Forced motion of a semi-infinite plate of parabolically varying thickness is analyzed by the eigenfunction method. Analysis is based on classical theory. An exact closed form solution is obtained for free vibration. Plates clamped at both the edges and cantilever plates subjected to constant and half sine pulse loads uniformly distributed over a portion of the plate are taken as example problems. Numerical results computed for the transverse deflection are plotted in graphs.


A simple model for the flow of plasma from the ends of a theta pinch is used to calculate the steady state plasma loss rate. The flow is similar to hydrodynamic flow in a flexible nozzle; special attention must be paid to the conditions in the "throat" of the nozzle. The plasma loss rate is then a function of the plasma parameters and the mirror ratio of the coil—when this is appropriately defined. Graphs and convenient formulas for the loss are provided.


Guava (Psidium guajava L.) is an important tropical fruit produced in Vietnam because of its sensory characteristics, specially its aroma and taste. Although wine technology is focused on grapes, the application of alcoholic fermentation in guava is a promissory alternative to generate value and social development in this country. The aim of this work was to evaluate the effect of different conditions to the fermented guava beverage production. We draw out some major results as follows: saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast, yeast 47.106 cfu/ml, initial dry matter for fermentation 17 0Bx, pH suitable 3.5, yeast ratio 3%, fermentation time 72 hours.


This paper describes the design of thermonuclear reactor main characteristics for the geometry of an axisymmetric multigap electromagnetic trap. As a mesh for design, a section of a central cylindrical part of space-periodic magnetic system with a coil of radius R and length L was chosen.


Resonant backscattering of a high-power laser beam with non-fully stripped, ultra-relativistic ion beams in storage rings is studied as a source for /spl gamma/-ray beams for elementary particle physics experiments. The laser frequency is chosen to be resonant with one of the transition frequencies of the moving ions, and the bandwidth is chosen to cover the full Doppler broadening of the ions in the beam. Due to the resonance, the scattering cross section is enhanced by a large factor compared to the Thomson cross section, of the order 10/sup 8/ for some examples considered here. The performance of the LHC as a possible /spl gamma/-generator or a /spl gamma/-/spl gamma/ collider is estimated. We study the case where hydrogen-like Pb ions with 2.8 TeV per nucleon are scattered by a train of 1100 /spl Aring/, 20 mJ laser pulses with the same pulse time format as the ion beam. A free electron laser can be designed satisfying the requirements. It is estimated that /spl gamma/-rays of maximum quantum energy of 0.4 GeV at an average rate of 0.67 10/sup 18/ are generated in this scheme. The luminosity of the corresponding /spl gamma/-/spl gamma/ collider will be about 0.9 10/sup 33/ cm/sup -2/ s/sup -1/.


Introduction:
 The innate-like γδ T cells play a role in angiotensin II (AngII)-induced hypertension, mesenteric artery injury and T cell activation in mesenteric vessels/perivascular adipose tissue (MV/PVAT) in mice. Blood γδ T cells frequency is associated with systolic blood pressure in humans. Obesity was associated with small artery injury in subcutaneous white adipose tissue (WAT) and is a risk factor for hypertension in humans. We hypothesized that single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) in MV/PVAT of AngII-infused vs control mice and in subcutaneous WAT of obese vs lean humans will reveal γδ T cell subpopulations involved in hypertension, vascular injury and T cell activation.

 Methods:
 Male C57BL/6J mice were infused SC or not with 490 ng/kg/min AngII for 14 days (n=3). Hypertension was confirmed by tail cuff blood pressure measurement. MV/PVAT were collected, and T cells were isolated and used for scRNA-seq. γδ T cell subpopulations were studied by subclustering T cells expressing the T cell receptor δ constant chain. Cell subpopulations were validated by flow cytometry. Subcutaneous WAT CD45
 +
 cell ScRNA-seq data of 3 lean and 3 obese women were obtained from GEO NCBI database (GSE155960) and γδ T cell subpopulations analyzed as above.

 Results:
 ScRNA-seq identified 6 murine and 9 human δ T cell subclusters. AngII increased
 Cd28
 high
 (% of T cells: 3.6±0.9 vs 1.4±0.2) and
 Trdv4
 +
 δ T effector memory (EM) cells (7.3±1.3 vs 3.4±1.7) and lowered resting δ T cells (1.0±0.2 vs 4.2±1.5) in mice.
 Cd28
 high
 δ T
 EM
 and resting δ T cell study by flow cytometry using unique marker pairs, CD28
 +
 SELL
 -
 and CD28
 -
 SELL
 +
 , showed that AngII increased CD28
 +
 SELL
 -
 (cell number: 376±48 vs 220±40) and decreased CD28
 -
 SELL
 +
 δ T cells (23±4 vs 45±4) in MV/PVAT.
 Cd28
 /
 CD28
 subclustering of δ T cells identified 4 human and murine cell populations and showed that AngII increased
 Cd28
 +
 γδ natural killer T
 EM
 (% of T cells: 1.9±0.3 vs 0.5±0.2) and

 Cd28
 high

 δ T
 EM
 cell subpopulations (1.6±0.5 vs 0.2±0.1) in mice, and that

 CD28
 +

 δ T
 EM-1
 cell subpopulation tended to be increased in obese vs lean women.

 Conclusion:
 ScRNA-seq revealed similar δ T
 EM
 cell subpopulations expressing CD28 in murine MV/PVAT and human subcutaneous WAT that could play a role in hypertension, vascular injury and T cell activation.


We fabricated and characterized the performance and stability of metal indium oxide (XIO, X = Zn, Ga, and Al) thin film transistors (TFTs) by an aqueous route with 350◦C annealing. The optimized XIO TFTs exhibited good electrical performance. The bias stability of the optimized oxide TFTs was evaluated and we concluded that the instability of the oxide TFT is due to a charge trapping phenomenon. The combinational study of bias stability and chemical composition, which was characterized using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis, indicates that the hole and electron trapping are due to the metal hydroxide and oxygen vacancy species, respectively. In addition, it was found that the stability of the TFT is strongly related to the oxygen vacancy and hydroxide group. © 2013 The Electrochemical Society. [DOI: 10.1149/2.013311jss] All rights reserved.


Well-defined amphiphilic biodegradable block copolymers (BCPs) are promising materials as drug/gene carriers because they can self-assemble in aqueous medium and form various nanostructures. In this work, conditions were developed for...


Various nitrogen-doped titania particles were prepared and, for visible light sensitizing, the biological pigment hematoporphyrin was grafted onto their surfaces. The nanohybrid products were characterized using X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared and ultraviolet–visible spectroscopies and Brunauer–Emmett–Teller surface area analysis. A high-performance visible light helical flow photoreactor was designed and used for the photocatalytic degradation of methyl orange (MO) over these photocatalyst products. Accordingly, response surface methodology was employed for design of experiments and optimization. The influencing parameters were initial N/Ti molar ratio, dosage of nanohybrids and solution pH. These parameters were statistically significant and a quadratic correlation was developed for degradation efficiency (DE) variations. A maximum DE of 89.2% was attainable, after 60 min treatment, under the optimum conditions of initial N/Ti molar ratio of 4.93 (ca 5), nanohybrid dosage of 0.73 g l−1 and pH of 4.8. The MO degradation kinetics over the catalyst surface followed the modified Langmuir–Hinshelwood model. The important role of hydroxyl radicals was confirmed using mannitol scavenger. Performing the photocatalytic reaction with the developed set-up showed excellent efficiency and energy consumption in comparison with similar processes.


The joint-production of health by patients and doctors can be conceptualised as a double moral hazard problem as the eorts of each party are at least partially hidden from the other. As a result, levels of investment in health will depend on whether patient and doctor inputs are strategic substitutes or complements. We use data on the physical activity, drinking and smoking behaviours of over 2,000 individuals aged over 50 with cardiovascular diseases in England. Through a new data linkage and a rst-dierenced control function regression, we relate changes in these behaviours to the changes in treatment eorts of their primary care providers generated by changes in their payment system between 2004 and 2006. Practices increased the proportion of patients with controlled disease from 76% to 83% in response to the payment change. Patients responded by reducing the frequency of drinking alcohol and their cigarette consumption. This suggests that patients treat their eorts as strategic complements to doctors' eort. Payers should take the doctor and patient strategic interaction into account when designing initiatives to inuence doctors' eorts.


This article presents the findings of a research that analysed the systematization of information as a strategy developed by Human Rights Organizations in Argentina within a framework to promote and fight for accountability for the human rights violations committed during the country's last period of dictatorial military rule (1976–1983). The research argues that the systematization of information has been an under-studied HRO strategy and that it has been generally characterized as "handmade" without considering its methods, structuring rules and inner logics.
The theoretical framework of this research focused on the particular sphere in which the struggle of the HRO's developed, the "legal arena" or "juridical field", and it showed that the HRO's rules have been the ones that structured the systematization efforts. This enabled the conceptualization of the "repressive fact" and the specific shaping that it required to become a juridical case.
The research presents a qualitative approach from archival and detailed interviews with key-informants. This article focuses on a particular strategy: the production of repressive patters from detainee disappearance claims within the framework of the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights' visit to Argentina in 1979.


A semi-quanlitative analysis is presented of the pressures arising in catalyst pellets during the rapid venting of a typical high pressure fixed-bed reactor. It is shown, for both macroporous pellets and the microporous powder particles within them, that the pressures will not exceed those of the surroundings by more than a few atmosphers. It is concluded that a rapid release of pressure may be effected without risking damage to the catalyst pellets.

On presente une analyse semi-quantitative des pressions ayant lieu dans les granules de catalyseurs durant la purge rapide a L'atmosphere d'un reacteur a lit fixe operant sous une forte pression. II est demontre que les pressions pour les granules de structure macroporeuse et pour des poudres de structure microporeuse ne depassent les pressions environnantes que de quelques atmospheres. Nous concluons qu'une purge rapide de la pression peut ětre effectuee sans bris des granules de catalyseurs.


