Eucalypts are economically important worldwide, being largely propagated by clonal means, that is, frequently achieved by mini-cuttings. Regional climatic conditions, however, interfere with this strategy. Southern Brazil, especially in higher altitudes, has a considerable number of cloudy and cold days annually. It is a challenge for clonal propagation, even for cold-tolerant species such as Eucalyptus benthami and E. dunnii. The supplementation with artificial light has proved to be effective for improving growth in agricultural crops, but little work has been done with trees. Here we conducted a set of experiments for producing mini-cuttings of two commercial clones of E. benthamii and one clone of E. dunnii under the supplementation with artificial light, using red/far-red (660:730 nm) and red/blue (660:450 nm) light emitting diodes (LED), in comparison to a control (sunlight only). The supplementation with red/far-red and red/blue light increased the production of mini-cuttings in colder months, but more consistently positive impacts were observed with red/far-red lamps. The shoots produced under red/far-red light were more elongated and implicated in higher leaf canopy coverage. Overall, this work is a first step aimed at improving clonal propagation systems of E. benthamii and E. dunnii through mini-cuttings supplemented with artificial light.


Article is devoted an illumination problem, in a domestic pre-revolutionary historiography, process of election of Michael Fedorovicha Romanov on a kingdom. The author analyzes various conceptual approaches to the given problem, defines their ideological interrelation. In article transformation of sights of historians in a context of sociopolitical processes of the end XVIII prior to the beginning of the XX-th century is revealed. The author does a conclusion, that the classical historiography of a problem describes a problem, adherence to the approaches which have settled in a science and schemes. The given approaches have been caused by natural historical tradition in a historiography leaning on state Tradition that epoch. The author proves, that for innovative, modern historiographic approaches it is necessary to differentiate a context of the researcher and a research context that will allow to leave on new level of theoretical judgement of history of studying of a question.


After nursing and observating 66 cases of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS), before and after surgery, we conclude that experiences for health education and psychological nursing before and after surgery are important. Bleeding tracheotomy, edema of pharynx, food, mouth clearing and adifications of OSAS, are also observed, the effect of surgery of OSAS, Sa02, breath and heart rate are monitored.


There exist a Model of Proportional Jitter Differentiated Service and Proportional Delay Differentiated Serivce, which provides proportional jitter or proportional delay between different classes. This first approach is very appropriated for high-speed networks because it does not require the implementation of the proportional jitter scheduling algorithms at all the routers in the network but at least at the boundary, and hence extremely reduces the complexity. In this paper, a new proportional jitter scheduling algorithm, called Proportional Average Jitter (PAJ), is created for the Model of Proportional Jitter Differentiated Services. In addition, its quality, in terms of long-terms and short-term jitter within only one hop, is also analyzed. Furthermore, the performance of Proportional Jitter Differentiated model using PAJ as scheduling algorithm is compared to this model but using Relative Jitter Packet Scheduling, and to Proportional Delay Differentiated model using Waiting Time Priority, is compared, too.


