Objective
To evaluate the clinical efficacy of a new anatomical locking plate in the treatment of comminuted greater tuberosity fracture.

Methods
Data of 24 shoulders in 23 patients with comminuted greater tuberosity fracture who were treated with the new anatomical locking plate from June 2013 to January 2016 were retrospectively analyzed. There were 13 males and 10 females with an average age of 52.3 years old (range, 26 to 75 years). According to Neer classification, all cases including 19 acute cases and 4 old cases, were two-part fractures of greater tuberosity with 2 or more fragments. There were 10 left shoulders, 12 right and 1 bilateral. All cases were treated by the top shoulder approach except for 4 cases with anterior dislocation of the shoulder and manipulative reduction fails. PDS2 sutures, Kirschner wire and anatomical humeral greater tuberosity locking plate were used to reduce and fix fracture. Functional assessment was carried out by the Rating Scale of the American Shoulder and Elbow Surgeons (ASES), and Constant-Murley shoulder outcome score.

Results
The patients were followedup for 16.2 months (range, 7-30 months). The X-ray examination showed fractures were healed in all cases after 9.8 weeks (range, 8-13 weeks). The mean ASES score was 95.9 (range, 84-100) points, and Constant-Murley score was 97.5 (range, 88-100) points. The forward flexion of the shoulder was 166.3° (range, 150°-170°). External rotation was 67.5° (range, 50°-75°), and internal rotation of the finger could reach T4-T12. One case recurred with dislocation after operation, and then it was treated with close reduction under anesthesia. At the latest follow-up, there was no hardware failure, re-displacement of the fracture, nonunion or malunion, avascular necrosis and axillary nerve injury.

Conclusion
Application of the new anatomical locking plate is an effective and safe method to treat comminuted greater tuberosity fracture.

Key words:
Fractures, comminuted; Shoulder fractures; Internal fixators


Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in south-west Sumatra is one of the largest protected areas in Sumatra and thus of considerable importance to the conservation of biodiversity in Indonesia. Until recently, little was known of the wildlife in the park. The authors' surveys document the presence of an intact community of the birds and mammals known to occur in lowland Sumatran rain forests. While hunting and collection of forest products threaten a number of plant and animal species in the park, the primary threat to the park's integrity is from agricultural encroachment and expansion of enclaves beyond their boundaries. The future survival of Bukit Barisan National Park and its wildlife requires that active measures be taken to curb non-sustainable exploitation of plants and wildlife. It will also be necessary to resolve land-use conflicts with communities in, and adjacent to, the park.


Assume that (X_n) is a real valued stationary time series admitting a common density f. To estimate f in an independent and identically distributed setting, Donoho, Johnstone, Kerkyacharian & Picard (1996) proposed a quasi-minimax method based on thresholding wavelets. The aim of the present work is to extend this methodology to the dependent case. For this purpose, we introduce the new Phi-weak dependence based on a probability inequality, which includes a large spectrum of classical weak dependence cases. Actually, we establish a link between this condition and the $\tilde \phi$-dependence of Dedecker & Prieur (2004) and the $\eta$-weak dependence condition introduced by Doukhan & Louhichi (1999). The estimator we propose adapts the threshold to the dependence of the observations. We obtain near minimax convergence rates for L^p losses, p>= 1. We thus apply this method on simulations of non stationary but geometrically ergodic cases like dynamical systems and Markovian fields on the line.


The utility model provides a highly sealing sawtooth type thread sleeve connecting structure which is threaded and screwed by a sleeve with outer threads possessing ends and a coupling with inner threads possessing ends. Both the inner threads of the sleeve and the inner threads of the coupling are provided with sawtooth type thread profile shaped conic threads with a self locking performance, and a D section and a C section of the inner and outer conic threads are both provided with a conic sealing face and a main sealing structure which is composed of wedge shouldering torques. The utility model has the advantages of double safety form combing a sawtooth type thread sealing and conic to conic sealing face may improve the anti slipping performance of thread joints as well as the anti leakage ability of the joints, thereby lifting the anti tension strength of the joints to a level higher than 90 percent of the anti tension strength of pipes. Furthermore, the thread sleeve has a good processing technique and good on/off performance and simultaneously avoids the phenomenon of thread gluing, thereby making the operations on wells more convenient.


This paper discusses some aspects of the transfer component in the ECS machine translation system. We present the structure of the transfer grammar and the transfer entries by using examples from our English-Ko rean/Korean-English (EKjKE) system; we then discuss some examples of compositional and non-compositional translation and we show how these are treated in our system. 1. System Overview The ECS system is an implementation of the Lexical Functional Gram mar theory and formalism (Bresnan & Kaplan (eds.) (1982». The system is stratificational in its organization: for a given sentence, analysis rules generate a constituent structure (c-structure), which is mapped to the functional structure (f-structure) by means of functional equations anno· tated to the lexicon and to the phrase structure rules. Transfer then pro duces an f-structure appropriate for the target language, which is submit ted to the generation grammar for a more complete target-language speci fication (for example, to introduce target-language function words such as auxiliaries, specifiers etc., and to generate inflected target forms), leading to the generation of the target sentence. Transfer may be viewed as the first stage in generation, since it bears the initial responsibility for generat ing a well-formed, albeit abbreviated, structure with respect to the target language. This structure will be augmented by the generation grammar: the output of transfer must subsume the final f-structure produced during generation. Transfer will be discussed in more detail later in the paper.


The background of this study is tax avoidance at various industrial sector tend to fluctuation thought to be caused unstable Profitabilitas and firm size.The objective of this research to determine about influence profitabilitas dan firm size partial dan simultaneously toward tax avoidance at various industrial sector company period 2015-2018.The population of this study were 46 listings and manufacturing company listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (BEI) period 2015-2018. With used purposive sampling method acquired 40 samples. Multiple regression analys is used in this study to see the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable either jointly or individually.  The results of research that hypothesis test showed Profitabilitas toward tax avoidance tcount > t table ( 2.644 > 2.02 ) is mean have influence. Firm size toward tax avoidance tcount > t table (0.443 > 2,02) is mean have influence. While Profitabilitas and Firm Size toward tax avoidance Fcount > F table ( 4.667 > 3,24 ) is mean have influence.Partial result of the study there is a significant influence between profitbeabilitas toward tax avoidance and there not a significant influence between Firm size toward tax avoidance. While simultaneously there is a significant influence between profitabilitas and firm size toward tax avoidance. Keywords: Tax Avoidance, Profitability, Company Size


This study aims to understand the perception of mothers of children with cancer from playing. This was a qualitative study, carried February and April 2016. Six mother were interviewed, who accompanied their children during treatment at a non-governmental organization (NGO) that functions as a support house for children and adolescents with cancer. From the organization of the empirical material, two categories emerged: The mothers' perception on the playful during the oncological treatment and the spirituality adopted by the mothers after the discovery of the diagnosis. The conclusion is that playfulness fulfills a therapeutic function assisting the child in his/her development, providing joy and pleasure. Mothers, on the other hand, find in faith the strength not to lose hope in the continuity in the caring process. Thus, it is evident that mothers seek the best for the child's well-being, in an attempt to minimize the suffering generated by the experienced situation.


The prevention of injury associated with falls in older people is a public health target in many countries around the world. Although there is good evidence that interventions such as multifactorial fall prevention and individually prescribed exercise are effective in reducing falls, the effect on serious injury rates is unclear. 1,2 Historically, trials have not been adequately powered to detect injury endpoints, and variations in case definition across trials have hindered meta‐analysis. 1 It is possible that fall‐prevention strategies have limited effect on falls that result in injuries or are ineffective in populations who are at a higher risk of injury. Further research is required to determine whether fall‐prevention interventions can reduce serious injuries.


The response of soil to litter in a Pinus caribaea woodland in Foshan City was studied in an experiment comparing a P.caribaea stand with and without litter.Results showed that compared with the P.caribaea stand without litter,the mean diameter at breast height(DBH) and mean tree height in the P.caribaea stand with litter significantly increased by 27% and 12%,respectively,whereas its soil bulk density,capillary porosity,non-capillary porosity,total porosity and capillary water did not change significantly.Contents of soil organic matter,total N,total K and alkalized N in the P.caribaea stand with litter were 66%,48%,12% and 160% greater than those in the P.caribaea stand without litter,respectively,whereas contents of total P,available P and available K were close to the latter.Number of bacteria,fungi and actinomyces in the P.caribaea stand with litter were 18%,29% and 41% greater than those in the P.caribaea stand without litter,respectively,and activities of its urease,acid phosphatase and catalase were 1.2,1.1 and 5.1 times greater than the latter,respectively.


The aim of the research is to identify medium-sized agricultural enterprises with the greatest potential for innovation development. The subject of the research is the key financial performance of the observed enterprises in 2017. Data were obtained from official financial statements publicly available on the website of the Serbian Business Registers Agency (SBRA). The aim of the research was realized by applying financial analysis methods and the Altman Z-score model. The purpose of the research is to improve the efficiency of limited funds for financing innovative activities in the agricultural sector. The research results are data on enterprises with negligible probability of bankruptcy and which thus have the greatest potential for innovation development. © 2021 EA. All rights reserved.