In recent years, with the rapid development of deep learning and the Internet, Weibo and e-commerce platforms play an important role in people's daily lives. User data and Weibo comments on e-commerce platforms hide rich emotional information. At the same time, these massive amounts of data also attract more researchers to participate in the research of short text data such as online shopping and Weibo comments, researchers can analyze these data to help businesses increase sales and improve product quality. On the other hand, it also provides a reference for consumers to fully understand the attributes of commodities. How to dig deeper into the potential emotional information of short texts is the most important thing. The emergence of neural networks has pushed natural language processing sentiment analysis to a hot topic, this article uses a combination of convolutional neural network and attention mechanism to solve this problem. This paper proposes a two-way long and short memory network model based on multichannel data. The model first uses shallow learning features such as emotional part of speech extracted from short texts to map to high-dimensional space to form 3 high-dimensional feature vectors, combine the three feature vectors with word embedding and input them into BiLSTM form three channels, the attention mechanism is added to the three fully connected layers, and finally input to the SoftMax classification layer. The experimental results show that compared with the traditional text convolutional neural network, the method proposed in this paper has a significant improvement in the accuracy of short text sentiment analysis tasks.


The Computer Modelling module delivered to the third year Level 8 Mechanical Engineering students in the Dublin Institute of Technology is marked completely by continual assessment. It was developed using a problem based approach in that the theory of Computer Modelling methods is first explained but is then illustrated by demonstrating its application to the solution of real life problems. It is delivered in a traditional manner for the first six weeks in that the underlying principles and techniques of the finite difference method are covered in lectures and practical assignments are completed in the weekly computer laboratory classes. A problem based approach is adopted for the remaining six weeks of the semester. The students form their own groups of three and choose a unique project from a list supplied to them. The primary aim is to get the students to use numerical modelling to solve practical Engineering problems drawn from many different areas such as thermal processing in the food industry, heat transfer in engines, fluid modelling using ANSYS CFX and vibration analysis of structures and machines using Matlab. The students are assigned a supervisor who meets them for at least 30 minutes each week to advise them and to monitor their progress. Each individual student is held to account for their contribution to the project effort. At the end of the semester, each group must create an A1 poster on their particular topic. They are given a standard template to follow and are advised on the structure including Literature Review, Methodologies, Results and Conclusions. The students are assessed on a ten minute presentation of their project to the module lecturers and their peers. A shorter open session is also held in which the students must present their posters to other staff members and students and a prize is awarded to the best poster. A survey was carried out on a group of 12 students who completed the module in 2013.It includes fourteen questions under the headings: Group Dynamics, Project Management, Poster Presentation and Personal View of the Project. In addition, a focus group with a small number of students who had completed the module in 2012 was conducted independently by the second author. The response of the survey was mainly positive with some negative comments. The comments of the focus were broadly in line with the more positive comments from the survey. The responses from the survey and focus groups are reported and discussed in the paper. The overall conclusion is that in general, the module is perceived to be enjoyable and challenging to complete but it equips the students with useful skills going forward.


This study performs sustainability analysis of palm oil biodiesel production systems in Indonesia. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach is used to evaluate the net GHG emissions (climate change imp ...


Aim:  Exercise training is a strong stimulus for vascular remodelling and could restore age‐induced vascular alterations. The purpose of the study was to test the hypothesis that an increase in vascular bed filtration capacity would corroborate microvascular adaptation with training.


The invention relates to a system for on a guideway (2) moving the vehicle (1a, 1b) which comprises a linear motor having a longitudinally of the travel path (2) extending long stator (4), wherein the guideway (2) in electrically isolated drive sections (5a, 5b) is divided, which directly adjoin one another, are fed independently of each other and in each of which only a vehicle (1a, 1b) can move, each drive portion (5a, 5b) each have a drive control and a train control system (18 , is assigned to 19) and each drive portion (5a, 5b) (in a plurality of motor sections 8-13) may be divided. In order to achieve short headways during operation of a monorail system with long stator drive, it is proposed that at least one station portion (H) within at least two immediately adjacent motor sections (8, 11) and extending at least on both sides of the drive range limit (6) to the motor sections (8 and 11) hineinerstreckt and that at least these two motor sections (8 and 11) each have a through train control (18, 19) controlled Einspeiseverriegelung (17a, 17b), so that they by means of the Einspeiseverriegelungen (17a, 17b) independently to-each other and can be switched off.


Abstract : The vertical Bunsen burner test method, as specified in appendix F of the Federal Aviation Regulations-Part 25, was evaluated in order to update and clarify certain problem areas. Burner fuel, flame temperature and flame placement were investigated. It was determined that (1) methane gas can be used as a replacement or alternative to B-gas, (2) a minimum flame temperature specification is meaningless without specifying thermocouple wire thickness, and (3) placing the flame at the midpoint of the lower edge of the front face results in a more realistic and severe evaluation of the specimen's flammability properties.


This paper introduces probabilistic latent tensor factorization (PLTF) as a general framework for hierarchical modeling of audio. This framework combines practical aspects of graphical modeling of machine learning with tensor factorization models. Once a model is constructed in the PLTF framework, the estimation algorithm is immediately available. We illustrate our approach using several popular models such as NMF or NMF2D and provide extensions with simulation results on real data for key audio processing tasks such as restoration and source separation.


Recent developments in packaging methods permit certain types of deciduous fruits to be packed by bulk-fill methods without adverse effect on the quality of fruit delivered to distant markets. In comparison with the traditional placepacked wooden container, the new method is a successfully tested means of filling fiber cartons. The mechanized bulk-fill of a nonreturnable pallet bin-as yet not tested in fresh shipments-is an additional prospect of great interest. The new methods may be applied to several different types of fruit, but this report is concerned only with their effects on the packing of fresh pears. The cost comparisons used are restricted to packing house and loading costs; the costs of local assembly of field fruit, precooling and storage, and transportation to market are omitted. Operations covered by the plant cost estimates begin with the receiving of field-run fruit. They continue with dumping the fruit on conveyors leading to grading and sizing equipment, and separation of the field-run fruit into several categories or grades. In pear packing, this process usually yields a fresh-market volume of 60 to 90 per cent of the fruit received. The remainder falls in other grades such as cannery and culls.


Seasonal changes in distribution and abundance of euphausiids off south-eastern Hokkaido (41°–43°N), Sanriku (38°–41°N), and Joban (36°–38°N) were investigated using cylindricalconical nets every two months from March 1997 to February 1998. Twenty-six species of seven genera of euphausiids occurred during the survey. Among them, subarctic-transitional Euphausia pacifica was the most abundant throughout the year in coastal waters, as their relative contribution to the total abundance of euphausiids was 89–92%. This species occurred in each coastal water throughout the survey and was abundant from winter to early summer (February–June) off Sanriku and Joban and in autumn in south-eastern Hokkaido. Thysanoessa inspinata occurred off south-eastern Hokkaido and Sanriku throughout the survey, mainly in spring (April) but rarely occurred off Joban. Three other subarctic Thysanoessa species occurred mainly off south-eastern Hokkaido from winter to spring. Conversely, warm-and transitional-water epipelagic species occurred exclusively off Sanriku and Joban in autumn. The characteristics of seasonal distributional patterns of euphausiids are discussed in relation to the spatial and temporal changes of oceanographic conditions and several predators off north-eastern Japan.


Pervasive computing is the emerging field that needs ultra lightweight secure designs. In this paper, we have proposed a robust hybrid structure by fusion of RECTANGLE, LED and SPECK. With the help of a hybrid design, we have improved the key scheduling aspect of LED and related key attacks which were neglected in the LED cipher. In this paper, we also aimed at providing robust architecture by reducing footprint area to as less as possible. By using the S-box of RECTANGLE and the bit slicing technique, clustering of linear and differential trails are avoided which also strengthens the cipher. S-box of RECTANGLE is perfectly interfaced with LED design as their combination results in a differential path probability which is has an upper bound of 2 -50 in its first round. The use of Bit slicing technique in this hybrid design results in good differential and linear properties, which provide resistance to cache and timing attacks. LED cipher which uses S-box of PRESENT results in clustering of linear and differential trails as Sbox of PRESENT is specifically designed for compact hardware implementation. Column wise substitution and robust S-box design of RECTANGLE will make LED design robust and secure and enables it to provide resistance against any type of attack. SPECK which is designed by NSA has compact key scheduling and is best suited for our hybrid design, which helps in improving key scheduling of LED. In this paper, we have introduced a novel approach for robust design by amalgam of S-box of RECTANGLE & LED structure, and key scheduling by SPECK. This hybrid cipher design is secure against linear and differential cryptanalysis.


We discuss model-independent methods to measure the P-parity of the Θ+-pentaquark, in the simplest processes of photo-production, , using definite relations between those polarization observables which depend on the P-parity of the Θ+-baryon (with respect to the NK system). One method, which holds for any photon energy and any K-meson production angle, is based on the relation between the ΣB asymmetry (induced by a linearly polarized photon beam with unpolarized target) and the Dnn component of the depolarization tensor (for an unpolarized photon beam). Another method, which applies in collinear kinematics (or in threshold conditions), is related to the sign of the Dnn component with a linearly polarized photon beam.


AIMS
The study aimed to assess the antihyperglycemic activity of Pulicaria mauritanica.

BACKGROUND
Pulicaria mauritanica is a medicinal and aromatic plant used for the treatment of many diseases such as inflammation, diabetes, and intestinal disorders.

