (AQM) techniques are used to maintain congestion at network routers. Random Early Detection (RED) is the most used technique among the existing AQMs, as it can avoid network congestion at the early stage. The RED technique avoids congestion by prompting users to reduce their windows size when the queue average exceeds a predefined threshold. However, RED technique is unable to identify users who do not respond to these notifications, and therefore, RED drops all packets in the queue. This generates false positive alarms as packets of legal users will be dropped as well. This paper proposes a technique for monitoring gateways' queues and discarding only the misbehaving traffic. In particular, the proposed technique monitors users' behavior at the network gateways to identify the real sources of misbehaving traffic that causes the congestion on the network. Congested RED-gateways report the packet transfer rate (PTR) of end-users connected with them to service level agreement unit (SLA-unit). The SLA-unit then discovers end-users who have exceeded their bandwidth shares predefined in the SLA as sources of the anomalous congestion on the network. The obtained results show that the proposed technique is promising in detecting and avoiding anomalous congestion without dropping normal traffic of legitimate end-users.


The nutritive value of dry mature annual legumes declines significantly during the summer months. Much of the loss in nutritive value is due to environmental effects, in particular the leaching effect of rainfall (Rossiter et al. 1994). Most studies on the effect of environment on quality changes in annual legumes have focussed on subterranean clover (Trifolium subterraneum), with few other annual legumes being studied. With wide variability in digestibility values being reported for different genotypes of mature subterranean clover (Taylor et al. 1987), it would follow that different species of Trifolium may also vary widely in their resistance to environmental degradation. Such variation could have important effects on sheep performance. In this study we compared several commercial and experimental lines of annual legumes to identify differences in the rate of decline of digestibility during the summer months. .


Purpose: To establish normal values of sonographically-quantified visceral adipose tissue (VAT) in an African population and to correlate results with biomarkers. Patients and Methods: 100 male and 150 female volunteers were scanned for intra-abdominal adipose tissue thickness. Other parameters obtained include BMI, WC, and blood pressure (BP). Pearson correlation coefficient (r) was used to estimate the degree of relationship in VAT, BMI, WC, and blood pressure. Results: The mean VAT thickness was 25.36 ± 16.42 mm. VAT correlated positively and linearly with age (r = 0.651; p < 0.05), BMI (males: r = 0.745, p < 0.05, and females: r = 0.736; p < 0.05), WC (males: r = 0.797, p < 0.05; females: r = 0.779, p < 0.05), and systolic and diastolic blood pressure. (Systolic: r = 0.524, p < 0.05, and diastolic: r = 0.535, p <0.05). Conclusion: Ultrasound is a useful tool in assessing VAT during routine scans to identify patients at risk of increased blood pressure and cardiac diseases associated with obesity.


Abstract : This document is a continuation of work derived in "A Method for the Determination of Target Aspect Angle with Respect to a Radar" by Caraway and Abell. The original paper derived the target aspect angle assuming that the radar would be emplaced level with respect to gravity. With the need for rapid and flexible emplacement, some radars may be designed to allow for unlevel operation. Aspect angle determination is essential in many forms of Noncooperative Target Identification (NCTI). This document presents a rigorous development of the mathematics for solving for target aspect angle given target and radar position and attitude. A method for aspect angle estimation given target track data will also be presented.


Based on the yearly turnover tax statistics, the German turnover tax statistics panel allows for the first time detailed longitudinal analyses of nearly all economic sectors. In addition to turnover tax related variables, the dataset provides information about exports, imports and, due to the combination with the German business register (Unternehmensregister), information about employees liable to pay social insurance. The panel contains more than 4.3 million enterprises and 1.9 million of these are covered over the whole time period from 2001 to 2005. There is no other German statistics that covers nearly all economic sectors with such completeness. In the following we give an overview of the turnover tax statistics and the matching process (sections 2 and 3). Section 4 describes the variables included in the dataset and in section 5 examples of the research potential are presented. The paper closes with information about the way of data access (section 6).