Computer vision and computational photography are hot applications areas for mobile and embedded computing platforms. As a consequence, many-core accelerators are being developed to efficiently execute highly-parallel image processing kernels. However, power and cost constraints impose hard limits on the main memory bandwidth available, and push for software optimizations which minimize the usage of large frame buffers to store the intermediate results of multi-kernel applications. In this work we propose a set of techniques, mainly based on graph analysis and image tiling, targeted to accelerate the execution on cluster-based many-core accelerators of image processing applications expressed as standard OpenVX graphs. We have developed a run-time framework which implements these techniques using a front-end compliant to the OpenVX standard, and based on an OpenCL extension that enables more explicit control and efficient reuse of on-chip memory and greatly reduces the recourse to off-chip memory for storing intermediate results. Experiments performed on the STHORM many-core accelerator prototype demonstrate that our approach leads to massive reductions of main memory related stall time even when the main memory bandwidth available to the accelerator is severely constrained.


FIELD: metallurgy. SUBSTANCE: invention relates to ferrous metallurgy, particularly to production of new highly efficient type of metal products-rolled plates from high-strength low-alloy steel for bullet-proof protection of vehicles. To provide high strength properties while maintaining sufficient ductility and impact strength, method involves obtaining a continuously cast slab, heating, hot rolling, hardening and tempering sheets, continuously cast slab is made from steel of following chemical composition, wt%: 0.23-0.32 C, 0.17-0.40 Si, 0.70-1.20 Mn, 0.40-0.80 Cr, 0.80-1.40 Ni, 0.30-0.50 Mo, 0.02-0.05 V, 0.01-0.08 Al, 0.001-0.010 N, 0.10-0.20 Cu, 0.002-0.015 Nb, 0.002-0.010 Ti, 0.001-0.005 B, not more than 0.010 S, not more than 0.015 P, Fe, hardening is performed at temperature of 930-980 °C, tempering at temperature of 170-200 °C. EFFECT: after heat treatment sheet steel has following mechanical properties: conditional yield point σ 0 2/10 not less than 1,250 N/mm 2 , tensile strength σ v 1,450-1,750 N/mm 2 , hardness of 480-540 HBW, percentage elongation δ 5 not less than 8 % and impact strength KCV -40 not less than 30 J/cm 2 . 1 cl, 2 tbl


The article deals with the problems of self-regulation of mental activity, namely the study of psychodynamic aspects of the phenomenology of effective independence. The structure of factors is based on the results of the factor analysis, that identify the features of formal and dynamic properties of individuals with «independent» and «dependent» type of subject activity regulation.


Based on the PEBI grid numerical simulation meth-od ,the research on the optimization of the structure of herring-bone multilateral horizontal well and radial multilateral horizontal well in a five-spot pattern was performed,and the influence of branch num-ber,branch length and branch angle on multilateral horizontal wells productivity was also analyzed. It can be concluded that; more branch number of herring-bone multilateral horizontal well should be selected when branch length and branch angle are large,and vice versa. The branch angle of herring-bone multilateral horizontal well should be between 45 degree and 60 degree. The branch length of herring-bone multilateral horizontal well should be chosen carefully according to the area of the well pattern and the position of the multi-lateral horizontal well. Four branches should be taken for the radial multilateral horizontal in five-spot well pattern. At the same time,branch length should be long based on the drilling technology and drilling security.


As renewable energy sources penetration is continuously increasing in grids the need of battery energy storage system become essential for achieving stability and reliability. The bidirectional converter is able to supply bidirectional power flow to energy charging and discharging of battery devices. In this paper, a bidirectional DC-DC converter for charging and discharging applications by using a PI controller is illustrated. The simulation is carried out in MATLAB/Simulink environment.


The project intends to construct steel pipe piles on both sides of trestle wharf, and the soil vibrations caused by piling construction might have an important effect on the safe service of wharf. In this paper, the dynamic signals during piling construction were recorded and recognized by NExT-ERA. Meanwhile, modal analysis through finite element model of wharf was performed. Through a comparative analysis of the two results, the first two orders of frequency for wharf were obtained. The results would lay foundation for further analysis of dynamic responses of wharf when pile locations close to wharf.


Trihalogenomethylthiomethylenebisphosphonates, [(PriO)2PO]2CRSCClnF3-n(n= O–2; R = H,Me), are formed by the reaction of salts of tetraisopropyl methylenebisphosphonates, [(PriO)2PO]2CRM (M = Li,Na; R = H,Me), with trihalogenomethanesulphenyl chlorides, CClnF3-nSCl (n= 0–2). The ester products are transesterified with bromotrimethylsilane and hydrolysed with aqueous methanolic sodium hydroxide to give the corresponding tetrasodium salts of the bisphosphonic acids. The sulphenylation reactions are complex and are facilitated by the use of Lewis acids. Sulphenylations using chlorodifluoro-and dichloro-methanesulphenyl chlorides afford unexpected additional products arising from chlorine replacement by fluorine.


In this paper, we develop a model to measure the effects of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on the labor market, aiming to settle down its net effect on employment creation. The main findings are: 1) Related with the sector services, where the regions with worse evolution of the industrial employment showed growth in the information society sector services, being it intensive in technology, and a certain negative incidence employment growth in the sector services in general and in the industrial one, 2) Related with the ICT, where two variables have a negative effect on the employment growth: the extranet and the own wireless net. This negative incidence has its base on the positive relationship between productivity and technology. This way, the ICT integration into the industry causes smaller new workers needs. 3) A second group of estimates highlights some of the factors that have influenced the recent industry evolution. The most prominent effect is the incidence of the ICT on the added value. The regions where there is more penetration of the ICT are the ones having bigger industry relevance in the Spanish economy. 4) In addition, the difficulties to find ICT skilled workers specialist is a factor that hinders the added value growth. These results reveal the need of a public policy favoring the skilled labor and the company's technological advances. The conjunction of both factors will improve the industry long-term benefits. 5) A last effects group reveals that regions with bigger industrial production growth have also a bigger growth of the employment in the services sector.


Spectrum clustering is a powerful strategy to minimize redundant mass spectral data by grouping highly similar mass spectra corresponding to repeatedly measured analytes. Based on spectrum similarity, near-identical spectra are grouped in clusters, after which each cluster can be represented by its so-called consensus spectrum for downstream processing. Although several algorithms for spectrum clustering have been adequately benchmarked and tested, the influence of the consensus spectrum generation step is rarely evaluated. Here, we present an implementation and benchmark of common consensus spectrum algorithms, including spectrum averaging, spectrum binning, the most similar spectrum, and the best-identified spectrum. We have analyzed diverse public datasets using two different clustering algorithms (spectra-cluster and MaRaCluster) to evaluate how the consensus spectrum generation procedure influences downstream peptide identification. The BEST and BIN methods were found the most reliable methods for consensus spectrum generation, including for datasets with post-translational modifications (PTM) such as phosphorylation. All source code and data of the present study are freely available on GitHub at https://github.com/statisticalbiotechnology/representative-spectra-benchmark.


A scalable and efficient hybrid application-layer multicast protocol-DHMT (Dynamic Hybrid Multicast Tree) is proposed in this paper. It adopts the hybrid architecture of hierarchy and Fibonacci tree to multicast packets efficiently. In DHMT, the underlying topology characteristic is considered by introducing an idea of local area to reduce packet delivering on costly links. In each local area, members are constructed into a hierarchical architecture in term of layer and cluster. The roots of all local hierarchical architecture are organized into a Fibonacci multicast tree. In addition, the cores in DHMT are selected dynamically to reflect the instantaneous network situation. The architecture characters improve the delay performance of DHMT. The simulation shows that DHMT is scalable and efficient and it works well especially for large multicast group.


In order to make sound economic decisions, it is of great importance to be able to predict and interpret macro-economic variables. Researchers are therefore seeking continuously to improve the prediction performance. One of the main economic indicators is the US unemployment rate. In this paper, we empirically analyze whether, and to what extent, Google search data have additional predictive power in forecasting the US unemployment rate. This research consists of two parts. First, we look for and select Google search data with potential predicitive power. Second, we evaluate the performance of level and directional forecasts. Here, we make use of different models, based on both econometric and machine learning techniques. We find that Google trends improve the predictive accuracy in all used forecasting methods. Lastly, we discuss the limitations of our research and possible future research suggestions.


Black and white photograph of Rice University Owls Basketball team during a game against Texas Tech University. Rice University Owls player number 43 is attempting to pass to a team member while the opposing team blocks.


We investigate the globular cluster system around the low-luminosity S0 galaxy NGC 7457 with deep B, V, I pho- tometry. From the V photometry the total number of globular clusters around the galaxy is estimated to be 178 75. The specific frequency is estimated to be SN =2 :7 1:1 adopting MV = 19:55 mag for the galaxy. We select 89 globular cluster candidates on the basis of their colors (B-I, V-I and B-V). The B-I and V-I color distributions are found unimodal with a mean metallicity (Fe=H) 1 dex. Nevertheless the width of the B-I color distribution is found larger than that expected for a single population of globular clusters and is consistent with the presence of more than one population. If the latter is the case, the two peaks would not be detected in B-I because of the small statistics and/or a small difference in the mean metallicity of the two populations. No metal poor globular clusters similar to those of the Milky Way halo are detected around NGC 7457.


This paper presents the real-time hardware implementation of three-phase induction motor modelling, using a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device, in order to use in real-time simulations. The proposed model runs directly in hardware by using FPGA technology and it allows a remarkable speed up in comparison with conventional models which based only software. Such a model was developed with the aim of meeting the real-time simulations needs while solving the limitations of traditional solutions, in particular for hardware-in-the-loop simulation of electrical machines and systems. In the previous studies, this technology had been only used to implement I/O processes of simulations due to insufficient devices having the constraints about the size and the number of the general purposed ports. However in more recent times, higher densities, higher speed and cost advantages have enabled the use of such devices in a wider variety of applications. In this paper, we defined the three- phase induction motor by state-space representation which models a system as a set of differential equations using matrix form. Therefore our system was transformed into an application of real-time matrix multiplication in FPGA using floating point number system. We utilized Quartus-II environment to develop FPGA designs and then download these design files into our development kit.