OBJECTIVE
The main goals of this present paper were to confirm the antihyperglycemic capacity of aqueous extract from Pulicaria mauritanica in normoglycemic and diabetic rats over a period of time (7 days of treatment).

METHODS
The effect of the aqueous extract of Pulicaria mauritanica from aerial parts (AEPM) on glucose and lipid metabolism was tested using an acute test (single dose during 6 hours) and sub-chronic assay (repeated oral administration for seven days) at a dose of 60 mg/kg, the serum glucose levels were measured in normoglycemic and streptozotocin(STZ)-induced diabetic rats. In addition, the glycogen content in the liver, extensor digitorum longus (EDL), and soleus was evaluated. The antioxidant activity, phytochemical screening, and quantification of some secondary metabolites of this extract were also performed.

RESULTS
AEPM at a dose of 60 mg/kg reduced the plasma glucose concentrations significantly in STZ-induced diabetic rats after a single oral administration (p<0.05), this lowering effect became more significant during the repeated oral administration in hyperglycemic rats (p<0.0001). Also, the findings showed that this plant exhibited a significant increase in liver and skeletal soleus muscle glycogen content in diabetic rats. AEPM revealed a remarkable antioxidant activity in addition to the presence of polyphenol compounds such as flavonoids, tannins, saponins, sterols, glucides, terpenoids, quinones, anthraquinones, and mucilage.

CONCLUSION
The study shows that AEPM exhibits antihyperglycemic activity in diabetic rats and it increases liver and muscle glycogen content.


Xanthogranulomatous osteomyelitis (XO) is a type of chronic osteomyelitis characterized by collection of foamy macrophages admixed with mononuclear cells. Xanthogranulomatous inflammation is characterized by the presence of histiocytes, foamy macrophages, activated plasma cells, and presence of suppurative foci and hemorrhage. It has been encountered in various tissues such as gallbladder, kidney, urinary bladder, fallopian tube, ovary, vagina, prostate, testis, epididymis, colon, and appendix. Very rarely, it can affect lungs, brain, or bone. Only three cases of XO have been described previously in the literature till date.


The phenomenon of local tissue reactivity is a profound vascular damage and necrobiosis elicited by combined local preparatory and intravenous provocative injections of certain bacterial filtrates or combined local preparatory injection of bacterial filtrates and intravenous provocative injection of antigen antibody complexes or certain colloidal agents. The reaction can only be elicited when the provocative injection is made into the general circulation. No satisfactory explanation is yet available concerning the necessity of introducing the provocative agent into the vascular system. The following long list of substances tested failed to modify the phenomenon; namely, acetylcholine, adenosine-5-phosphoric acid, alypin, antiplatelet serum, amino acids in various combinations, ascorbic acid, atropine, benadryl, biotin, calcium chloride, calcium gluconate, casein hydrolysate, choline, cocaine, congo red, curare, DCA, dicumarol, distilled water, estradiol, ether general anesthesia, folic acid, glucose, heparin, hesperidin, histaminase, histamine, india ink, inositol, lemon "citrin," milk, Niagara sky blue, nicotinic acid, pantothenic acid, paraminobenzoic acid, physostigmine hydrochloride, pilocarpine, progesterone, pyribenzamine, pyridine in doses reducing significantly the blood platelet count, pyridoxal, pyridoxamine, pyridoxine, rat-liver extract, rat-spleen extract, riboflavin, sodium oxalate, sulfadiazine, sulfanilamide, sulfathiazole, thiamine, atocopherol, toluidine blue, trypan blue, trypsin, urethane, vitamin K water-soluble and oil-soluble preparations, wheat-germ oil, yeast extract, BAL, mapharsen, partial exsanguination, thyroidectomy, and anthisan. The negative results obtained with the substances just mentioned seem to exclude several possible mechanisms; namely, alteration of blood coagulation, release of histamine, and modification of the response of the peripheral and central nervous systems.' There are, however, a few substances that can effectively suppress the phenomenon. As shown by Becker? and corroborated by Schlang3 and by Stetson and Good: nitrogen mustard, benzol, and x-ray irradiation are capable of inhibiting the phenomenon. Becker postulated that these agents produce the suppression by rendering the vascular endothelium of the prepared skin site nonreactive, thus preventing it from reacting to the provocative agent. In studying the mechanism of this inhibition, Schlang and Stetson and Good found that protection of the prepared site from the effect of nitrogen mustard failed to'influence the inhibition of the reaction. In contrast, protection of the lower limbs from the action of nitrogen mustard by aortic occlusion decreased or prevented the inhibition. They concluded justly that the effect of nitrogen mustard was the result of systemic rather than local action. We found that ACTH and cortisone in large doses administered at a suitable time may suppress


Motivation. Thousands of variables are contained in insurance data warehouses. In addition, external sources of information could be attached to the data contained in data warehouses. When actuaries build a predictive model, they are confronted with redundant variables which reduce the model efficiency (time to develop the model, interpretation of the results, and inflate variance of the estimates). For these reasons, there is a need for a method to reduce the number of variables to input in the predictive model. Method. We have used proc varclus (SAS/STAT®) to find dusters of variables defined at a geographical level and attached to a database of automobile policies. The procedure finds cluster of variables which are correlated between themselves and not correlated with variables in other clusters. Using business "knowledge and 1-R2,,,,o. cluster representatives can be selected, thus reducing the number of variables. Then, the cluster representatives are input in the predictive model. Conclusions. The procedure used in the paper for variable clustering quickly reduces a set of numeric variables to a manageable reduced set of variable clusters. Availability. proc varclus from SAS/STAT® has been used for this study. We found an implementation of variable clustering in R, function varchis, while we did not experiment with it.


The observed color change in carpet samples prepared by a laboratory soiling tester during the soiling process was analyzed by L * , a * and b * in the CIELAB system. Ten commercial tufted carpets were used as samples. Laboratory soiling tests were performed using a rotary tapping soiling tester according to the Japanese Industrial Standard (JIS) accelerated soiling test method. The numbers of cycles for the JIS soiling tester were 25, 50 and 100. The color of the soiled samples was measured after each corresponding number of cycles. L * of the samples having high L * values, such as L >60, decreased significantly during the soiling process. A high correlation (r=0.983) between the lightness difference (⊿L) and the color difference (⊿Eab) was obtained from the JIS soiling tests. The color of the standard soiling compound used in the soiling test was L =31.82, a=2.11 and b=5.34. L, a and b of all the samples converged to the color of the standard soiling compound as the soiling process progressed. The coefficients of determination (r 2 ) calculated from⊿L obtained from a total traffic of 6000 people in the practical use test and JIS soiling tests were from 0.802 to 0.817. The r 2 values of ⊿Eab were from 0.895 to 0.921.