Name: The Impact of MMP School Involvement on Student Achievement MSP Project: Milwaukee Mathematics Partnership: Sharing in Leadership for Student Success Author(s): Cindy Walker and Kevin McLeod Presenter(s): Cindy Walker and Kevin McLeod 1. Questions(s) or issue(s) for dialogue at Learning Network Conference session: What are your projects key strategies for producing the desired outcomes? How are you documenting the adoption of those strategies and their relationship to outcomes? What evidence is needed to promote sustainability of your project? How will you convince stakeholders that your work should be continued after your project ends? 2. Context of the work within the STEM education literature and within your MSP project: As the Milwaukee Mathematics Partnership (MMP) enters into a new phase, substantive funding has shifted from the NSF to the State of Wisconsin. Specifically, the state has provided funding for many schools in the Milwaukee Public School District (MPS) to have a fully released Math Teacher Leader (MTL). Therefore, it will be important to continue to document and justify that schools' participation in MMP activities, which we define as participating in MTL meetings and enrolling in courses at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (UWM), is producing the desired results. Documentation of the importance of MMP involvement should also encourage reticent schools to increase (or even begin) participation in MMP activities. 3. Claim(s) or hypothesis(es) examined in the work (anticipating that veteran projects will have claims, newer projects will have hypotheses): The MMP is a mature project that is now in its seventh year. As this partnership moves into a new phase of sustainability, as one that is financially supported by state and district funds, as well as NSF funds, as opposed to one that is only supported by NSF funds, it is important to continuously reinforce the claim that school-level involvement in the MMP is a critical factor for promoting student achievement gains. The current work examined the level of school involvement in key MMP-sponsored activities over a four year period and identified schools that had high, medium, low, and no involvement. MMP involvement was measured by adding two scores one that quantified the attendance of the school's MTL at monthly professional development meetings, and one that quantified staff participation in UWM courses designed to improve the teaching and learning of mathematics. Specifically, the first score was calculated by summing the percentage of MTL meetings that were attended by at least one representative from 2005 to 2008. The second score was created by summing the number of teachers at a school who took at least one course at UWM, the average number of courses taken per teacher at a school, and the average credits earned by a teacher at a school. This computation resulted in higher scores for schools that had many teachers taking one course and lower scores for schools in which only a few teachers took many courses. UWM mathematics educators and mathematicians were closely involved in all aspects of the development and presentation of both the MTL meetings and the UWM courses; this involvement was one of the factors which led us to hypothesize that student achievement growth over the four year period would be greater for schools that had higher MMP Involvement scores. 4. Evaluation and/or research design, data collection and analysis: Existing data on student performance from all schools in MPS was utilized in the aspect of the evaluation that will be discussed at the conference. Specifically, MMP Involvement was expected to predict both student achievement growth over the period 2005-2008, and student proficiency in 2008. As previously stated, MMP Involvement used two data sources—attendance records from MTL meetings and teacher enrollment in UWM-sponsored courses. MTL meeting attendance was expressed as the total percentage of meetings attended by at least one representative from a school. For example, a school attending 100% of all MTL meetings would receive a score of 4.0 because each year they would have received a score of 1.0, reflecting 100% participation in each year. Course enrollment was the sum of (a) unique teachers in a school that enrolled in at least one course, (b) the average number of enrollments for those teachers, and (c) the average credits earned by those teachers. For example, a school that had two teachers who each enrolled in a single 1-credit course received a score of 4.0 (2 teachers + 1 average enrollment + 1 average credit). These scores were then summed together to create a final MMP Involvement score. Scores were then normalized to classify schools' involvement in MMP activities. Schools that had an MMP score that was one standard deviation below the mean were classified as having low involvement in MMP activities, schools that had an MMP score that was one standard deviation above the mean were classified as being highly involved in MMP activities, and schools that were within one standard deviation of the mean were classified as being moderately involved in MMP activities. Schools that never participated in MTL meetings and had no teachers enrolled in any UWM courses were classified as having no involvement in MMP activities. Student proficiency in 2008 was measured by the state mandated standardized assessment, the Wisconsin Knowledge and Concepts Examination (WKCE). Student achievement growth reflected the change in the percent of students classified as proficient in 2008, as compared to 2005 as determined by the WKCE For example, a school with 20% proficiency in 2005 and 35% proficiency in 2008 received a score of 15%. Student proficiency in 2008 was also utilized. After the metrics were compiled, a one-factor ANalysis Of Variance (ANOVA) was conducted using MMP involvement as the grouping factor and either student proficiency in 2008 or student achievement growth as the dependent variable. Analyses were conducted across all grade levels, as well as individually for elementary grades (i.e. grades 3 through 5), middle schools (grades 6 through 8), and high schools (grades 9 through 12). These analyses were conducted using a Welch correction, as the assumption of homogeneous variance was found to be violated for the four different MMP involvement groups and were followed up with Tukey's HSD post hoc tests, to determine which groups differed statistically from each other. Results indicated that, when all grade levels were combined, schools with high MMP involvement demonstrated statistically significantly higher growth in student proficiency, on average, than schools with moderate, low, or no MMP involvement Moreover, schools with high MMP involvement were also found to have a statistically higher percentage of students found to be proficient in 2008 than schools with low, or no MMP involvement. These results are depicted in Figures 1 and 2, respectively. Figure 1. Relationship between MMP Involvement and Student Achievement Growth Figure 2. Relationship between MMP Involvement and Student Achievement in 2008 5. Key insights (retrospective for veteran projects, prospective for newer projects) that have value for the Learning Network: This work has highlighted the need for projects to clearly articulate their core strategies and activities, document and measure the impact of those strategies, and to develop evidence that those strategies lead to desired outcomes. The MMP clearly articulated two primary professional development strategies—math teacher leader meetings and mathematics content courses for in-service teachers. While schools were not required to participate, all were encouraged to take advantage of these professional development opportunities with the promise that participation would lead to better student outcomes. Thus, documentation of participation over time and relating those results to student outcomes provides compelling evidence that the core professional development strategy has had a positive impact. This message is being carried forward to school principals, math teacher leaders, and district administrators as critical evidence for sustaining MMP efforts.


We prove that there exists at least one hamilton periodic orbit in a given energy close smooth hypersurface which shows Seifert's conjecture holds. More general results are also holds.


Albert Einstein's General Relativity Theory provided an explanation for Newton's Universal Gravitation Law that defines how two Masses attract each other, by stating that the distortion of Space by Mass causes the gravitational force between masses. However, Coulomb's Law, that defines the attraction/repulsion between two Electric Charges, has an identical structure to the structure of Newton's Universal Gravitation Law. Thus, it is reasonable to wonder, what causes the attraction/repulsion between Electric Charges. This study presents a new model of Space, which suggests an answer to that question. That model describes Space as being composed of three Layers, a Mass Space Layer for masses, a Positive Electric Charge Space Layer for positive electric charges and a Negative Electric Charge Space Layer for negative electric charges. That model also assumes that Masses affect the Mass Space Layer, according to what Albert Einstein's General Relativity Theory claims. In addition, that model describes how Electric Charges affect the additional Space Layers, the two Electric Charges Space Layers, such that the Coulomb's Law is explained, analogous to the explanation of Newton's Universal Gravitation Law by Albert Einstein's General Relativity Theory