Algal treatment was performed for 30 days in three autoclaved livestock wastewaters. Nitrate concentrations in the three batch cultures and autoclaved livestock wastewaters were determined by spectrophotometer method. It was found that the capacity of Chlorella vulgaris removal was reached at rates of 89.22% nitrate in cattle livestock wastewater, 89.34% in sheep livestock wastewater and 89.41% in poultry livestock wastewater. Also, we studied the growth characteristics of C. vulgaris under three wastewater treatments within thirty days. The results showed that in the lag phase, the microalgae was treated in the wastewater with 501.33, 406.66, 381 mg. l -1 nitrate with a biomass productivity of   0.1, 0.09, 0.03g/l perday. On the other hand, we studied the removal of nitrite from wastewater by C. vulgaris. The results showed that the capacity of Chlorella vulgaris for nitrite removal reaches 87.50%, 43%, 65.15%, respectively. Moreover, the expression of nitrate reductase (NR)was analysed over six days in BG 11 medium and livestock wastewater treatment. The highest fold of transcription was observed 96 hours after treatment in both of wastewater and culture medium. The transcript of gene at 96 hours in cattle wastewater was higher than BG 11 culture medium. These result showed high potentials of Chlorella vulgaris to gene expression related to uptake of toxic nutrient and suitable candidate for gene isolation. Keyword: Algae, Livestock waste water, Nitrate reductase, Transcript .


This article briefly examines six centres of learning and witness representing Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Zoroastrian and Muslim faiths. It explores the implications of five potential insights arising from these historical models for the Asian contexts of today. These insights are approached from the perspective of the Christian world view, but are equally applicable to other faiths. An attempt has been made to do two main things. First is to highlight historically the importance of pre-modern centres of learning and witness that can perhaps also be called universities, or 'proto-universities'. There has also been the desire to encourage the 'Global South' in their history of education, and suggest implications for the future.


H. J. M. MILNE, B.A.: Greek Shorthand Manuals {Syllabary and Commentary). Pp. viii+78; 9 collotype plates. London : Egypt Exploration Society, 1934. Cloth, 4to. 42s. T H E material published in this volume consists firstly of fragments of six papyrus codices from Antinoe, belonging to the Egypt Exploration Society, and containing Commentary, or Syllabary, or both, together with <rr)fteia fiov6/3o\a (which the editor compares to modern phraseograms) and specimens of Latin alphabets; secondly, of two papyrus codices, of uncertain origin, and a group of waxed tablets in the British Museum. Much was already known about the Syllabary, the list of shorthand signs for vowels, diphthongs and syllables, and the principles on which it was based; but with the publication of TO KOfifievrdpiov, the foundations of which are the two badly written London papyri of the third or fourth century A.D., 2561 and 2562, new ground has been broken. The Commentary, in this version at least—others were extant, and a fragment of one, differing both in order of signs and in content, is published on p. 68 of this volume—consists of 810 signs : each ' sign ' is composed of a ' main element'—part of a word, a word or a phrase (if a phrase, often a rhetorical cliche)—also represented by its shorthand equivalent: attached to each main element is a group of four words (an extra word is added at the hundreds and occasionally elsewhere: the tetrads could clearly be extended at will), and the shorthand equivalents of the final syllables of these words are grouped round the symbol of the main element (these latter equivalents are not reproduced in Mr. Milne's text) ; of these 810 signs the great majority are pre-


Neural Networks are not programmed - they are trained. While not appropriate for numeric applications, neural networks perform well in domains rife with "fuzzy knowledge", that is, knowledge not easily encapsulated.


Dynamic evolution of a small-scale structure to a large-scale structure is studied by a nonlinear dissipative LC ladder circuit. The circuit is described by a Burgers equation in the lowest order. We confirmed that the observed propagation of a shock wave and the confluence of shock waves are well described by the theory. A single hump wave is used to model a small-scale structure. When two single-hump waves with different amplitudes are applied to the circuit, they evolve into a large-scale structure in the course of propagation. Such a formation of a large-scale structure is unique in a nonlinear dissipative system, while the nonlinear dispersive system is known to preserve the nature of small-scale structures even after their interaction as known for solitons.


In this paper, two passive fault tolerant controllers based on Sliding Mode Control theory are designed for AscTec Pelican quadrotor. The first controller is a regular Sliding Mode Controller (SMC) that uses the robustness of SMC and its insensitivity to model uncertainties and disturbances to tolerate two different types of actuator faults. The latter controller is a cascaded SMC (CascSMC) with an inner loop fast SMC controlling the velocity system and tolerating its faults, and an outer loop SMC controlling the inner system (inner SMC and velocity system) with integrator. To tune the parameters of the controllers for their optimal values, a bio-inspired search algorithm called Ecological Search Algorithm (ESA) is used. SIMULINK results show that the proposed controllers are successful in controlling the quadrotor performing a helical path in the space in presence of two different actuator faults. Tests show that the cascaded SMC outperforms the regular SMC in handling tougher faults by compensating them quickly in its fast inner loop.


This paper derives analytically an optimum amplifying relay matrix using the minimum mean square error (MMSE) criteria for a noncooperative amplify-and-forward (AF) distributed relay network. Global and local power constraints are included in the analysis. And a one-source-one-destination node pair and N-relay network is considered. Because the relays are noncooperative, this paper exploits the diagonal property in an amplifying relay matrix for the optimum matrix derivation. Then, this paper claims that the bit error rate of the AF network using the proposed amplifying relay matrix is significantly better than that of the AF network with the other existing amplifying matrices.


To replace vacuum tubes in klystron anode modulators with a semiconductor switch, we have developed a one chip IEGT (injection enhanced gate transistor) module. IEGT is a new semiconductor device which was originally invented by Toshiba. Based on the electron injection enhancement effects, IEGT has excellent characteristics, high blocking voltage capability of 4.5 kV and fast switching performance. This IEGT module is one of the most likely candidates for the semiconductor switch. For the next step, we are planning to start to develop a 100 kV IEGT switch for a klystron anode modulator.


Density functional theory has been used extensively for the description of boson and fermion gases, but only few studies are available for mixtures of bosons and fermions where two fermions can form bosons as a diatomic molecule. In this thesis, we propose an explicit form of the energy functional underlying the conversion process and explore the particle densities in various parameter regimes.


This study examined the mediating effect of perceived causal attribution of crisis on the relationship between perceived violation of social missions and public attitude, in addition to examining the moderating effects of both the medium and framing of online articles on the relationship between perceived violation of social missions and public attitude and that between perceived causal attribution and public attitude. The study conducted a quantitative content analysis of 511 comments obtained from 16 online articles for analysing a social enterprise crisis. The results supported that perceived causal attribution mediated the effect of perceived violation of social missions on public attitude. In addition, episodically framed articles enhanced the effect of perceived violation of social missions on public attitude, whereas Facebook articles enhanced the effect of perceived causal attribution on public attitude. Implications for public relations practitioners and journalists are discussed in this article.


We use a purely geometric method to understand the rotation of the photonic polarization vector in an optical fiber without birefringence. This rotation was explained due to Berry's phase of spin-1 photons. Via our method, we predict similar geometric rotations also exist for twisted photons carrying orbital angular momentum (OAM). The corresponding geometric phase can be applied in photonic OAM-state-based quantum computation and quantum sensing.


As nuclear research has become more prevalent, environmental contamination from the disposal of radioactive waste has become a prominent issue. At Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in northern New Mexico, radioactive contamination from disposal operations has raised some very specific concerns. Material Disposal Area G (Area G) is the primary low-level radioactive waste disposal site at LANL and occupies an area adjacent to land belonging to the Native American community of the Pueblo of San Ildefonso. Analyses of soil and vegetation collected from the perimeter of Area G have shown concentrations of radionuclides greater than background concentrations established for northern New Mexico. As a result, Pueblo residents had become concerned that contaminants from Area G could enter tribal lands through various ecological pathways. The residents specifically questioned the safety of consuming meat from elk and deer that forage near Area G and then migrate onto tribal lands. Consequently, this study addresses the uptake of {sup 3}H, {sup 90}Sr, {sup tot}U, {sup 238}Pu, {sup 239}Pu, {sup 241}Am, and {sup 137}Cs by elk (Cervus elaphus) and deer (Odocoileus hemionus) that forage around the perimeter of Area G and the associated doses to the animals and to humans who consume these animals. Radionuclide uptake by and internal dose to animals was estimated using equations modified from National Council on Radiological Protection Report 76. The Residual Radiation computer code was used to estimate the external dose to animals and the dose to humans consuming meat. Soil and water concentrations from the perimeter of Area G and from background regions in northern New Mexico were averaged over 4 years (1993--1996) and used as input data for the models. Concentration estimates generated by the model correspond to the concentration range measured in actual tissue samples from elk and deer collected at LANL. The highest dose estimates for both animals (0.028 mrad/d) and humans (0.072 mrem/y) were well below guidelines established to protect the environment (100 mrad/d) and the public (100 mrem/y) from radiological health risks.