Soldiers who have returned recently from Iraq and Afghanistan have been increasingly diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. This paper discusses research focusing on PTSD parents and how their issues with anxiety, depression, and lack of sleep affect their relationships with their children. These symptoms seem to become symptoms their kids develop as well. Not enough research currently exits addressing to what extent parents with PTSD have caused their children to exhibit similar symptoms and problems that these soldiers suffer through. This paper concludes with a recommendation for further research towards investigating this issue in order to identify the problems and offer appropriate help to these soldiers and their families. SOLDIERS WITH PTSD: HOW DOES IT AFFECT THEIR 3 Soldiers with PTSD: How does it affect Their Children? From one day to the next we receive soldiers back into our country from Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. They come home ready to continue their lives as usual. However, little do they know that once they come back, approximately 45 percent of those soldiers will suffer from what is known as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Many returning soldiers, while somewhat aware of PTSD, do not fully understand various symptoms of PTSD. Equally important, the soldiers do not understand how others may react to the changes in personality and behaviors they will exhibit after their return. PTSD sufferers are basically on edge. Symptoms include hearing noises, staying home for a long time and then become surprised by the realization of staying at home the whole time. Most have nightmares, some of those experience nightmares every night. All become depressed to some degree, they have difficulty with sleeping, anxiety, and of course having a hard time relating with others. By definition, PTSD is defined as mental health condition caused by a history of exposure to a traumatic event that meets specific stipulations and symptoms listed in American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel 5 (DSM 5). Those with PTSD experience symptoms from each of four symptom clusters listed in the DSM 5. They are: intrusion, avoidance, negative alterations in cognitions and mood, and alterations in arousal and reactivity (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013). Research needs to be conducted which focuses on the effects on children where at least one of their parents has PTSD. Historically, elected officials have recognized the need to study the effects upon soldiers and their families after the veterans have returned home. An example is after the Vietnam War, Congress mandated a group of professionals to investigate what was the impact on children of PTSD veteran mothers, by evaluating PTSD symptoms, their severity and the effects upon SOLDIERS WITH PTSD: HOW DOES IT AFFECT THEIR 4 family adjustment. The study was called the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study (NVVRS) (Gold et al., 2007). Throughout their research, the authors found that women who have PTSD will have an impact in their family and especially upon their kids. This research assessed families by using five self-report items especially designed to target different aspects of parenting, with the key point being the child/parent relationship. The five self-report items were measured from the veteran's perspective. The items measured to what extent did the veteran's child cause her problems, how content was she with her kid, how efficient she felt in her role as a parent, and how much she enjoyed her role as a parent. Part of this analysis also covered the aggressiveness of the veteran who has PTSD. Surprisingly, frequency of abusive behavior was greater in the collateral partner, according to what the child victims reported. The child questionnaires measured aggressiveness on a seven-point scale ranging from 0 to 6, with 0 meaning never to 6 meaning more than 20 times. The aggressiveness by the collateral parent included not only physically abuse, but mental abusive as well. The most common reported feelings that the children experienced, mirrored what the veteran's herself was feeling. These included anxiety, poor self-esteem, lack of sleep, helplessness, depression, hopelessness, and dread. This study proved that parents with PTSD do affect their children, with the most prominent problem being experienced was anxiety (Gold et al., 2007). Soldiers who are war veterans are exposed to a variety of harmful and traumatic experiences in which a nonmilitary person would never be exposed unless they happened to be a first responder in a mass casualty event. Anxiety is one of the main qualities of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; anxiety implies the "empty" mood. Referencing DSM 5 again, there are several types of anxiety: panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, specific phobias, and generalized anxiety disorder (APA, 2013). Panic disorder is the feeling of terror that strikes suddenly and in SOLDIERS WITH PTSD: HOW DOES IT AFFECT THEIR 5 repeatedly occasions. Social anxiety disorder is also knowns as the social phobia it includes the feeling of overwhelming worry and self-conscious on everyday social situation; you are always aware of the actions of other, you are always stealthy. Specific phobias, are more likely to cause an anxiety attack. Specific phobias involve the immense fear of an object or situation, resulting in high anxiety and panic attacks. Lastly, we have the generalized anxiety disorder, which concerns an unbelievable worry and tension even if there is no known specific reason provoking anxiety. Anxiety affects the kids in a way that due to their young age they act like sponges and absorb everything they see and everything they hear. Therefore if the parent tends to be afraid of something, is more likely that the kid will become afraid of the same object and/or situation (Capaldi, Guerrero, & Killgore, 2011). There are various different types of depressions identified in DSM 5 (APA, 2013), however only few are experienced through PTSD. DSM 5 describes depression as existing in ten different forms starting with major depression, persistent depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, seasonal affective disorder, psychotic depression, postpartum depression, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, "situational" depression, and atypical depression (APA, 2013). From these ten categories there are only four that are consistent with PTSD. Included is major depression, which usually happens twice in a life time for non-war veterans. However for a war exposed veteran with PTSD, it can occur frequently (Lambert, Holzer, & Hasbun, 2014). Major depression involves the unwillingness to work, eat, study, and even sleep in other words the lack of enthusiasm to live life. The next type of depression is called bipolar disorder or also known as manic-depression. In bipolar disorder the sufferer experiences manic phases where they are extremely happy and content, to a depressive phases where they experience sadness, low energy, suicidal thoughts and even severe depression. The symptoms are in essence the same as a SOLDIERS WITH PTSD: HOW DOES IT AFFECT THEIR 6 traditional depressed person. Another type of depression experienced by PTSD sufferers is persistent depressive disorder, or PDD (formal name dysthymia.) This depression is characterized by a combination of both major depression and bipolar disorder, it implicates the loss of appetite, overheating, insomnia, or oversleeping, stress, irritability, and the lack of satisfaction with what is done or with the people surrounding the one being affected with the disorder. Depressions not only affect the sufferer, but without a doubt those close to the sufferer as well. PTSD veterans who suffer from depression tend to be unsatisfied with their roles, with what they do, with what others do, and even say. Kids tend to be active the whole day up until they go to sleep. This is part of normal maturation, which will be affected by being around parents who are depressed. These kids tend to repress of what they are feeling, what they want to do, and what they want to learn (Lambert et al., 2014). Someone who suffers from depression in this particular case (with the PTSD disorder) tends to avoid situations which tend to lead to irritability. This often means they restrain from activities with the kids, to not be around them reinforcing good behaviors and correcting bad behaviors, and this inevitably creates a more distant parent-son or parent-daughter relationship (Troyanskaya et al., 2015) Lastly, will be a discussion of one of the most common symptoms faced by those who suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which is lack of sleep. Approximately 30 percent of returning combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan complain of sleep disturbance even few months after they arrival (www.cs.amedd.army.mil, 20??). This percentage rises if these veterans have head injuries (it raises up to 58.3 percent.) Documentation of war veterans has shown that sleep problems may get worst as time passes; rates may increase up to 90 percent or more. Sleeping disorders not only includes the inability to sleep, but it also includes nightmares, insomnia, movement disorders, sleep terrors, nocturnal anxieties attacks, and of course sleep SOLDIERS WITH PTSD: HOW DOES IT AFFECT THEIR 7 avoidance. In addition, research has corroborated that sleep problem severity is related to the severity of PTSD (Capaldi et al., 2011). In conclusion, throughout the research referenced, the evidence supports the conclusion that PTSD in parents affect parent/child relationships. However, very little research has been conducted and reported which documents how PTSD directly affect soldiers' children upon returning home from combat tours. The available research has shown that parents are unpleased with their role of being a "parent", that generally parents with PTSD are unsatisfied with what they do and their loved


As humans, we hear sound every second of our life. The sound we hear is often affected by the acoustics of the environment surrounding us. For example, a spacious hall leads to more reverberation. Room Impulse Responses (RIR) are commonly used to characterize environment acoustics as a function of the scene geometry, materials, and source/receiver locations. Traditionally, RIRs are measured by setting up a loudspeaker and microphone in the environment for all source/receiver locations, which is time-consuming and inefficient. We propose to let two robots measure the environment's acoustics by actively moving and emitting/receiving sweep signals. We also devise a collaborative multi-agent policy where these two robots are trained to explore the environment's acoustics while being rewarded for wide exploration and accurate prediction. We show that the robots learn to collaborate and move to explore environment acoustics while minimizing the prediction error. To the best of our knowledge, we present the very first problem formulation and solution to the task of collaborative environment acoustics measurements with multiple agents.


Helical CT scanners with multi-row detectors have gained wide popularity in clinics. With increasing interest in extending the number of detector rows, the cone angle must be accounted for in image reconstruction algorithms. As the cone angle increases, artifacts in reconstructed images caused by approximate algorithms, such as the widely used FDK-based algorithms, become more of a factor that degrades the image quality. Recently, a novel reconstruction algorithm for helical cone-beam CT (CB-CT) has been proposed, which is referred to as the backprojection-filtration algorithm. This algorithm requires theoretically minimum data to reconstruct a volume image. The original BPF algorithm was presented by assuming a flat-panel detector. However, most current multi-row detectors employed in clinic CT scanners are curved detectors. In this work, we modify the backprojection-filtration (BPF) algorithm to allow for reconstruction from data collected with a curved detector. We perform simulation studies using the Shepp-Logan phantom to evaluate the modified BPF algorithm.


This study presents a computational method for the solution of the fractional optimal control problems subject to fractional systems with equality and inequality constraints. The proposed procedure is based upon Fibonacci wavelets. The fractional derivative is described in the Caputo sense. The Riemann–Liouville operational matrix for Fibonacci wavelets is obtained. Then, we use this operational matrix and the Galerkin method to reduce the given problem into a system of algebraic equations. We discuss the convergence of the algorithm. Several numerical examples are included to observe the validity, effectiveness, and accuracy of the suggested scheme. Moreover, fractional optimal control problems are studied through a bibliometric viewpoint.


In this essay, the televisual narrative of Home Box Office's Space Traders is used to help theorize communicative performance from a marginal perspective as part of a broader effort to fight backlash. The notion of interpositionality is offered as an alternative to classical marginality theory, and a reading of Space Traders helps illustrate the interpositional strategy of creating dynamic identities. The authors suggest that the tensions of hegemonic space offer progressive strategies for resisting domination by expanding the margins of subjectivity in pursuit of both anti‐essentialist and non‐stereotypical identities.


This Research tries to identify the impact of internet advertising on consumer internet buying behavior. The force in this study is internet presence with its immense usage in daily life, drives the research, for dive into statistically experiencing, influencing relationship on internet buying behavior by internet advertising. Regression analysis is operationalized for diagnosing relationship between a dependent and an independent variable.


SOME CLINICAL phenomena may be viewed as experiments of nature and serve to stimulate investigation into the mechanisms of normal function. An example is Argyll Robertson's pupillary syndrome. Douglas Argyll Robertson of Edinburgh was a pioneering ophthalmic surgeon who made several important contributions to our basic understanding of ocular mechanisms. 1,2 In 1869, the same year that Johann Friedrich Horner described his well-known form of miosis, 3 Robertson reported miosis of another type, characterized by absence of the pupillary light reflex with retention of pupillary contraction to near vision. 4,5 Robertson noted the association between the pupillary syndrome and disease of the spinal cord. Later, the Argyll Robertson pupil was found usually to be the result of neurosyphilis, and it became a cardinal sign of the disease. 6 Robertson reasoned that a lesion in the ciliospinal (sympathetic) nerves was responsible for the syndrome. The matter is still unsettled despite


Objective To discuss the application of 3D double inversion recovery( DIR) sequence in detecting brain metastases by comparing the detection rate of brain metastases of DIR sequence with that of conventional MR scanning sequence.Methods A total of 28 patients with pathologically-confirmed lung cancers were enrolled in this study.Conventional MR imaging,3D DIR and contrast-enhanced T1 WI imaging were performed in all patients.Taking the lesion number detected by contrast-enhanced T1 WI images as standard,the detection rates of brain metastasis by conventional MRI and 3D DIR were evaluated by two experienced radiologists.The results were statistically analyzed using SPSS 19.0 software.Results In 28 patients,the metastatic lesions detected by contrast-enhanced T1 WI,conventional MR and 3D DIR images were 91,62 and 79 respectively.Statistic analysis using pared data χ2 test indicated that the difference in the detection rate of brain metastasis between conventional MRI and 3D DIR was statistically significant( P 0.05).Conclusion 3D DIR technique can effectively suppress the signals of white matter and cerebrospinal fluid,thus the signals of brain metastasis lesions are highlighted and the detection rate of brain metastasis is improved in the situation of not using contrast agent.