Although existing machine reading comprehension models are making rapid progress on many datasets, they are far from robust. In this article, we propose an understanding-oriented machine reading comprehension model to address three kinds of robustness issues, which are over-sensitivity, over-stability, and generalization. Specifically, we first use a natural language inference module to help the model understand the accurate semantic meanings of input questions to address the issues of over-sensitivity and over-stability. Then, in the machine reading comprehension module, we propose a memory-guided multi-head attention method that can further well understand the semantic meanings of input questions and passages. Third, we propose a multi-language learning mechanism to address the issue of generalization. Finally, these modules are integrated with a multi-task learning-based method. We evaluate our model on three benchmark datasets that are designed to measure models' robustness, including DuReader (robust) and two SQuAD-related datasets. Extensive experiments show that our model can well address the mentioned three kinds of robustness issues. And it achieves much better results than the compared state-of-the-art models on all these datasets under different evaluation metrics, even under some extreme and unfair evaluations. The source code of our work is available at https://github.com/neukg/RobustMRC.


This bachelor thesis in its theoretical part defines the concept of old age and its manifestation. It points out basic value of human life associated with its quality, human dignity. Thesis describes development of the care for the elderly in the course of history and social attitude towards elderly nowadays. It presents social services focused on elderly and its legal regulation. It focuses on clients adaptation in new environment. It points out liability of social services providers to have the "provided quality standards" drawn up. The practical part includes research done by questionnaire survey, focused on Home for the Elderly employees attitude towards dignified life being provided to its clients.


In 2 experiments, participants made judgments of their own maximum sitting height. During judgments, participants stood normally or on 10 cm blocks attached to their feet. The blocks increased participants' actual maximum sitting height. For many participants, judgments changed over trials, becoming more accurate, despite the absence of practice at sitting, or feedback about judgment accuracy. Learning was observed not only when participants wore the blocks but also when they stood normally. In Experiment 2, we measured motion of the head and torso. We identified changes in body motion that corresponded to engagement in the judgment task: Across trials, sway variability was stable during judgments but increased during the intervals between judgments. Other changes in sway were limited to participants whose judgments improved over trials; that is, sway was specifically associated with learning about maximum sitting height. We discuss the results in the context of perception–action and the learning of affordances.


For the task of transferring energy inductively, resonant converters are a suitable family of converters in order to overcome the technical hurdle of the loose magnetic coupling that is often encountered in this kind of application. However, the analysis of resonant converters is in general cumbersome. In order to facilitate the design process where a vast number of converter configurations has to be computed, approximations are required in order to bring the necessary computational time to maintainable levels. A design procedure for a contactless power transmission system based on the extended first harmonic approximation for the steady-state solution of the multi-resonant LLCC converter is presented in this paper, with a new degree of simplification regarding the resulting closed-form solution. By means of this approximation, the design of the fourth-order resonant LLCC converter is significantly simplified, providing a tool for rapid simulation combined with a very high accuracy. The resulting system was designed to be very tolerant against variations of the distance between the coils, at the same time achieving a very high efficiency for this kind of application.


Future X-ray astrophysics experiments require multiplexed readout of high fill-factor, kilo-pixel arrays of transition-edge sensors (TESs), with very high spectral resolution over a broad range of energies. In this paper we report on a prototype kilo-pixel array of Mo/Au TESs readout with 8-column by 32-row time-division multiplexing (TDM). This system is being used to demonstrate the critical detector and readout technology for ESA's Athena X-IFU, and when complete will be used in laboratory astrophysics experiments. Our array and TDM readout have demonstrated a combined full-width-at-half-maximum energy resolution, including > 200 pixels, of: 1.95 eV for Ti-Kα (4.5 keV), 1.97 eV for Mn-Kα (5.9 keV), 2.16 eV for Co-Kα (6.9 keV), 2.33 eV for Cu-Kα (8 keV), 3.26 eV for Br-Kα (11.9 keV). The 1 sigma statistical errors are ≤0.01 eV for all spectra. These results meet the broad-band resolution requirements for X-IFU with margin.