A record of seasonal dynamics of major phytoplanktonic communities estimated by biovolume in a tropical high altitude lake studied from June 2003 to July 2004 is presented. Four seasons were clearly distinguishable; Main-rainy season (MRS), Post-rainy season (PORS), Dry season (DS) and Pre-rainy season (PRS) with different phytoplankton assemblages. Total phytoplankton biovolume ranged from 708.5mm3ml-1during the main-rainy and dry seasons to 302751.5mm3ml-1 during the post rainy season. The major divisions were Bacillariophyta, Chlorophyta and Cyanophyta. Blue greens were clearly the most dominant taxonomic group during the post-rainy season while diatoms were dominant during the other three seasons. However, the predominance of diatoms generally occurred during periods of strong vertical mixing and that of blue green algae under relatively less mixed water column (post-rainy season). Generally, phytoplankton seasonality was influenced more by hydrological (runoffs associated nutrient availability) and hydrographic (internal mixing) changes. In addition, the fact that the lake is shallow and lacks marked thermal stratification has enabled it to have its own pattern of seasonality compared with other large African lakes.


This paper is concerned with imaging a 3D scene from a set of 2D laser images of backscattered intensity. The interaction between an electromagnetic wave and a medium can be understood and modeled in different ways. In the context considered here, the interaction results in a 3D projection of the scene. After inspection in this projection, the reflection data appear as a sum in 3D of local sinograms with severely limited angle view. Therefore, the approach proposed here consists in considering reflection data as an incomplete data set of Radon-kind used in conventional Computerized Tomography (CT). Under this assumption, the use of the reconstruction techniques, such as the well-known filtered backprojection (FBP), provides a 3D-surface reconstruction of the scene from reflective data. Such 3D reconstructions are performed with short computation times. Simulation results using real data in laser tomography attest of the strength and of the relevancy of such an approach.


A new kind of complex tower technology was introduced.Advantages and problems existing in its application in recycling hydrogen chloride contained in vinyl chloride were discussed.


We applied our Simultaneous Multi-Source Electrical Impedance Tomography (SMS-EIT) system to detect pulmonary ventilation and pulsatile perfusion on 5 preterm newborns with respiratory distress syndrome under the nasal continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) treatment. The results show that derived impedance changes have a potential for clinical application to evaluate effects in spontaneously breathing preterm infants with and without CPAP.


Since various factors might affect the determination of methanol in water by head space gas chromatography.In this paper,orthogonal design was used for optimizing experimental conditions of head space gas chromatography.Five factors such as temperature,time and pressure were optimized and optimal conditions were established for the determination of methanol in water.The detection limit was 0.33 mg/L.It was shown that more scientific and reasonal for selection of operational conditions and the results were more reliable.


The device produces a foam which acts as a carrier for the therapeutic agent. A device for generating a carrier comprising a therapeutic agent and used to deliver this agent to a body cavity is designed to produce a foam which acts as the carrier. An independent claim is also included for a method for delivering a therapeutic agent to the mouth and throat cavity using this device, comprising the following steps: (A) lying on the back; (B) introducing the distributor (4) in the device into the back of the mouth cavity; (C) actuating the valve (2) in the device; and (D) lying on the back for a further few minutes.


Using phones while walking has been a factor that has led to accidents and injuries. However, few studies have analyzed the propensity of injuries due to distracted walking for different age groups and in different types of walking environments. This study aims to examine the number of emergency department (ED) visits due to distracted walking across different age groups and walking environments using a publicly available dataset, the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS) database. The results suggest that there were an estimated 29140 distracted walking injuries between the years 2011-2019. Individuals between 11 and 20 years old had the most injuries, followed by 21 to 30, and 31 to 40. Furthermore, the proportion of estimated injuries that occurred in different walking environments differed across age groups. Safety-orient interventions for future research for stairs and home environments were also recommended in the present study.


The invention discloses a polyvinyl chloride material with impact resistance and high toughness, which is composed of polyvinyl chloride, a colouring agent, a filler, and a high efficiency composite auxiliary agent SAC. The polyvinyl chloride material employs the high efficiency composite auxiliary agent SAC which can substitute a traditional lubricant, a flexibilizer and an ASA resin material. the ingredient process is simple, the working strength is reduced, the work efficiency is increased, the accumulative error during a burdening process is reduced, the prepared tubing accords with the quality standard, and the problem that the current strength and toughness are difficult to be balanced so that insufficient performance such as impact resistance or cracking resistance of the polyvinyl chloride tubing can not be provided is solved.


Abstract Objective: People with accurate representations of their own cognitive functioning (i.e. cognitive self-awareness) tend to use appropriate strategies to regulate their behavior. Due to the lack of appropriate instruments, few studies have examined the development of this ability among children. Method: This study tested the measurement properties of the self-rating and other-rating forms of the Questionnaire of Executive Functioning (QEF), designed to tap children's knowledge of their executive functioning. Specifically, the construct, convergent, and discriminant validities were investigated and a self-other discrepancy score was computed to assess children's executive self-awareness. Participants were 317 children aged 7–14 years old. Results: Confirmatory factor analyses carried out on the QEF confirmed the eight-factor structure of both versions. There were significant correlations between the QEF and the parent versions of the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function, the Dysexecutive Questionnaire for Children, and the Childhood Executive Functioning Inventory. Both forms of the QEF were able to distinguish between children who had sustained a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and control participants. A statistical difference was observed between the TBI and control groups on this score, suggesting that TBI may trigger self-awareness impairments in children. Conclusion: The good psychometric properties of the two forms of the QEF were established. Furthermore, results of the analyses carried out on the different discrepancy scores seem to indicate that the QEF could help clinicians to detect patients with self-awareness deficits.


The purpose of this project was to explore the ways in which culinary creativity fits a modified version of Wallas's classic 1926 model of the creative process. In order to analyze the process through which chefs create a specific culinary work (specific dish), the researchers used a qualitative research method. Seventeen award-winning culinary artists from around the world were interviewed, and it was shown how the interview data fit the general categories of Wallas's 4-phase culinary creativity model—preparing the idea, idea incubation, idea development, and evaluation of the product—which the researchers refined via Finke, Ward, and Smith's 1992 Geneplore model, with its cyclic cognitive subprocesses. What is presumably the most original part of this contribution, then, are not the conceptual categories themselves but the actual interview-based data—the feelings, thoughts, and reflections of top-level international chefs—and the ways in which they seem to fit the categories of a modified 4-phase creative-process model.


The synthesis of new cation-exchanger based on local raw materials for the extraction of copper from copper-containing solution investigated. A review of the literature regarding the problem of ion exchange method and the use of mine wastewater treatment process is presented. Sorption selectivity of Cu2+ ions by cation exchanger in the H-and Na-forms from dilute solutions was studied in the target concentration range 90 mg/dm3 and 5,49 g/ dm3. The full dynamic exchange capacity calculated. The cation exchanger analyzed with consideration for IR spectroscopic, chemical analysis, and scanning electron microscopic data. Quantum-chemical calculations performed that synthesized cation-exchanger stable complexes with Cu2+ ions. Obtained cation exchanger due to excellent behavior recommended removing copper ions from wastewater in the mine industry.


In this paper we examine an approach to the visualization, analysis and design of functional shape interactions represented as motion constraints in configuration space. A graphical constraint representation, together with a set of computational tools we have developed, permits a designer to visualize and directly manipulate motion constraints in order to achieve desired functional properties. The resulting system has been implemented and applied to the analysis and design of a set of orienting, fixturing and assembly devices for the automated assembly of planar parts.<<ETX>>


In this paper we are concerned with the extensions to measure chains of some of the fundamental ideas in the theory of nth order linear differential equations on the real line. In particular our object is to show that the factorizations of disconjugate differential operators developed by Polya [10] and extended to difference equations by Hartman [4] is valid also in the measure chain setting. Similarly, we show that the canonical factorization due to Trench [11] and extended to difference equations by Krueger [7] is also valid for measure chains. Let1 be the set


Replacement of the aortic, mitral and tricuspid valves has been carried out in 19 patients. The results are described and compared with other reported series. There were two early deaths (10.5%) and two late deaths (10.5%), figures which compare favourably with the results in single and double valve replacement groups. The major complications were ventricular arrhythmias in four patients and late perivalvular fistulæ necessitating reoperation in two patients. Thromboembolism was recognized in only one instance.


The current literature lacks an effective progressive collapse analysis of a cable dome structure induced by joint damage. In this study, a dynamic analysis was performed using actual construction cases, an ANSYS LS-DYNA analysis platform, and a fully dynamic equivalent load instantaneous removal method. First, the structure's dynamic responses and collapse modes induced by different joints with different types of damage were explored. Subsequently, joint importance coefficients were proposed depending on the structure's displacement before and after joint removal, and the relationships between the joint importance coefficients and the joint properties and collapse modes, respectively, were then identified. Finally, the relationship between the joint damage and the connected component damage was explored. The results revealed that different joints and identical joints with different types induced a variety of dynamic responses. However, the dynamic response induced by the discontinuous joint damage was more apparent than that induced by the continuous joint damage. When a continuous joint model was used, the damage on all joints did not result in the progressive or local progressive collapse of the structure. Thus, all these joints were considered as common joints. However, when a discontinuous joint model was used, the failure of the joints resulted in three distinct collapse modes, namely a progressive collapse, a local progressive collapse, and a nonprogressive collapse, corresponding to the key joints, the important joints, and the common joints, respectively. These three types of joints corresponded to different importance coefficients. When damage occurred in the discontinuous joints separately linked to the key components, the important components, and the common components, the joints resulted in the progressive collapse, local progressive collapse, and nonprogressive collapse, respectively, of the structure.