It was with great interest that we read the letter 'Performance of the Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Score (SLE-DAS) in a Latin American population'.1

Rodriguez-Gonzalez et al commented on our recent manuscript reporting the derivation and validation of Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Score (SLE-DAS),2 which demonstrated a much higher performance to detect clinical meaningful changes of SLE disease activity, as compared with SLE Disease Activity Index 2000 (SLEDAI-2K).3

In their letter, Rodriguez-Gonzalez et al reported a cross-sectional monocentric cohort study of 227 Mexican Mestizo SLE patients, in which they found a very high positive correlation between the SLE-DAS and the SLEDAI-2K (rho=0.92, p<0.0001). These results are consistent with our published data in which we identified a very strong correlation between the SLE-DAS and the SLEDAI-2K in both the derivation and the external validation cohorts (rho=0.940 and 0.943, respectively, p<0.0005 for both).2

Moreover, Rodriguez-Gonzalez et al analysed the correlation of SLE-DAS and SLEDAI-2K in subgroups of patients defined according to the severity of disease …


In this paper, the particularities of applying parameterization in industrial machines corresponding to the manufacturing area are exposed and analyzed. For its development, the parameterized design of a die cutting machine is proposed as an object of study, which is formulated from the main elements considered of importance in the principle of operation, being necessary to carry out a prior investigation to analyze it and how the parameterization process influences. Parameterization is a quality of the components to adapt flexibly to the needs of the industry or sector, facilitating the redesign and manufacturing process, allowing the desired dimensional update or adjustment to be carried out only to the central component and the others are automatically adapted. Attending to the current needs and trends of the fourth industrial revolution, as well as establishing the benefits of this type of flexible design processes to expand their implementation to different industrial machines such as robot configurations.


The background of this study is the increased number of people lacking exercise owing to the rise in remote work since the outbreak of the new coronavirus infection. As exercise is strongly linked to mental health, a lack of physical activity leads to an increase in psychological stress among individuals. Currently, few devices are available that can accurately evaluate exercise movements and allow people to engage in casual workouts. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effects of boxing training on the body and mind by using a sensory augmentation device with a high amusement factor. The sensory augmentation device used in this study was designed for boxing, a high-intensity full-body exercise. Inertial sensors were placed on the wrist of the boxing glove to determine the type and power of the punching action. The device then produces sound, vibration, and light according to according to the force used to give the punching action a more spectacular appearance. We measured mental and physical states during amusement-oriented training using this boxing glove-type sensory enhancer and evaluated its effects. The results demonstrated that training with a sensory augmentation device led to heightened motor induction and increased positive emotions. This suggests that the production of sound, vibration, or light influences the reward circuits of the emotional system. Potential applications of this technology include exploring its effectiveness in various exercise movements to determine its impact on physical and mental well-being.


—In this paper, we study automated test generation for discrete decision-making modules in autonomous systems. First, we consider a subset of Linear Temporal Logic to represent formal requirements on the system and the test environment. The system specification captures requirements for the system under test while the test specification captures basic attributes of the test environment known to the system, and additional structure provided by a test engineer, which is unknown to the system. Second, a game graph representing the high-level interaction between the system and the test environment is constructed from transition systems modeling the system and the test environment. We provide an algorithm that finds the projection of the acceptance conditions of the system and test specifications on the game graph. Finally, to ensure that the system meets the test specification in addition to satisfying the system specification, we present a framework to construct a minimally constrained test. Specifically, we formulate this as a multi-commodity network flows problem, and present two optimizations to solve for the minimally constrained test. We conclude with future directions on applying these algorithms to constrain test environments in self-driving applications.


Nowadays, research group members are often overwhelmed by the large amount of relevant literature for any given topic. The abundance of publications leads to bottlenecks in curating and organizing literature, and important knowledge can be easily missed. While a number of tools exist for managing publications, they generally only deal with bibliographical metadata and their support for further content analysis is limited to simple manual annotation or tagging. Here, we investigate how we can go beyond these approaches by combining semantic technologies, including natural language processing, within a user-friendly wiki systems to create an easy-to-use, collaborative space that facilitates the semantic analysis and management of literature in a research group. We present the Zeeva system as a first prototype that demonstrates how we can turn existing papers into a queryable knowledge base.


Tendons are used as the main station keeping system to maintain Tension Leg Platforms (TLPs) in place. One of the main key tendon design parameters is its fatigue life since it has to subsist in the environment during the whole design life. Wave is an important source for tendon fatigue damage. Wave scatter diagram is used to represent the joint probabilities of significant wave height and wave peak period for one particular area and different wave headings. The number of sea states in the wave scatter diagram is usually too large to perform time domain tendon fatigue simulation for each sea state in the scatter diagram. Therefore, the full wave scatter diagram is usually "condensed" into several wave bins to reduce the computational burden. Tendon fatigue results are very sensitive to the selection of the equivalent fatigue bins and their associated probabilities in each wave direction. This paper introduces an accurate method to condense the wave scatter diagram into several fatigue bins that leads to an accurate tendon fatigue life equivalent to that from the full scatter diagram. The proposed method is based on actual fatigue damage; hence the name Damage-Based Condensation Method (DBCM).  This method can significantly reduce the computation cost and maintain sufficient accuracy. Frequency domain tendon fatigue analysis is performed for the condensed wave bins and the full wave scatter diagram to demonstrate the accuracy of this method. The results show that the results from this DBCM have good agreement to the results from the full wave scatter diagram.


With the development of market economy, the road freight transportation of China is faced with the change of management philosophy, management model, and management technology. The using of information technology is necessary not only for increasing the level and efficiency of industry management, but also for improving road freight transportation market conditions, optimizing and adjusting industry structure, and accelerating the modernization of road freight transportation industry. Against this background, this article explicates the target and importance of constructing regional public road freight information platform, designs the functional structure of regional public road freight information platform, and researches the operational mechanism of the information platform.


We present a comparative analysis on the evolution of two coupled bosonic many-body quantum systems. Considering photons in two coupled cavities and bosonic atoms in a double-well potential, the effect of the boson-boson interaction on the spectral properties and the dynamical behavior is studied. In particular, we analyze the evolution of a Fock state to a N00N state, which is a superposition of two complementary Fock states. Such an entangled state appears in the evolution only if tunneling and many-body interaction are balanced.


The invention discloses vanadate substrate fluorescent powder for a white light LED (light-emitting diode) and a preparation method thereof. A high-temperature solid phase method is adopted for the technology to prepare M2V207:Eu3 single substrate fluorescent powder, and the crystallization performance of fluorescent powder is improved by adopting a secondary forging method, and the light-emitting intensity is improved. The used raw materials are Al2O3(99.9%), MCO3 (99.9%, M=Ca, Sr, Ba), V2O5 (99.9%), and Eu2O3, and meanwhile N2CO3 (N: Li, Na, K) is also added to act as a charge compensation agent, and the obtained product has an emission peaks between 500nm and 600-630nm, and the two emission peaks are respectively assigned to the emission of VO43- and Eu3+, and emit white light in a combined mode; and the optimal color coordinate is (0.324, 0.317), and is much close to the positive white dot (0.330, 0.330). The preparation method provided by the invention is simple in process, the synthetic reaction temperature is low, and the color coordinate of the Sr2V2O7:Eu3+ fluorescent powder can be regulated through regulating the doped concentration of Eu3+; the fluorescent powder has good light-emitting efficiency, has good heat stability, and has the prospect of the application in the ultraviolet excitation white light LED.


The Foetal Alcohol Syndrome has long gone unrecognised and undiagnosed in Australia. In the last few years of the 21st Century (2010-14) health practitioners are finally seeking ways of diagnosing the effects of alcohol in pregnancy on the next generation. The author offers a power point presentation which gives guidance on making an accurate diagnosis.


Volume I of this report summarizes the findings on the extent of stripping in 32 Oregon DOT projects and discusses the significant findings from a literature review. Of the 32 projects, 10 had not used an asphalt or aggregate antistripping additive, 19 contained lime-treated aggregate, and 3 contained asphalt treated with an amine-type antistripping additive. These projects range in age from 1 to 9 years. The percent of aggregate coated with asphalt, which was used to determine if a project was stripping, was established from breaking and visually evaluating core samples taken from each project site. Using the criteria that a coating less than 85% classified a project as stripping, the following results were obtained: 7 of the 10 projects without an additive, 5 of the 19 lime-treated aggregate projects, and 2 of the 3 amine-treated asphalt projects were identified as stripping. The conclusion is that lime treatment of aggregate has proven effective in reducing the moisture susceptibility of an asphalt mixture. In addition, a review of mix design test values for the index of retained strength (IRS) (AASHTO T-165) and resilient modulus (M sub r) test indicates the IRS test does not reliably predict moisture susceptible mixtures. The M sub r test did provide a better indication of moisture susceptible mixtures. This assessment is based on a limited amount of data and is not statistically based; therefore, the results may change with further information. Volume II presents the complete literature review.


Many data analysis problems are NP-hard, a reality that has motivated researchers to develop a wealth of approximation algorithms and heuristics over the past few decades. Max-cut, clustering, and many other widely applicable partitioning problems fall into this camp. We focus on two common classes of algorithms that are used for clustering and partitioning problems, including SDP rounding algorithms and agglomerative clustering algorithms with dynamic programming. The best algorithm to use typically depends on the specific application or distribution over instances. A worst-case analysis is often used to compare algorithms, but worst-case instances may not be present in the particular problem domain, and thus may be misleading when determining which algorithm to apply. Therefore, it is necessary to develop optimization methods which return the algorithms and parameters best suited for typical inputs from the application at hand. We address this problem for integer quadratic programming and clustering within a learning-theoretic framework where the learning algorithm is given samples from an application-specific distribution over problem instances and learns an algorithm which performs well over the distribution. We provide sample complexity guarantees and computationally efficient algorithms which optimize an algorithm family's parameters to best suit typical inputs from a particular application. We analyze these algorithms using the learning-theoretic notion of pseudo-dimension. Along with upper bounds, we provide the first pseudo-dimension lower bounds in this line of work, which require an involved analysis of each algorithm family's performance on carefully constructed problem instances. Our bounds are tight and therefore nail down the intrinsic complexity of the algorithm classes we analyze, which are significantly more complex than classes commonly used in learning theory.