The increasing availability of software tools for i mageand range-based surveying and visualizing 3D objects has posed some issues relative to the need of integrating different conte nts (relative to data and metadata, structure and f u ction) in a common Information System. In this work, we develop an integrated solu tion for a 3D GIS whose support is a global 3D mode l generated from the fusion of image and range information for interventions in Cultural Heritage buildings. The 3D GIS integrates different software tools for Information Processing, Management and Visualizatio n, including a) the fusion of image and range infor mation (UvaCad, e.g.), b) relational DB for data and metadata management, and c) navigation, inspection and reports generation fr om the information contained in different layers. The interoperability between software tools is a bottleneck for transfe rring and re-using digital information. Two key facts for solving interoperabi lity issues are a) the development of a 3D vector s upport (extending the usual methodology of planar GIS) for referring informatio n contained in different layers to a common framewo rk; and b) the development of logical schemes for a hierarchised management of inf rmation following signification levels of incr easing complexity involving geometric, structural and functional aspects issues appearing in semantic approaches. The geometry of objects provide a support for specifying logic schemata connecting the above leve ls. It allows a reuse of solutions, and makes easi er the accessibility from the initial specification of contents (data and metadat ) for on-line cooperative work and for remote asse sment by experts, or for consultation by customers or simply citizens. The d eveloped solution is being applied for conservation and restoration interventions in some monuments of the autonomous comunity of Cast illa y Leon, Spain. .


Recrystallization was investigated in the context of its effect on the roping phenomenon in a 6000 series Al alloy. The findings suggest that, in general, the recrystallized grain size affects the material's susceptibility to roping more than the actual area fraction of specific texture components. For example, bands of Cube grains were typically observed in the final processed samples in cases which had coarse, recrystallized grain sizes from the earlier stages of processing. In contrast, bands were not observed for cases having fine, intermediate recrystallized grain sizes. Although microstructure and texture are highly intertwined, these findings suggest that the microstructural characteristics, such as the recrystallized grain size, are more important than those related to the texture.


The molecular conformation of silk fibroin was investigated by infrared spectroscopy (IR) and circular dichroism method (CD). The silk fibroin in the liquid phase was found to have random coil structure containing a small amount of α helix. The α helix content of silk fibroin, dispersed in pure water, increased with increasing the periods during fifth instar of silkworm larvae. This fact was related to the increase of the water content in liquid silk fibroin. Silk fibroin hydrolyzed by aqueous HCl solution showed the strong IR absorption band assigned to β structure as well as the weak band at 620cm-1 (amide V) attributing to α helix. The results of IR and CD suggest that the peptide chains consisting of α helix do not exceed several units, taking into account the x-ray diffraction pattern exhibiting no α-helical chains.


Introduction Preoperative templating of femoral and tibial components can assist in choosing the appropriate implant size prior to TKA. While weight bearing long limb roentograms have been shown to provide benefit to the surgeon in assessing alignment, disease state, and previous pathology or trauma, their accuracy in size prediction is continually debated due to scaling factors and rotated views. Further, they represent a static time point, accounting for boney anatomy only. A perceived benefit of robotic-assisted surgery is the ability to pre-operatively select component sizes with greater accuracy based on 3D information, however, to allow for flexibility in refining based on additional data only available at the time of surgery. Methods The purpose of this study was to determine the difference of pre-operative plans in size prediction of the tibia, femur, and polyethylene insert. Eighty four cases were enrolled at three centers as part of an Investigational Device Exemption to evaluate a robotic-assisted TKA. All patients had a CT scan as part of a pre-operative planning protocol. Scans were segmented and implant sizes predicted based on the patients boney morphology and an estimated 2mm cartilage presence. Additional information such as actual cartilage presence and soft tissue effects on balance and kinematics were recorded intra-operatively. Utilizing this additional information, surgical plans were fine tuned if necessary to achieve minimal insert thickness and balance. Data from the Preoperative CT plan sizing and final size were compared to determine the percentage of size and within one size accuracy. Results The pre-operative plan was able to determine the femoral and tibial components within one size for 100% of cases. Intra-operatively, surgeon upsized femoral 15 out of 85 (18%), downsized femoral 1 out of 85 (1%), baseplate 13 out of 85 (15%), and downsized baseplate 4 out of 85 (5%). Polyethylene exact size could be planned 93% of the time. Discussion/Conclusion Robotic-assisted pre-operative CT based planning was accurate over 70% of the time for the femur and tibial components, and over 90% with respect to the insert thickness Additionally, intraoperative information allowed for adjustments to provide patients with ideal coverage of articular surfaces and for joint balancing providing optimal individualized component placement. Further research is needed to determine the potential cost savings in hospital and OR inventory management.