Alcohol is the drug of choice for many Americans. Approxi mately one-half of the U.S. population ages 12 and older currently drink [1]. While alcohol use is legal and socially acceptable in adults 21 years and older, federal law prohibits minors from buying and consuming alcohol. Numerous studies have shown the detrimental effects of underage drinking and the serious personal, social, and economic consequences it can create for adolescents, their families, communities, and the nation as a whole [2]. The consumption of alcohol by persons under age 21 is a major public health issue. Alcohol is the most commonly used and abused substance among youth in the United States. Although drinking by persons under the age of 21 is illegal, adolescents broadly engage in this activity, with many starting in their preteens. Studies have shown that adolescents drink less frequently than adults, but when they do drink, they consume alcohol more heavily [2]. It is estimated that over 28 percent of 12to 20-yearolds have used alcohol in the past month and almost 19 percent engaged in binge drinking [1]. Underage drinking can greatly affect adolescents in numerous ways, and it is more likely to kill young people than all illegal drugs combined [3]. Conse quences of underage drinking include:[4] • School problems, such as higher absence and poor or failing grades; • Social problems, such as fighting and lack of participation in youth activities; • Legal problems, such as arrest for driving or physically hurting someone while drunk; • Physical problems, such as hangovers or illnesses; • Unwanted, unplanned, and unprotected sexual activity; • Disruption of normal growth and sexual development; • Physical and sexual assault; • Higher risk for suicide and homicide; • Alcohol-related car crashes and other unintentional injuries, such as burns, falls, and drowning; • Memory problems; • Abuse of other drugs; • Changes in brain development that may have life-long effects; and • Death from alcohol poisoning. Furthermore, young people who start drinking before the age of 15 are five times more likely to develop alcohol dependence or abuse later on in life than those who begin drinking at or after the age of 21 [4]. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Surgeon General's Call to Action to Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking, 2007, states that underage drinking remains a serious problem despite federal laws aiming to prevent or at least reduce it [2]. Part of the problem is that alcohol use, including underage drinking, is embedded in the American culture. Drinking is often seen as a rite of passage, handed down to the next generation, and many of our American customs and traditions involve the use of alcohol. All this plays a role in the persistence of underage drinking. Particularly, alcohol use on college campuses is more pervasive and destructive than many people realize. Environmental and peer influences combine to create a culture of drinking. This culture actively promotes drinking, or passively promotes it, through tolerance, or even tacit approval, of college drinking as a rite of passage. Customs and beliefs are being handed down to the next generation of students, reinforcUnderage drinking is deeply embedded in the


This paper analyzes the regulation on civil liability within the construction process under the Spanish Act 38/1999, of 5th November, on Construction Regulations and its application by the Spanish Courts of Appeal and the Spanish Supreme Court fourteen years after its entry into force.


MXene with expanding interlayer and tunable terminations emerge as promising candidates for metal ion storage. Herein, we develop a facile urea decomposition strategy to obtain ultrathin nitrogen-modified Ti3C2T x (N-UT-Ti3C2T x ) with optimized terminations as anode for sodium/potassium ion storage. Experimental results have shown that NH3 molecules produced by urea pyrolysis could introduce two types of nitrogen modifications in Ti3C2, function substitution for –OH (FS) and surface absorption on –O (SA). During subsequent hydrothermal and heating processes, the nitrogen atoms in situ substitute the lattice carbon in Ti3C2 (LS). Further, the effects of these nitrogen modifications in Ti3C2 on diffusion kinetics of Na+ and K+ are investigated by first-principles calculations. The superior Na+ storage performances of the N-UT-Ti3C2T x anode are the main attribute of the nitrogen modification of LS in Ti3C2, while the excellent K+ storage performances come from the synergistic effects of the nitrogen modifications of FS and LS in Ti3C2. This work emphasizes the effectiveness of surface engineering of nitrogen modifications and optimized terminations for improving the electrochemical performances of Ti3C2T x and inspires the design of heteroatom modified MXenes for energy storage.


A temporal–spatial analysis was made of childhood leukemia within towns and cities of upper New York State, emphasizing the year of birth as the measure of time. Despite previous observations which have suggested that leukemogenic events occur prenatally or soon after birth, a random birth‐year distribution was noted among children developing leukemia before age 5 years. This finding does not provide epidemiologic support for the birth‐date liability that might be expected to characterize a viral induction of childhood leukemia. In addition, leukemia under age 15 was found to have a significant tendency to cluster according to year of report to the state cancer registry but evidence is presented to suggest that this finding may be an artifact induced by time‐space variation in case registration.


This article builds on the results of an analysis of reviews of data-based research literature in the field of multicultural teacher education. The author discusses two examples of major findings from the seven reviews considered: the amount and quality of research and the hidden curriculum of teacher education. Limitations of the reviews are also discussed and particular attention is paid to the issues of defining multiculturalism and building a theoretical argument. The author describes, in detail, two major tensions that are evident in the field: the demographic tension and the effectiveness tension. In addition, the article suggests ways in which the field might move forward by establishing a strong theoretical rationale for its investigations.


The purpose of the article is to improve the grouping cost by economic elements and articles to calculate the cost of production, work and services, as well as the formation of information support for the analysis of the activity results of enterprises. The procedure for the formation of technological, production and full production cost was disclosed. It was revealed that if an enterprise produces one type of product, work or service, then all expenses incurred (basic and overhead) are essentially direct. If there are several objects of accounting, then indirect costs are subject to distribution. In order to analyze the costs incurred, they are grouped by articles. Branch guidelines contain a recommended list of expense articles, but the names and numbers of such items are not the same. In agricultural and industrial enterprises, where the vast majority of products are produced, only one article "General production costs" coincides in name. A similar situation is observed when comparing expense articles between other sectors of the economy. Thus, when planning and accounting, expenses are grouped in such a way that there is no way to compare them and conduct a detailed economic analysis. In this regard, it is advisable that the cost articles in all sectors of economic activity be the same and correspond to the established cost elements: material costs, labor costs, deductions for social events, depreciation, other operating expenses. Each article should be detailed depending on industry and other features of management. Each enterprise should set the level of detail of expenses independently, guided by its own needs, because modern information technology provides the possibility of any detail. An author's approach to grouping cost by elements was proposed, which allows to get information about the created added value for each product (including data on labor costs, deductions for social events, received incomes).


This study is an intervention in postcolonial theorising through a critique of technologies of representation. It examines the effects of technologically-mediated representation in a postcolonial condition that the Philippines has exemplified. New media technologies are mechanisms of representations that embody the logic of spectrality presented in Jacques Derrida's later work. Spectrality, which brings doubts, ephemerality, and instability to dominant discourses and modes of representation, provides a chance for change.Spectres are effects of technologically-mediated representation that articulate the infinite demand for justice under conditions of enduring inequality. As quasi-transcendental elements of deconstruction, spectres are not reducible to either human or technical intervention; they express the relation of humans to technologies, in which representation is central to the mediation of political authority. This technological representation is the condition of what Derrida calls "iteration," or the transformation of hegemonic authority through the very repetition of its fundamental terms of identification.
The examination of emancipatory new media technologies in a postcolonial condition is inspired by the work of Jacques Derrida, in his deconstructive reading of Marx's spectres. However, the writings of Habermas and Adorno have offered an implicit appraisal of the ontology of spectres. Habermas's theory of the public sphere and Adorno's negative dialectics are discourses that unwittingly solicit spectres. The account of the postcolonial condition in the Philippines works through the questions of universality, subalternity, and the right to theory that are raised by the project of Western critical theory.


Stringent fiscal rules and budgetary procedures might generate incentives for political decision-makers to cut predominantly productive public investment during periods of fiscal consolidation. While the influence of the European Stability and Growth Pact on public investment received a lot of attention in the empirical literature, only a few studies consider the impact of different budgetary decision-making rules and procedures at the national level on government investment spending. We test empirically for the effect of political factors and the institutional framework of budgeting on public investment in EU 15 over the period 1990-2005. Our results show that stringent quantitative constraints limit government investment, but a centralisation of budgeting procedures by providing more agenda setting powers to the finance minister (delegation approach) or by the use of medium-term fiscal contracts are not related to public investment spending cuts.


In Marching Cubes (MC) Method the construction of isosurface usually uses the tri-linear interpolation algorithm. It is easy to understand and calculated simply. But at the same time its smoothness is bad, and has no high-order convergence, so error is also relatively large. With developing of computer software and hardware, other interpolation algorithm which is relatively complex and its convergence is better has been easy to achieve by using computer. This paper proposes one new method which introduces cubic spline interpolation to the MC method. After analyzing the cost of its time and space complexity, we give several sets of experimental data, and verify the theoretical correctness.