A critical problem facing technical services librarians is the lack of an appropriate method by which to train their nonprofessional staff. This article deals with what is expected of Technical librarians; in addition, dispelling the myth of librarians as being only practitioners. It is the aim of this paper to promote research as part of continuing education for librarians.


Centrifugal pumping systems are mostly used as water lifting devices for irrigation. Foot valve is an important component of the pumping system. Five locally available foot valves were evaluated using a computerized pump testing setup. Four foot valves were of cast iron (CI) and the other was of poly vinyl chloride(PVC). The foot valves were tested in discharge range of 8 to 14 1s−1 with a 5 hp standard monoblock pumpset. Friction head loss in foot valves and their effect on performance of pumping system were studied. It was observed that the head loss due to friction in the local foot valves was more (81%) than the foot valve meeting the design specifications. The power required to overcome the friction in local foot valves was 58% more than the foot valve meeting the design criterion.


This chapter is about the history of folkloristics in the Baltic countries prior to the period under consideration of this research.


The essence of the regulatory cost accounting system is considered and its role in controlling resource consumption is revealed. Deviations from the norms of the costs are listed, a procedure is proposed for identifying, recording and controlling them, as applied to garment production enterprises.


Introduction: Compositional differences in the platinum group element (PGE) chemistry of chondrites and iron meteorites allow identification of projectile types based on PGE traces in impact melt samples or fallback sediments from large impact craters. Cretaceous-Paleogene sediments: The impact structure(s) whose impactor led to the PGE abundance patterns in European Cretaceous-Paleogene sediments, or to the global enrichment of Ir (and PGE) at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, has yet to be discovered. An extraterrestrial impact component has been evidenced by the presence of PGE, a fossil meteorite and a carbonaceous chondrite-like (CM2) Cr isotope anomaly (ε 54 Cr) at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary sediments by [1-4]. Chicxulub bolide: The non-chondritic PGE ratios in sediments from the Chicxulub crater are evidence that the globally distributed iridium (and PGE) layer is not preserved in the Chicxulub impact structure, as suggested by [5]. The Chicxulub bolide almost surely cannot be the origin of the global deposition of nearchondritic PGE [e.g., 6] at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. The Chicxulub impact structure on the Yucatán Peninsula in the Gulf of Mexico is most likely formed by an iron asteroid. Based on PGE concentrations in sediment samples from the Chicxulub crater would imply a meteoritic contribution equivalent to ~0.1% Mundrabilla-like iron (Figs. 1,2). IVB iron meteorites: Near-chondritic PGE pattern are also known from IVB iron meteorites. The Pt/Ir and Ru/Ir ratios from Ternera [7] are similar to those of CI chondrites (Fig. 1). Compared with other iron meteorite groups, the IVB group is compositionally unusual with high concentrations of Ni (~16–18 wt %) and refractory elements, such as Ir [8]. Clearwater East crater: Impact melts from Clearwater East crater (diameter of ~22 km) have the highest fraction of an extraterrestrial component of any terrestrial impact structure. From previous investigations (see [9,10 and references therein]) it is concluded that the crater was probably formed by a chondrite or a member of a still unknown chondrite group. However, iron meteoritc normalized PGE, Ni and Au pattern of Clearwater East impact melt samples would imply a meteoritic contribution equivalent to ~0.6 to 1.2% IVA Gibeon-like iron (Figs. 3,4) [11]. Figure 1. CI chondrite normalized element pattern from Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary sediments [3], Chicxulub crater sediments [5], iron meteorites [7,12, 13,14], Earth's upper crust [15,16], and upper mantle [17]. The Pt/Ir and Ru/Ir ratios of IVB iron Ternera [7] are similar to those of CI chondrites and plot more or less on a horizontal line. IVA iron Charlotte and upper mantle rocks have similar PGE pattern. CI data for normalization were reviewed by [18]. Brenham, Grant, Mundrabilla, Charlotte, and Ternera concentrations were devided by factors of 3000, 1500, 1000, 700, and 400, respectively.


Osteoporosis is responsible for nearly 1.5 × 106 fractures annually in U.S. with the most typical sites at the hip, spine, and wrist. Early diagnosis is essential for the prediction of fracture risk. While BMD only represents quantitative information of bone, current quantitative ultrasound (QUS) typically employs index using attenuation (BUA) and velocity (UV) measurements at the calcaneus. The objective of this study aims to develop an image based QUS technology for enhanced diagnostic readings at multiple anatomical sites. With a newly developed scanning confocal acoustic diagnosis system, five embalmed cadaver forearms were disarticulated from the wrist joint, cut at the mid shaft, leaving the interosseous membrane intact, and scanned by the ultrasound. Acoustic phantoms scanned with the new system and basic water coupling show low variation (<7% of mean BUA) with highly linear BUA curves (mean R2=0.96). BUA and UV were analyzed at the distal radius using existing algorithms; however, the distal radiu...


This work proposes a methodology to identify areas which may contain cemeteries by generating a grid over the terrain and then classify this grid with an ensemble of learning methods. The proposal is to characterize known cemeteries from satellite images information and building the training data. The learning methods are the Google Earth Engine's implementation of Random Forests, Support Vector Machines and Gradient Tree Boost Classifier. Results show that using an ensemble of these learning algorithms can decrease the number of false positives in the classification. Furthermore, little or no tuning of the classifiers is required for the ensemble to achieve good accuracy.


In agroforestry studies and experiments there was simultaneous cultivation of young forest plants with other agricultural activities. We found there were differences in the biological characteristics of soils (cultivated area--potatoes, and non-cultivated areas-grassland and Picea-grafted plants). Agricultural cultures utilized mostly nitrogen and there was a higher basic respiration of the soil. They were also differences in the number of bacteria and microfungi, as also a difference in the qualitative spectrum of the micromycetes. The genus Mortierella predominated in the soil under spruce-grafted plants, but it occurred sporadically in the soil where potatoes were cultivated and in the soil of the grassland. Simultaneous forest and agricultural cultivation had an important significance, e.g. better utilization of afforestation areas.


Abstract : The objective of this project was to design a retort rack that would maximize the retort capacity of a 1400 style spray retort and to select a material that would withstand the harsh retort spray environment. The contract consisted of three phases: 1.) mold design, 2.) mold fabrication, 3.) rack production. Test rack samples were produced at the end of phase II using three different materials. A blend of Polyphenylene (PPE) and Polypropolyne (PP) with 15% short glass fiber filling was selected as the preferred material for the production of the final set of racks. Two ration producers were supplied with 100 retort racks each, for testing in a production environment. The racks increased the capacity of the retort with 29-33% and the rack material has withstand the retort environment without any problems after exposure to three-month of production environment.


Despite the limits of prophecy, analyses before programs are initiated can be worth the effort required to answer questions about rationale, consequences, feasibility, and costs.


In many field studies,fractures are found to dominate the flow and transport processes.In this paper,we have applied hydraulic tomography technology to synthetic fractured rocks that permits "imaging" of the connectivity of fractured rocks.The hypothetical aquifer was a two-dimensional vertical square domain of 17×17 square meters with two orthogonal fracture zones.We assumed that two inclined boreholes were installed in the domain to demonstrate the capability of hydraulic tomography by using VSAFT2.The experiments demonstrate that hydraulic tomography with Sequential Successive Linear Estimator(SSLE)can precisely detect the fractures zones of heterogeneous aquifers.The identification results of transient state were better than those of steady state.The more hard data to given,the better results are supposed to acquire.


This chapter explores the ethical and perceptual concerns related to communication between mentors and mentees. The chapter first explores the importance of the mentor-mentee relationships, considering both physical and psychological obligations that when breached can lead to unethical mentoring. The body of effective mentorship research is summarized using a learning taxonomy to conclude characteristics and responsibilities of an effective mentor. Finally, drawing from both communication and educational psychology literature, the analysis of both mentor and mentee practices and responsibilities culminates in research grounded, pragmatic advice for both parties.


The invention discloses a control method and electronic equipment. The method comprises the following steps of acquiring a first operation point of a first acquisition area; acquiring a second operation point of a second acquisition area, wherein the first acquisition area corresponds to a first sensor of the electronic equipment; the second acquisition area corresponds to a second sensor of the electronic equipment; the first sensor is different from the second sensor; the first acquisition area is not overlapped with the second acquisition area; determining a control construction of the electronic equipment based on the first operation point and the second operation point. The control method disclosed by the invention can be used for determining the control construction of the electronic equipment based on a plurality of operation points on different acquisition areas in order to realize multi-operation-point response on different acquisition areas such as different display screens, and thus the aim of the invention is realized.


The trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti comprised one of the most controversial episodes of the early 20th century. For Italian Americans, the case symbolized their community's marginal status even as it offered them an unprecedented opportunity to challenge institutionalized forms of discrimination. To assess the role of the Italian American press in mediating social change, this essay offers a comparative analysis of how bourgeois, anarchist and communist Italian American newspapers framed their coverage of the Sacco-Vanzetti executions. The press reported these events within various conflict frames; in addition, anarchist papers developed an episodic frame to commemorate the deaths of Sacco and Vanzetti, while bourgeois and communist papers developed thematic coverage that promoted competing political agendas in response to these events. Although this varied coverage encouraged diverse constituencies to rally in support of the two Italian-born anarchists, its opposition of ethnic and class politics inhibited the community from building a cohesive movement to resist anti-immigrant policies and ultimately upheld the very social structures it purported to challenge.