In this study, an alternative combined method to treat chicken feathers to be used as a filling material has been developed. The proposed method for treatment of chicken feathers is based on the combination of aldehyde treatment and acid-alum method including less harmful chemical usage with fewer number of processing steps. A number of international standard tests such as oxygen index number, turbidity, moisture, content analysis (composition), odor test have been applied on the treated chicken feathers in order to determine whether it is suitable to be used as a filling material. Results  showed that with less harmful chemical usage, presenting chicken feathers with fluffy structure and almost white in color after treatment, the proposed method offers a good alternative in treatment of chicken feathers by providing the demanded physical properties.


Belief is a complex aspect of human cognition that shapes our understanding of the world and influences our behavior. This paper examines the voluntary nature of belief, with a focus on religion as an illustrative example. By examining voluntarism, non-voluntarism, and free will in the context of religious belief, this paper delves into the intricate relationship between the freedom to believe and external factors, including civil liberties and social norms. While belief is often considered a matter of personal choice, socialization, cultural environment, and personal circumstances can significantly influence and limit the voluntariness of belief. By acknowledging that the voluntary nature of belief is susceptible to external influences, society can work towards fostering genuine freedom of religious belief and supporting individual autonomy in diverse belief landscapes. This commitment to fostering genuine freedom of belief contributes to a more inclusive and tolerant society that values the autonomy and agency of its members.


This work is devoted to the investigation of the possibility of use of ruthenium-containing catalysts on the basis of polymeric matrix of hypercrosslinked polystyrene (HPS) in hydrogenation of levulinic acid to gamma- valerolactone, which is a semi-product for obtaining of liquid fuel components. Catalyst 5 %-Ru/MN100 was shown to allow carrying out the hydrogenation of levulinic acid in aqueous medium with high yields of gamma- valerolactone (higher than 99 %) and it can compete with traditional catalyst 5 %-Ru/C. It is noteworthy that synthesized HPS-based catalyst has high activity, and thus the necessity of addition in reaction mixture of acidic co-catalysts is absent.


In the care services management method according to the terminal device of a caregiver to provide a landing care services for the patient, the method comprising: a caregiver recognize a smart card of a patient visit; Transmitting the first time information corresponding to the recognition as a smart card; Is encrypted by the smart card generated, the method comprising: receiving a first encrypted data including first time information from the smart card; And if available via the management server and the network connection, the first to transmit the first encrypted data, the encrypted data to the management server to be able to decode, by the management server based on the first time information stores the care services associated time for the patient the care services management method according to an embodiment of the present invention characterized in that comprises the step of to is disclosed.


The objective of this study is to understand the strategies of the Center for Naval and Ocean Engineering (CNAVAL) of Technological Research Institute (IPT) regarding the difficulties of the public budget for scientific research released by the State of Sao Paulo. A possible solution by CNAVAL/IPT to overcome this dilemma is the establishment of the organizational network of research and innovation CEENO (Center of Excellence for Naval and Ocean Engineering), this network is formed by different agents as universities (UFRJ and USP), research institutions and private companies (Petrobras). This new model offers a guarantee of greater effectiveness of existing programs to support innovation and will surely encourage and enable the implementation of new programs and engagement of new agents. This research is methodologically guided by interviews with key actors and secondary data. This research intends to answer questions about how these networks are formed and how this convergence between the scientific community and industry is consolidating and what results they can generate.


In a previous paper, we demonstrated a single-rung method for measuring cosmological distances in active galactic nuclei (AGN) that can be used from low redshift (z < 0.1) to high redshift (z > 3). This method relies on the assumption that the variability seen in AGN is constrained by the speed of light during a flare event and can therefore be used to estimate the size of an emitting region. A limitation of this method is that previously, the Doppler factor was required to be known. In this paper, we derive an extension of the 'standard speed-gun' method for measuring cosmological distances that depends on the maximum intrinsic brightness temperature that a source can reach, rather than the Doppler factor. If the precise value of the intrinsic brightness temperature does not evolve with redshift and flares are statistically independent, we can in principle improve the errors on measurements of the matter content of the universe (in a flat ΛCDM model) statistically. We then explored how well a future observing program would constrain cosmological parameters. We found that recovering the input cosmology depends critically on the uncertainty of the intrinsic brightness temperature and the number of flares observed.