After the French Revolution, laborers in the mining industry formed a labor association as the revolution had inculcated a sense of collectivism in the masses. By that time, labor associations had no legal standing, but soon there was a mushroom growth of labor associations. These were the first labor bodies and soon the right of unionization was accepted through the Combination Act of 1828. Thus these associations became labor unions and they were accepted legally. Malik Gokhale and his associates first started organizing labor in the Indo-Pak sub-continent. Malik also published a paper titled 'Maratha' which became instantly popular. In the beginning, the articles published in this paper were disseminated to study groups comprising labors from different industries for awareness. The Bill Hands Association came into being under the auspices of 'Maratha.' In a way, it was the first ever labor union in the Indo-Pak sub-continent. Slowly and gradually the wave of labor unionization reached British-India from England. Generally, there used to be craft unions in England in those days, whereas, initially organizational-based labor unions were interestingly formed in BritishIndia. For instance, the labor unions in Port Trust, Railway and Post Office etc., were the catalyst unions. Soon, labor unionization took momentum and consequently the Trade Unions Act was passed in 1926 under which labor unions were registered in order to give them legal status and official recognition. In the context of Pakistan, the Railway Workers Union is considered the foremost labor union. Similarly, the Postal & Telegraph Department & Port Trust unions were established. Narain Das started organizing labor unions in the Sindh province and also paved the way for labor unionization in the private industrial sector. Popular labor unions at that time were in the Komal Flour Mill and the Ganesh Khopra (Coconut) Mill. The labor union of the Lahore Railway Workshop emerged as a powerful entity. Similarly, the Hydro-Electric Central Labor Union was formed pre-partition in 1935 in British-India at the electricity department. Its headquarters was in Shimla and Bashir Bakhtiar was its head. Another exemplary contemporary labor activist was Mirza Ibrahim, who energized the Railway Workers Union. Labor Unionization in Pakistan – History & Trends


Heptahelical protein (HHP) signalling pathway is involved in cold acclimation responses to low temperature and other stresses. The HHP transcription factor family is the key component regulating this signalling pathway. In this study, five HHP-like genes, BcHHP1, BcHHP2, BcHHP3, BcHHP4, and BcHHP5, were isolated from non-heading Chinese cabbage (Brassica rapa ssp. chinensis cv. Suzhouqing). Multiple sequence alignment and phylogenetic analysis showed that BcHHP proteins are highly homologous to HHP proteins from Arabidopsis thaliana, Glycine max, Oryza sativa, and Zea mays. Some of these HHP proteins might share similar functions in some aspects, which might be further proved by interaction network of BcHHP genes. Furthermore, real-time quantitative PCR showed that BcHHP1 was induced under cold and salt treatments. Besides, BcHHP1 was also accumulated in response to abscisic acid and salicylic acid, indicating that BcHHP1 gene might participate in response to hormone treatments. In addition, a BcHHP1-YFP fusion protein was localized to the nucleus and cytoplasm. These results indicated that five BcHHP genes might play important roles in a functional HHP signalling pathway responding to cold treatment. This work might be useful for future functional analysis of other HHP-like genes.


This paper presents a recent procedure for recovering the shear flow curve in Couette rheometer from torque‐rotational velocity data. It is the purpose here to extend the previous works and to compare our predictions in shear flow curve recovery with previous solutions in shear rate determination. With this goal, synthetic and experimental data of yield stress materials in Couette system are presently investigated.


We investigated the effects of vacuum annealing on the surface electronic structure and the work function of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs). We changed the doping type of semiconducting single-walled carbon nanotubes (semi-SWCNTs) from p-type to n-type, and investigated their optical properties. The HNO3 treated p-type SWCNT network was converted to n-type after vacuum annealing due to formation of C-N bond. The C 1s sp2 binding energy of the vacuum annealed semi-SWCNTs was shifted toward a higher binding energy about 0.42 eV, which indicates a raising Fermi level as much as 0.42 eV compared with the intrinsic semi-SWCNTs. In addition, the work function of the vacuum annealed semi-SWCNT was observed towards lower energies. It is considered that the C-N bonding of semi-SWCNTs creates a donor level near the bottom of the conduction band, thus raising the Fermi level. The ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy revealed that the increased binding energy of C 1s sp...


Objective To investigate the diagnostic delays of newly smear positive cases in Hubei.Meth ods Consulting the history of new smear positive cases in 6 counties.Results To collected 108 cases in 6 counties/cities.The average time of patient delay,doctor delay and total delay was 4.6 weeks,6.4 weeks and 8.7 weeks,respectively.The initial symptoms of delayed patients were cough (88.9%),expectoration (78.7%) and hypodynamia (37.0%),etc.The main delayed reasons were paying no attention to symptoms (58.7%),economic difficulties (34.8%).Only 10.2% of patients had sputum smear results.Other patients were only diagnosed by X ray examination.Conclusion The main reason of patient delay was that patients did not care for their own health,the main reason of doctor delay was that doctors paid more attention to X rays examination than sputum inspection.


This thesis articulates a normative theory of international law based on new natural law theory. New natural law theory is a theory of ethics, politics, and law that is based on the classical natural law doctrine of Thomas Aquinas. The primary reference point of the thesis in relation to new natural law theory is the work of John Finnis, who in Natural Law and Natural Rights and subsequent writings elaborates the theory in the consideration of fundamental concepts in political philosophy and legal theory. The thesis examines the tenets of new natural law theory regarding the
common good, authority, law, justice, human rights, and legal obligation, and uses these to formulate normative claims regarding the moral purpose of international law
and the moral standards that international law should satisfy in light of its purpose. The thesis posits the existence of an 'international common good', encompassing a set of supranational conditions that are instrumental to human welfare and that require international cooperation for their realisation. The thesis claims that the primary moral purpose of international authority and international law is to further the international common good through resolving the coordination problems of the
international community of states. Identifying 'principles of justice' for international law, the thesis asserts that positive international law should promote and demonstrate respect for human rights, and should also promote and protect the international common good. The thesis further argues that states have a general moral obligation to obey international law, based primarily on the necessity of state compliance with international laws in order to facilitate the effectiveness of such laws in promoting the international common good. These claims are elaborated with reference to existing features of international law, and through comparison with existing
normative and non-normative perspectives in international legal theory on the concepts considered.


Retrograde pyelonephritis was produced in rats by introducing into the bladder a small refluxing inoculum of Escherichia coli that would enter the renal pelvis but not the blood stream. At the same time the left ureter was partially obstructed for 18 hours. This model differs from previous attempts to produce E coli pyelonephritis with large (0.6 ml) volumes infused into the bladder, because such large volumes cause bacteremia and hematogeneous pyelonephritis. Since retrograde E coli pyelonephritis in patients is not accompanied by positive blood cultures, the model described in this report is believed to accurately mimic human pyelonephritis and to allow a realistic approach to the study of immunity against retrograde infection in the urinary tract.


Abstract The vibration of a flexible shaft coupled with multiple flexible disks is investigated by using a substructure synthesis technique with the assumed modes methods to be compared with experimental results. According to the nature of coupling with the rotor, disk vibratory modes are classified into three groups: uncoupled disk modes with more than one nodal diameters, umbrella modes coupled with the shaft longitudinal vibrations and disk modes with a single nodal diameter coupled with the shaft bending vibrations. The natural frequencies and mode shapes for each group are calculated by employing different solution and tuning techniques. It is shown that the tuning technique is capable of accurately predicting the natural frequencies of the complicated coupled vibratory system.


Author(s): Lyness, Claire Frances | Advisor(s): Lipschutz, Ronnie D | Abstract: Name: Claire LynessTitle: Governing Bodies: Gender and the Politics of Corporeal WeaponizationThis dissertation engages with women's participation in three practices of political violence – suicide bombing, dirty protest and hunger striking. These practices all entail the weaponization of the body in distinct ways and are often placed beyond the scope of acceptable forms of violence. They are associated with "terrorist" subjects and are deployed against the state. I argue that the transgressive quality of these modes of corporeal weaponization is further amplified when the perpetrators are women. Following feminist scholarship on gender and political violence, I attend to the question of agency and consider how it is precisely the erasure of feminine bodies from the space of political violence which may conversely constitute a unique form of political agency. Female suicide bombers, for example, are often cast as particularly lethal weapons because of their capacity to use feminine embodiment (usually feigning pregnancy) as a disguise. In such representations, women's bodies carry with them the significations of the private sphere – domesticity, nurture and care – and therefore are not read as violent actors. The association of femininity with the private sphere is what constitutes the deadly "undetectability" of the female suicide bomber. In the first chapter of this dissertation, I argue that the terrorism studies literature that engages with the figure of the suicide terrorist attempts to recapture suicide terrorism as a rational phenomenon with an identifiable strategic logic so that the suicide bomber may be effectively governed. At the same time, however, these literatures produce the female suicide bomber as a singularly risky subject who, because of her feminine embodiment, frequently exceeds attempts to govern her. In the second chapter I shift to a different comparative site – the period of conflict in Northern Ireland known as the "Troubles." I argue that this formation can be read alongside the contemporary War on Terror, as many of the techniques and modes of counterterrorist governmentality recur across these two sites. I look at the dirty protest in Armagh prison undertaken by thirty Republican prisoners in 1980. I examine the conditions of historical absence that have constituted the women's protest as marginal to the men's protest at the Maze prison, which has since featured heavily in Republican commemorative tropes. I argue that attempts to understand the protest as reclaiming or "seizing control" of the women prisoners' bodies from the disciplinary regime of the prison often unintentionally reiterate a vision of the subject that is guaranteed by a mind/body dualism. Here the body is read as a passive, inert materiality that is animated only by the lively, willful mind. The problem with such accounts is not only that this dualism has functioned to historically exclude certain groups – including feminized and racialized subjects – from political life, but that it cannot account for certain modes of agency in which the body exerts a force of its own kind. Finally I engage with the cases of Marian and Dolours Price, two IRA prisoners who went on hunger strike (and were force-fed) in HMP Brixton in 1974. The sisters' were eventually released in 1980 and 1981 reportedly suffering from anorexia. Finding the co-signification of women hunger strikers with anorexia or eating disorders to be a common one, I consider the feminist literature on anorexia and argue that the case of the Price sisters' disrupts the distinct boundary between pathology and protest. I argue that this has consequences for our understanding of political agency in hunger striking more generally and provokes further consideration of the agency of the body in such practices of resistance.