A compressor module comprises at least two compressors (1, 2) both provided with an oil-balancing hole and connected in parallel to each other; an oil separator (4) with an inlet communicated with the discharge ports of the at least two compressors (1, 2) and an oil-return port communicated with the suction ports of the at least two compressors (1, 2); and a first oil-balancing pipe with the first end communicated with the oil-balancing holes of the at least two compressors (1, 2) and the second end communicated with the inlet of the oil separator (4).


In this paper,considering a kind of lee waves that occur when the stratification in the boundary layer is slightly stable or unstable,a three-layer theoretical model is established,which satisfies that the largest Scorer parameter is in the middle layer,the second large one in the upper layer,and the smallest one in the lower layer.Using this model,the existence condition of a kind of lee waves is analyzed from two cases.The results show that in the first case the existence condition of lee waves in three-layer model is the same as that of the two-layer model.But in the second case,the existence condition of the three-layer model cannot be described by the two-layer model.So the existence condition of the three-layer model is more easily satisfied.In addition,two examples are used to verify the existence conditions.


In a partially paralyzed individual suffering from a flexion contraction of the thigh, an attempt should be made to preserve as much muscle-power as possible for future use. Where the tensor fascia remains active, it should not be divided transversely as in the operation of Soutter, but should be lengthened in its tendinous portion, and the transplantation of the lesser gluteals after the manner of Campbell should be held as a reserve measure. DIscussIoN by Harold H. Hitchcock, Oakland; H. W. Spiers, Los Angeles; A. Gottlieb, Los Angeles; Ethan H. Smith, San Francisco.


Considering that the appropriation of geometric knowledge can help the student to understand the world around him, this work aims to show how the teacher can analyze his student's level of geometric knowledge. As a theoretical contribution, using the Van Hiele Theory which considers that the appropriation of geometric knowledge occurs at five levels, level 1 (recognition, comparison and nomenclature of geometric figures by their appearance), level 2 (analysis of figures, properties and use of them ), level 3 (precise definitions, informal logical arguments and ordering of classes of geometric figures), level 4 (demonstrations and recognition of necessary and sufficient conditions) and level 5 (formal demonstration, establishment of theorems in different systems and comparison of them) .


Taking the people we study seriously has resurfaced in recent years as a core aim of the ethnographic and anthropological endeavor. In this lecture, I present my way of taking people (i.e., my Vezo friends in a fishing village in Madagascar) seriously. For me, this involves understanding the multiple sources of their knowledge and the different ways of knowing that they mobilize in particular contexts and for particular purposes, at different ages, and fueled by different kinds of experience and cognitive resources. The argument is developed on the basis of empirical material that draws on an ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration between anthropologists and cognitive psychologists.


EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW Firm growth is an area of research which is important to many scholars. Of greater importance may be the process by which firms grow over time. Acquisitions, strategic alliances, foreign direct investment and internal development are all modes of expansion. This paper addresses the sequence of moves firms make as they grow over time. To address this important issue, the North American railroad industry is examined from the time period of 1980 to 2002. One reason we do not have a complete understanding of how firms grow over time is because it is difficult to determine a starting point. The starting point that I have selected is the point at which an industry is deregulated. Specifically, I examined the North American railroad industry beginning at the point at which the industry was deregulated (1980). Deregulation creates a fundamentally new environment for firms. This study explains how firms grow within the industry by examining the sequence of modes of expansion over time. The research shows that firms which grew within the deregulated industry followed the same general sequencing of moves. Firms which did not follow this specific sequencing were either acquired or went out of business. Do other deregulated industries follow the same general sequencing of modes? We may be able to apply what we learn from the North American railroad industry to other industries in other countries which have recently been privatized. The railroads did not stop growing because the need for passengers and freight transportation declined. That grew. The railroads are in trouble today not because the need was filled by others (cars, trucks, airplanes, even telephone), but because it was not filled by the railroads themselves. They let others take customers away from them because they assumed themselves to be in the railroad business rather than in the transportation business. The reason they defined their industry wrong was because they were railroad-oriented rather than transportation-oriented; they were product-oriented instead of customer-oriented.--Theodore Levitt. GROWTH MATRIX The North American railroad industry has grown considerably since Levitt's (1960) paper. How this growth has been achieved in a sequential manner is the focus of this paper. Ansoff (1957) was one of the first scholars to address the sequential stages of firm growth. Ansoff's product-market expansion grid identified stages that a firm would follow to generate growth. The firm would first attempt to gain more market share from its existing products in existing markets (market penetration). Next, firms would find new markets for its current products (market development). Third, the firm would develop new products for its existing markets (product development). Fourth, the firm would develop new products for new markets. From a growth perspective, firms can grow by developing related products or expanding into related markets. The concept of relatedness is important from both a product and market perspective. Related products provide the firm with sources of growth that are complimentary to the firm's existing products or resources. Firms develop complimentary or co-specialized resources which are related to a firm's existing resources (Teece, 1987). These co-specialized resources can serve to further leverage a firm's excess capacity and provide products that are distinct but related to a firm's existing products. Firms are likely to perform better and grow in a related market because firms have developed products to be competitively viable (Chang and Singh, 1999). By moving into related markets, it is possible for a firm to utilize its excess capacity to achieve both economies of scale and economies of scope (Teece, 1980, 1982). By incorporating related products and markets into Ansoff's 2 x 2 matrix and by incorporating domestic and international expansion I developed the classification matrix cube illustrated in Figure 1. …


To analyze the risk of ship collision accident when ship sailing in free navigational sea area,a method of calculating the collision probability was work out. First,feature points were extracted from ship AIS data,and using the track clustering algorithm to model the ship behavior,and an appropriate pruning method was adopted for clustering tree pruning to realize track classification and get characteristics of ship route. Then,on the basis of feature of vessel traffic flow distribution in the route,and using the theory of IWRAP,Monte Carlo simulation of ship collision was finished,the collision probability was calculated for each route. Finally,A case study was carried out for a certain actual sea area. The experiment results are as follows: the sea area is successfully divided into 10 routes,the most dangerous route is T1 and T9,the most dangerous intersection is P1,and the most dangerous ship type is cargo ship,the frequency of ship collision is 1. 18 / a. The simulation results show that the track clustering result and collision probability calculation conform with the actual navigational features and situation.


Libraries are institutions that provide access to a comprehensive collection of information and resources for educational, research, and recreational purposes. They serve as repositories of knowledge and offer numerous services to their communities. In this process, libraries play a paramount role in preserving and conserving library materials for future generations. The objectives of this paper were to investigate the significant Preservation and Conservation (PAC) initiatives of library materials from the ancient periods (3rd Century BC to 5th Century AD), the colonial period (1505 to 1948), and the post-independence period (1948 to date), to identify the gaps related to the current practices of PAC in Sri Lanka and to identify the issues related to PAC in Sri Lanka. This study focused on a qualitative research method. Relevant literature was found through secondary sources such as books, journal articles, conference papers, organizational reports and websites. The Department of National Museums (DNM), Department of National Archives (DNA) and National Library and Documentation Services Board (NLDSB) and Sri Lankan University Libraries (ULs), were purposively selected. The secondary resources were gathered from online and offline resources based on subject-related keywords. The published year was not considered during the process, and priority was given to Sri Lankan and foreign-authored publications on preservation and conservation of library materials in Sri Lanka. Literature was analyzed based on above mentioned three time frames selected for the study. The study identified growing trends in preservation and conservation practices from ancient to post-independence periods. Even though some evidence goes back to King Vijaya's period (483 BC), official writing was started in 103–77 BC. Some writing materials, such as inscriptions, palm leaves, and golden plates, were used during this period. And they were preserved for future purposes. Later, in the colonial period, the Portuguese, Dutch and British developed writing materials and established positions such as Record keepers and Archivists. They introduced 'paper' in this period. Then, in the post-independence period, the DNM, DNA, NLDSB and ULs were identified as pioneering organizations that led the task of preserving. It was identified gaps between the literatures and existing literature only identified palm leaves as a main library material to be conserved and preserved. The main issues derived from the analysis were a lack of financial allocations, policies, laws and regulations, training, and research related to the field. The study pointed out the need for a separate preservation and conservation unit to handle the preservation activities in each library while establishing a distinct institute for Research and Development and to provide necessary training required to maintain the activities of preservation and conservation of library materials in the country.


PET image of tumor located in thoracic region was affected by various organ motions such as respiration and heartbeat. Thoracic motion is difficult to estimate and correct accurately using external measurement or anatomical image solely. The aim of this study was to compare the accuracy of motion correction using PET fiducial mark and 3D MRI image. The radioactive bead for PET fiducial mark was realized from molecular sieve contained 0.37 MBq F-18 and placed in thoracic region. PET study was performed using a small animal PET scanner after IV injection of FDG. MRI study was performed using 3-T clinical MRI system with 3D T1-VIBE (TR/TE=5.67/1.42 ms) sequence. Motion corrected PET image was created by mutual information registration with B-Spline interpolation to the mean image after first realignment. FWHM of lung and liver region in static PET image was 4.77±0.87 and 4.81±0.45, respectively. Measured FWHM of lung region in motion corrected PET image using PET fiducial mark and 3D VIBE MRI was measured 4.22±0.09 and 4.59±0.06, respectively. In case of liver region, FWHM was measured 4.47±0.16 and 4.65±0.25 respectively. The improvement of resolution was observed by proper correction method. In this study PET correction was implemented by motion information extracted from various images. These results suggest motion correction would be possible without external device or fiducial mark using MRI motion data. Motion correction using MRI should be considered acquisition method and organ region in accordance with motion characteristics.


Hypertension is now described as a progressive cardiovascular syndrome. It is an escalating cardiovascular syndrome generally characterized by cardiac and vasculature abnormalities that targets major organs that include heart, brain, kidney which often leads to coronary heart disease, cardiovascular and renal disease. As of 2008, approximately, 28% or 978 million of the population of the world have hypertension. It is estimated that by 2025 hypertensive patients worldwide will increase to more than 1.56 billion. A novel approach to cure cardiovascular diseases particularly hypertension is the involvement of sigma receptors. The sigma receptor and its ligands have been implicated in a myriad of cellular functions, biological processes and diseases.


ALCOHOL modulation of single-channel kinetics of GABAA receptor currents was studied with rat dorsal root ganglion neurons using the excised outside-out patch clamp technique. GABA (1 μM) alone or GABA (1 μM) plus ethanol (30–300 mM) or n-Octanol (30–300 μM) were applied by pressure ejection to evoke single-channel currents. The main single-channel conductance was not changed by either ethanol or n-Octanol at 25 pS. Both alcohols exerted the same effects on the single-channel kinetics, although n-Octanol was more potent than ethanol. The frequency of openings, the mean open time, the percentage of open time, the frequency of bursts, and the mean burst duration were all increased, but the mean closed time was decreased. These changes in channel kinetics account for the increase in whole-cell current amplitude caused by ethanol and n-Octanol.


Abstract The charge-transfer complexes between Π-donors and stable carbenium ion salts as model systems characterizing the intermediate state of the cationic propagation reaction are detected by UV-VIS spectroscopy. The equilibrium constants and thermodynamic data are discussed. By the use of spectroscopic investigations and conductivity measurements, CT complexes between counter ions and organic acceptors, Lewis acids, or acceptor solvents have been proved. The results led to interpretation of the propagation reaction as a competing interaction between the chain carriers and the monomer, the counterion, and the solvent.


Through the Internet of Things (IoT), autonomous sensing devices can be deployed to regularly capture environmental and other sensor measurements for a variety of usage scenarios. However, for the market segment of stand-alone, self-sustaining small IoT nodes, long-term deployment remains problematic due to the energy-constrained nature of these devices, requiring frequent maintenance. This article introduces Hypnos, an open hardware and software toolkit that aims to balance energy intake and usage through the adaptive sensing rate for low-cost Internet-connected IoT nodes. We describe the hardware architecture of the IoT node, an open hardware board based on the Arduino Uno form-factor packing the energy measurement circuitry, and the associated opensource software library, which interfaces with the sensing node's microcontroller and provides access to the low-level energy measurements. Hypnos comes equipped with a built-in, configurable, modified sigmoid function to regulate duty-cycle frequency based on energy intake and usage, yet developers may also plug in their custom duty/sleep balancing function. An experiment was set up, whereby two identical boards ran for two months: one with the Hypnos software framework and built-in energy-balancing function to regulate sensing rate and the other with fixed sensing rate. The experiment showed that Hypnos is able to successfully balance energy usage and sensing frequency within configurable energy ranges. Hereby, it increases the reliability by avoiding the complete shutdown, while, at the same time, optimizing performance in terms of the average amount of sensor measurements.


Among many cases of tinea pedis investigated during the last 20 years, 16 patients were found with ringworm of the feet due to M. canis (7 cases) M. gypseum (5) and M. audouinii (4). Involvement of the toe-nails was observed in 4 cases, 3 by M. canis and 1 by M. audouinii. An animal (cat, dog) source of infection was confirmed for some of the cases caused by M. canis and by M. gypseum; soil was the source of other cases caused by the latter fungus.


Amplicon metabarcoding is an established technique to analyse the taxonomic composition of communities of organisms using high-throughput DNA sequencing, but there are doubts about its ability to quantify the relative proportions of the species, as opposed to the species list. Here, we bypass the enrichment step and avoid the PCR-bias, by directly sequencing the extracted DNA using shotgun metagenomics. This approach is common practice in prokaryotes, but not in eukaryotes, because of the low number of sequenced genomes of eukaryotic species. We tested the metagenomics approach using insect species whose genome is already sequenced and assembled to an advanced degree. We shotgun-sequenced, at low-coverage, 18 species of insects in 22 single-species and 6 mixed-species libraries and mapped the reads against 110 reference genomes of insects. We used the single-species libraries to calibrate the process of assignation of reads to species and the libraries created from species mixtures to evaluate the ability of the method to quantify the relative species abundance. Our results showed that the shotgun metagenomic method is easily able to set apart closely-related insect species, like four species of Drosophila included in the artificial libraries. However, to avoid the counting of rare misclassified reads in samples, it was necessary to use a rather stringent detection limit of 0.001, so species with a lower relative abundance are ignored. We also identified that approximately half the raw reads were informative for taxonomic purposes. Finally, using the mixed-species libraries, we showed that it was feasible to quantify with confidence the relative abundance of individual species in the mixtures.


A novel semiconductor laser, the 'T-squared injection buried heterostructure laser triode' (TI-BHLT), has been successfully fabricated by MOVPE with in situ HCI vapour phase mesaetching. The laser has been operated with a threshold current of 25 mA by independently injecting electrons into an active region from two n-type embedded regions.


Informed choice is important for screening, but not everyone wants or is able to analyse research data. Vikki Entwistle and colleagues propose a new approach to communication


We apply first principles calculations to study the opening of single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWNT's) by oxidation. We show that an oxygen rim can stabilize the edge of the open tube. The sublimation of CO$_2$ molecules from the rim with the subsequent closing of the tube changes from endothermic to exothermic as the tube radius increases, within the range of experimental feasible radii. We also obtain the energies for opening the tube at the cap and at the wall, the latter being significantly less favorable.


In this work, a mechanism of achieving phonon heat current between distant graphene sheets inserted into a cavity with two reflectors at different temperatures are presented. The photon‐mediated pseudospin interaction between two graphene sheets and electron–phonon interaction in each graphene sheet lead to the generation of this phonon heat current. We calculate the phonon heat current, thermal conductivity, and current–current correlation functions between distant graphene sheets. This phonon heat current can be manipulated by the energy flow density and frequency of photons. The giant heat current and thermal conductivity of phonons induced by intense photon field indicate that this mechanism has potential applications on the chip cooling, and far‐range heat transfer.


Objective: To review the experience in surgical management of coronary artery disease associated with mitral regurgitation (MR). Methods: From April 1994 to October 2000, thirty four patients underwent open heart surgery under hypothermic cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) for their coronary artery disease and MR . There were 10 patients with NYHA function class II, 18 with class III and 6 with class IV. The average left ventricular end diastolic diameter(LVEDD) was (60 4±8 9) mm. There were 25 mild MR and 8 severe MR. The predominant pathology of mitral valve was isolated annular dilation, valvular prolapse or chordae rupture. All patients received coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). Surgical procedures for mitral disease included mitral valvoplasty in 27 patients(mitral commissural valvorrhaphy in 15 , partial valvulectomy in 9 , and double orifice mitral valve plasty in 3), and mitral valve replacements in 7. The Carpentier ring was used in 20 cases. Results: There were no operative or hospital mortality or severe morbidities. The mean postoperative LVEDD was (53 0±6 3) mm (P0 01). Thirty four patients were followed up for a mean duration of 29 months. There were no late deaths and the patients' quality of life was improved significantly. There were 28 patients with NYHA function class I II, 3 with class III. Mild MR was found in 9 patients postoperatively. All the mechanical valve prosthesis functioned well. Conclusion: Coronary artery disease with moderate mitral regurgitation should be treated aggressively. Mitral valvuloplasty is the first choice.


The research examines the marketing system and a simple accounting bookkeeping transaction-based online web 2.0. The system Web 2.0 is used as trend center of the SMEs RiauMelayu songket to promote their products as well as typical local wisdom elevates the Melayu Songket. The success of SystemWeb 2.0 is themodel ofweb-based marketing system with simple accounting bookkeeping can run effectively and efficiently, which is built with each character SMEs Riau Melayu songket. The purpose ofthis systemof Web 2.0 is good customer in teraction to the system.Consumers SMEs are willing to share knowledge songket product and satisfied with the service of the products such as ease of payment because it supported a good simple accounting bookkeeping. Some of the SMEs to transform knowledge into innovative products or services. This research use sample consisted of 45 people from SMEs Riau who act as the owner, co-owner, accounting, labor, marketing, songket weavers scattered in the RIAU area. The data are taken with the collecting of data into observation, interviews and questionnaires central. Selection of samples by using purposive sampling.The method is a descriptive to explore Marketing Model and application of financial records Riau SMEs based on systemweb 2.0. The result of the research Indicated integrated system that combines all the elements of art and Riau Melayu culture and its financial records in a web site that is easily accessible web bases or very useful. This is not only aimed at the improvement of the economy craftsmen and merchants SMEs Riau Melayu batik and songket, but also it's means of promotion, enhancement obedient bookkeeping, as well as increased regional revenue for the province of Riau


In Statistics of Extremes we are mainly interested in the estimation of quantities related to extreme events. In many areas of application, like for instance Insurance Mathematics, Finance and Statistical Quality Control, a typical requirement is to find a value, high enough, so that the chance of an exceedance of that value is


: Information technology has triggered profound changes in modern warfare, and the Internet of Things is the inevitable direction of the development of air material security informationization. With the current problems such as low efficiency of air material support, untimeliness of accessing to support information and slow speed of response to support , this paper combines the development of information technology such as private cloud, Internet of Things and other information technology and the actual business needs of air material support. And the article achieves the overall design and demonstration of private cloud based on Internet of Things platform for air material support. On the basis of the existing network conditions, this paper plans the platform architecture and constructs private cloud service system, and consequently it achieves real-time perception, command and control, scientific decision-making of the whole process and elements of the activities of the air material support. The development of equipment guarantee informationization and the change of equipment guarantee mode are supported strongly.