An efficient strategy for the synthesis of spirocyclic indolizidine derivatives that have a 3,3′-disubstituted oxindole framework has been described. By using sequential nucleophilic C(sp3)-benzylation and palladium-catalyzed C(sp2)–H arylation reactions of 3-pyrrolyloxindoles and 2-(bromomethyl)aryl bromides, a series of spiro[oxindole-3,5′-pyrrolo[2,1-a]isoquinolines] were smoothly obtained in up to 92 % yield. A synthetic application of this method was also demonstrated by the transformation of 3u into functionalized compound 4. Moreover, the catalytic cycle of this cascade reaction was proposed on the basis of results of control experiments.


Excerpt We have developed new techniques to measure protocollagen proline hydroxylase (PPH) activity in human blood; PPH is the enzyme that hydroxylates proline during collagen synthesis. To determ...


Beginning in 1999, courts have been required by Washington State law to impose electronic home monitoring sentences in lieu of actual jail time for DUI offenses (RCW46.61.502). In Kitsap County the driving force behind electronic home monitoring is overcrowding in the county jail. With a design capacity of 200 inmates, the jail frequently blossoms to over 250. Kitsap Jail capacity is now discussed in terms of "floor space" rather than "bed space". New intake standards established by correctional facilities are geared toward making sure the most violent offenders stay behind bars. As a result, cities must explore alternative options for the approximately 500 non-violent, minor offenders that are currently on the waiting list to serve jail time. The current study conducted in the Fall of 1999 by the Poulsbo Municipal Court extends previous research by examining successful programs being managed in Washington State. The objective of this research was to determine the potential uses and application of electronic monitoring and to develop recommendations for implementation. The study addresses whether, and how, offenders' are screened for electronic monitoring, including the use of treatment-based requirements versus standard prison sentences. We also explore factors that influence effectiveness regarding recidivism and cost. To address these questions, two types of data was collected and analyzed on issues relevant to imposition and alternative sentencing decisions. First, written surveys were sent to fifty electronic monitoring sites. Twenty programs responded with descriptive accounts of current programs. This information was needed to illustrate commonly shared program characteristics as well as variations in their structure, operations and goals. Second, we gathered information from an in-depth follow-up telephone interview with these twenty agencies on characteristics of offenders' eligibility and exclusions, frequency of contact, and duration of supervision. Three central findings emerge from this study. First, this study demonstrates home detention is one of the most cost effective means used in the Criminal Justice System today. It allows for a sentenced person to be monitored at a specific location for up to 24 hours a day using regular telephone lines to maintain its "custody", and at little or not cost to the taxpayer. The second finding central to this report is that an Electronic Monitoring Program (EMP) is a simple system to implement. The sentenced person is fitted with a tamper-sensitive ankle device or watch that not only reacts to the signal strength of the receiver/sending unit attached to a normal telephone …


Construction progress and quality are two important objectives in the construction of high core rockfill dam. It is of great significance to evaluate their control effect comprehensively. In this paper, the progress and quality of high core rockfill dam construction management are the study objectives. in order to achieve the real-time control of coupling them, the comprehensive evaluation method for the quantitative analysis of their complex relationship is proposed. Based on the comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms of the influence related factors in the construction process, the comprehensive evaluation index system of the high core rockfill dam coupling construction progress and quality is designed ; the comprehensive evaluation index data acquisition process is analyzed; the comprehensive evaluation method for the high core rockfill dam filling unit is put forward. finally, a comprehensive evaluation of high core rockfill dam filling unit model based on TOPSIS is established. Engineering examples show that this method plays a guiding role in real-time control of coupling high core rockfill dam construction progress and quality.


Zenab Ahmed is a writer, activist, and graduate student currently finishing her doctoral studies at SOAS, University of London. She specialises in bodily politics, economics of underdevelopment, and state and anti-state violence in Northwest Pakistan. She has been published in The Guardian, Verso Blog, The New Arab, and Souciant, where she was an associate editor. She also works at Reprocare Healthline, an emotional support service for self-managed abortion.


Pheochromocytoma, or a tumor of the adrenal medulla gland, is a disorders of the catecholamine hormone secretion which affecting multiple systems, especially in the cardiovascular system. Incidence of the disease is uncommon and can be cured by surgery with early detection. However, patients who have invasive or metastatic forms of malignant pheochromocytoma may affect the prognosis of the disease negatively. They risk danger of death. Therefore, patients need to be closely monitored and need complex nursing care to prevent complication. Nurses are the key  for pheochromocytoma care because they work closely with the patient. The nurse must have an understanding of the pathology, signs, and symptoms of the disease, as well as treatment guidelines to provide nursing care correctly.


Objective. Study the peculiarities of nodule formation upon the formation of the symbiotic sys-tem soybean-Bradyrhizobium japonicum 634b, as well as the symbiotic nitrogen-fixation ability and plant growth and development under the influence of goat's-rue rhizobia. Methods. Microbiologi-cal, physiological, statistical, gas chromatography. Results. In green house experiments, using sand as a substrate for growing plants, the mixed microbial cultures combining soybean nodule bacteria B. japonicum 634b and goat's-rue nodule bacteria R. galegae 0702 or R. galegae 0703 in the ratio of 1 : 1 differed from the monoculture bradyrhizobium by their influence on the nodulation, nitro-gen-fixation ability of soybean-rhizobial symbiosis and development of soybean plants (variety Almaz). Increased nodulation activity in the primordial leaf and budding phases, as well as a signif-icant decrease in the level of symbiosis nitrogen fixation during budding, were observed when used in binary bacterial compositions of strain R. galegae 0703. These rhizobia of goat's-rue suppressed the development of the root system of soybeans, but had no significant effect on the formation of the aerial part of the plants throughout the observation period. R. galegae 0702 strain slightly slowed the formation of nodules by bacteria in the primordial leaf phase, which caused a decrease in the number of soybean plants that formed symbiosis with B. japonicum 634b. Goat's-rue nodule bacte-ria R. galegae 0702 improved the formation of the root system, and stimulated the growth and de-velopment of the aerial part of the macro symbiont in the phase of two trigeminal leaves. Conclu-sion. Combined inoculation of the rhizobia of goat's-rue with nodule bacteria B. japonicum 634b showed a multidirectional effect on the formation of symbiosis by soybean plants of variety Almaz and functioning of soybean rhizobial symbiosis. The nature of the influence of R. galegae depended on their strain affiliation.


SUMMARY This is an attempt to study 3-D wave propagation in a general anisotropic poroelastic medium. Biot's theory is used to derive a modified Christoffel equation for the propagation of plane harmonic waves in an anisotropic fluid-saturated porous solid. This equation is solved further to obtain a biquadratic equation, the roots of which represent the phase velocities of all the four quasi-waves that may propagate in such a medium. These phase velocities vary with the direction of phase propagation. Expressions are derived to calculate the group velocities of all the four quasi-waves without using numerical differentiation. The eigensystem of modified Christoffel equation is used to calculate the polarizations of all the quasi-waves. The particle motion of each wave is a function of the direction of phase propagation. Some fundamental differences between wave propagation in anisotropic poroelastic medium and anisotropic elastic medium are suggested, an interesting one is that in an anisotropic poroelastic medium, the polarizations of different quasi-waves need not be mutually orthogonal. In the anisotropic poroelastic medium, the motion of fluid particles deviates from solid particles and this deviation varies, also, with the matrix porosity. Propagation regimes for an isotropic medium, giving velocities and polarizations of both compressional and shear waves, are obtained as special cases. The variations of phase velocity, group velocity, ray direction with phase direction (in 3-D space), are plotted for a numerical model of general anisotropic poroelastic solid. The same numerical model is used to plot the deviations of polarizations from phase direction and ray direction. The deviations among the motion in fluid of the particles and solid parts of porous aggregate are also plotted.


Tropical Montane, evergreen forests locally known as sholas, situated in the higher mountain tracts of the Western Ghats, at an altitude above 1500m is interspersed with rolling grasslands. Sholas stay in restricted boundaries, in small pockets and the grasslands dominate. These bio diverse forests and grasslands were converted into commercially valuable plantation to serve fuel wood need of tea industry during British period. Some of the introduced species like A. mearnsii have become invasive alien species in this ecosystem and became a serious threat to this high altitude ecosystem (Myers et al., 2000).

https://www.ijcmas.com/9-8-2020/A. C. Surya Prabha, et al.pdf


Irregularly sampled time series are becoming increasingly prevalent in various domains, especially in medical applications. Although different highly-customized methods have been proposed to tackle irregularity, how to effectively model their complicated dynamics and high sparsity is still an open problem. This paper studies the problem from a whole new perspective: transforming irregularly sampled time series into line graph images and adapting powerful vision transformers to perform time series classification in the same way as image classification. Our approach largely simplifies algorithm designs without assuming prior knowledge and can be potentially extended as a general-purpose framework. Despite its simplicity, we show that it substantially outperforms state-of-the-art specialized algorithms on several popular healthcare and human activity datasets. Our code and data are available at https://github.com/Leezekun/ViTST.


Background: The primary goal of medical education is to have competent physicians. Amidst the ongoing debates of clinical utility and relevance of the content of the traditional practical curriculum, there is an emergent need of restructuring the undergraduate curriculum in medical schools.

Aim and Objective: The present study aimed to assess the strength and weaknesses of the present physiology practical curriculum by documenting and analyzing the feedback obtained from the MBBS students.

Materials and Methods: A structured pre-tested internally validated questionnaire was used to assess the perception of the 2nd and 3rd year medical students for the relevance of physiology practical curriculum using Likert's point scale. Data were collected using Microsoft Excel sheet and were analyzed in SPSS.

Results: The results showed that responses of students' for the relevance of practical of physiology were 82% for clinical physiology, 59% for hematology, and 10% for experimental. More than 50% of students' in the study felt that the present physiology curriculum did not offer them learning of newer diagnostic techniques in physiology and it's relation in clinical scenarios.

Conclusions: We conclude that the practical physiology practical curriculum should be made need based and clinically relevant to meet the global standards of medical graduates.


Recent deep learning models developed to address classification problems related to medical imaging for diagnosis focus on supervised models. However, supervised models are highly dependent on a large amount of accurately labeled training data to train the models. Obtaining such accurately labeled training data is expensive, time-consuming, and requires human expertise, which challenges the generalizing ability of deep learning models in many medical fields. To address this problem, we propose MeanMatch, a semi-supervised method that use a limited amount of labeled data and many unlabeled data to train deep models. We also employ the voting technical to assemble the deep models to improve the generalization performance. Finally, we conduct experiments on the breast-ultrasound image dataset to verify the effectiveness of our approach and compare it to the current state-of-the-art semi-supervised methods. Experimental results show that our method achieves the highest classification accuracy of 83.0\% on the test set, which outperforms or is comparable to the comparison methods and the supervised models.


* Overture *1. That Night *2. Retreat House *3. Marta and Maria *4. Holy Days *5. Old Lucas Macias *6. Easter *7. The Northerners *8. Marbles *9. Victoria and Gabriel *10. Holy Cross Day *11. The Chaplain *12. Ascension *13. The Downfall of Damian Limon *14. Students and Absent Ones *15. Pedrito *16. Halley's Comet


We present experimental studies of laser emission in the nonperturbative regime in a GaAs quantum well (QW) microcavity. By tuning the cavity resonance to the low energy side of the inhomogeneous exciton distribution, we are able to achieve laser emission at exciton densities well below the exciton saturation density at which cavity polaritons vanish.


A convergence analysis for time-splitting generalized-Laguerre– Fourier–Hermite pseudo-spectral methods applied to time-dependent Gross– Pitaevskii equations with rotation term is given. The space discretization combines the generalized-Laguerre–Fourier spectral method with respect to the (x, y)-variables and the Hermite spectral method with respect to the zdirection. For the time integration exponential operator splitting methods are studied. Under suitable regularity requirements on the problem data spectral accuracy of the spatial discretization and the nonstiff convergence order for the time integrator is retained. Essential ingredients are a general functional analytic framework of abstract nonlinear evolution equations and fractional power spaces defined by the principal linear part, Sobolev-type inequalities in curved rectangles, and results on the asymptotical distribution of the nodes and weights associated with Gauß–Laguerre quadrature. The theoretical convergence estimate is confirmed by a numerical example. We acknowledge financial support by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) under the projects P21620-N13 and P24157-N13. Harald Hofstätter (Corresponding author) Institute for Analysis and Scientific Computing, Vienna University of Technology Wiedner Hauptstrasse 8–10, A–1040 Wien, Austria E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com Othmar Koch Institute for Analysis and Scientific Computing, Vienna University of Technology Wiedner Hauptstrasse 8–10, A–1040 Wien, Austria E-mail: email@example.com Mechthild Thalhammer Institut für Mathematik, Leopold–Franzens Universität Innsbruck Technikerstraße 13/VII, A–6020 Innsbruck, Austria E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com


Two recording high-temperature densitometers were de signed and built for investigation of density as a function of temperature in the liquid state. The density of the liquid is determined by the weight loss of a sinker suspended in the liquid media. From a plot of apparent weight change vs. temperature, density changes could be determined for any temperature range. Density determinations are reported for Al, Sn, and Bi. Relationships of densities and heat capacities were calculated. (M.C.G.)


This paper presents the results of investigations and substantiation of the possibility of disposal of spent adsorbents created on the basis of the modification of natural zeolite tuffs of the Holinsky deposit of East Transbaikalia, and used in industrial wastewater treatment technology, in building materials are presented. Effective technological methods of using zeolites and zeolite-like materials are considered: non-firing technologies (an extensive class of mixed binders), concretes, autoclave-free silicate products, ash-zeolitive compositions; firing technologies (high-temperature: 1100-1200 °C artificial porous aggregates), ceramic materials of a wide range of applications, aluminosilicate component in the preparation of Portland cement clinker and binders, foams.


It is manifestly unfair to comment on the outcome of a national conference when the final report will not be released until May 30th, ten days after I write this editorial. However, the importance of the 2020 Summit held in Canberra the weekend of April 19/20 should not be underestimated. The Summit was an initiative of Australia's Prime Minister, the Honourable Kevin Rudd, and intended to generate ideas and ambitions to help us shape a long term strategy for the nation's future ? in relation to the economy, our environment,...[etc.] and ensure nobody is left out of Australia's future.? (www.australia2020.gov.au/index.cfm). The Summit generated an Initial Report, on which this editorial is based, plus numerous press accounts and analyses, and more than 8500 submissions from the public clearly indicating how seriously Australians took the Summit and its potential for actually influencing long term government policy.


This paper proposes an adaptive inter-agent communication protocol to considerably reduce the amount of agent location information maintained by each service node and the message delivery time while avoiding the dependency of the home node of a mobile agent. To satisfy this goal, the protocol enables each mobile agent to autonomously leave its location information only on some few of its visiting nodes. Also, it may significantly reduce the agent cache updating frequency of each service node by keeping the identifier of the location manager of each agent in the smart agent location cache of the node. Simulation results show that the proposed protocol reduces about of message delivery overhead and about of the amount of agent location information each service node should maintain compared with the traditional one.


[1] Simultaneous measurements of the small, intermediate and large positive ions and air-Earth current density made at a coastal station, Maitri (70°45′52″S, 11°44′03″E, 130 m above sea level), at Antarctica during January–February 2005, are reported. Although small and large positive ion concentrations do not show any systematic diurnal variations, variations in them are almost similar to each other. On the other hand, variations in intermediate positive ion concentrations are independent of variations in the small/large positive ions and exhibit a diurnal variation which is similar to that in atmospheric temperature on fair weather days with a maximum during the day and minimum during the night hours. No such diurnal variation in intermediate positive ion concentration is observed on cloudy days when variations in them are also similar to those in small/large positive ion concentrations. Magnitude of diurnal variation in intermediate positive ion concentration on fair weather days increases with the lowering of atmospheric temperature in this season. Scavenging of ions by snowfall and trapping of α-rays from the ground radioactivity by a thin layer of snow on ground is demonstrated from observations. Variations in intermediate positive ion concentration are explained on the basis of the formation of new particles by the photolytic nucleation process.


as compared with 479 for Blue Cross. The hospital-admission rate per 1,000 was 88, as compared with 101 for Blue Cross. Average lengths of stay were 3.3 and 4.7 days, respectively. This plan represents another means to control costs in the private medical marketplace. (Reprinted with permission from the New England J. of Medicine, Vol. 300 (No. 24), June 14, 1979, copyright 1979 by the Massachusetts Medical Society, 10 Shattuck St., Boston, Nlass. 02115.)


Pipelines fail due to various causes. The "outside forces" incident category includes acts of man (such as impact damage by earth moving machinery) but it also embraces acts of nature. Outside forces has been the dominant incident category in most Western World oil and gas transmission pipeline systems. Incidents due to outside forces have been the leading cause of significant failures on transmission pipelines in the USA since formal record keeping and trend analysis of incidents began in the 1970's. This trend remains currently, with these results reflecting incident experience for 2002. While this situation is not expected to change in the near term, the recent data from 2002 indicate corrosion is overtaking outside force as the main failure cause.

The objectives of this report are to evaluate current state of knowledge concerning assessment and management of mechanical damage to pipelines, and identify outstanding issues or gaps to be addressed by the industry. Motivation for such an evaluation and gaps analysis lies in several factors, including much work done has been recently done worldwide. Third-party damage is typically the largest incident category, with the largest consequences, and pending regulatory actions are consequence based, and will require a management strategy to deal with mechanical damage.


ABSTRACT Unequal access to important resources like grocery stores, pharmacies, and parks in the urban built environment has been a significant social problem under study by social scientists. Drawing from work in urban and environmental justice studies that conceptualize racism as a structural factor that shapes environmental inequality, I assess spatial inequality in urban cities across the southern USA. Utilizing data from the U.S. Census, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Provider Identifier (NPI) registry, and county and state government websites, I examine the relevance of race and class to the existence of neighborhoods as single or multiple resource deserts, coined multiply-deserted areas (MDAs). Results indicate that predominantly Black neighborhoods are more than twice as likely to be resource deserts, even after adjusting for class. Additionally, predominantly Black neighborhoods are nearly three times as likely to have more intense, compounded resource scarcity than other neighborhoods. Moreover, results indicate a race and class interaction effect such that a predominantly Black neighborhood has increased odds of being a multiply-deserted area as median household income increases. The findings implicate yet another route through which racism shapes inequality and demonstrate a need to address racial differences in access to resources across socioeconomic status.


The origins of educational orientation and psychopedagogical support in pre-university teaching in Spain date from the beginning of the century. However, it is only towards the end of the 1970s that some sort of infrastructure emerged, enabling the development and consolidation of this form of support. The article traces the evolution and configuration of these orientation services in the Autonomous Community of Galicia (North-Western Spain), especially from 1982 onwards when management of education services were transfered to the region authority in 1982. It also analyses future prospects based on the recently passed Education Act and its present structure.


In this paper, an application based on the Intelligent Speed Adaptation (ISA) system is proposed to reduce CO2 emissions of vehicles running on the highway. We apply the idea of optimised consensus to solve the emission optimisation problem in a simplified highway scenario through simulation study. Our approach shows that total CO2 emissions of vehicles can be minimised if all vehicles follow the reference speed signal derived from the ISA.