Previous empirical studies assessing sustainability have adopted the weak sustainability indicator (WSI) which measures changes in the stock of physical and natural capital. Whereas these studies have been retrospective, we use a dynamic general equilibrium model to investigate global and regional sustainability over the period 1985–2050, focusing on fossil fuel extraction. Our standard scenario predicts increasing WSI values suggesting global sustainability in all periods to 2050 as, despite a rising world oil price, the introduction of backstop fuels in 2010 provides an alternative source of energy. A more pessimistic scenario examines possible outcomes in the absence of energy saving technological change and backstops fuels. WSI values still indicate global sustainability, though economic growth is only half that predicted by the more optimistic model, and two countries—USA and Brazil—are unsustainable.


We present empirical evidence, based on structural VARs, suggesting that shocks to U.S. government purchases have sizeable and persistent effects on output and consumption in France, Great Britain and Italy. Positive realizations of these shocks also lead to large real appreciations of the U.S. dollar. Our results also link a positive tax shock in the U.S. to a decrease in consumption and output in the European economies we study. By contrast, the prototype model of the new theoretical literature suggests that fiscal and monetary policies do not interact in a significant way across regions. We provide an exposition of the prototype model and discuss the implications of our empirical evidence for both future modeling efforts and more practical policy concerns.


In order to simulate the process of obstacle avoidance for autonomous underwater vehicle(AUV) in virtual environment,a visual simulation system of obstacle avoidance for AUV is developed on HP workstation based on the software platforms MultiGen Creator and Vega.A simulation method of forward looking sonar(FLS) is proposed.Utilizing the collision vector function proposed by Vega and the user defined volume collision method,the function of FLS is simulated.Meanwhile,using the data measured by sonar,the obstacle avoidance of AUV in virtual environments is achieved.Simulation results show that this visual simulation can make the simulation system approach actual situations,and satisfy the real time requirement of system simulation.


Abstract This article's objective is to study the influence of a new hybrid format in the retail distribution sector and this emerging market context is defined as competitive convergence. To attain this objective, 1150 surveys of retail distribution professionals were conducted. These surveys aid in distinguishing retail formats and indicate their competitive position allowing us to generate positioning maps of the Spanish retailing. In addition, Cramer's coefficient V was used as an association measure between qualitative variables and latent class analysis (LCA) modelling was used to build a segmentation analysis of the competing offer. This analysis shows how retail formats evolve and adapt their competitive variables, even adopting characteristics from different formats (competitive convergence). Supermarkets dominate the Spanish retailing and a hybrid retail format's better competitive position in aspects commonly associated with other formats supports. Spanish retailing provides an example of the non-static nature of retail formats and business models.


INTRODUCTION We have developed genetically engineered stable transfected cell lines, expressing hormone receptor and luciferase based reporter genes, for screening compounds and compound mixtures for endocrine disrupter activity. We have named the lines " ER-EcoScreen™ " (expressing estrogen receptor) and " AR-EcoScreen™ " (expressing androgen receptor). To establish these cell lines we introduced the plasmids used in our transient transfection Eco-Screen Assay™ systems. We have demonstrated that the cells have the same reactivity to the samples tested in the Eco-Screen Assay™ system. We also have confirmed that these cell lines do not lose reporter activity during continuous cell passage.


Iain Coucher, Deputy Chief Executive of Network Rail is looking at the issue of a high-speed railway line from London to Scotland via Manchester. The requirement for such a line is discussed with reference to capturing market share from air travel and the capacity of the existing West Coast railway line. The beneficiaries of a high-speed line would be the commuters into the West Coast who would otherwise have used air transport main line's cities. The line would be made financial by viable by from inter-city passengers from Scotland. Construction through built up areas pushes up the cost of new lines. Coucher's preferred option would be to travel out of the cities on conventional lines and then on to new lines. He suggests the possibility of sharing St Pancras with Eurostar. He suggests that the East Coast route should be upgraded rather than constructing a new line from Manchester to the north east. Maglev is seen as an unattractive option. (A)


In this paper, a novel symmetrical topology for the small power high frequency bidirectional AC-DC converter has been proposed, which is applied to the bi-directional wireless power transmission system based on the magnetic coupling resonance. It has dual functions of the inverter and rectifier. The research is mainly reflected in the following aspects: First, based on analyzing the principle of the wireless power bidirectional transmission technology, the operation mechanism of the topology circuit is analyzed emphatically. Second, the feasibility of the designed converter is verified by the simulation of the PSPICE software. Third, the hardware system has been operated at 200 kHz in the modes of the constant current, the constant voltage and the constant resistance, respectively. The results show the maximal output power of the designed circuit is 7.8 W, meeting the design requirement. This circuit has the advantages of the simple circuit structure and simple control. It's suitable for the bidirectional wireless power charging of the small power portable devices.


We show that efficiency, average power and thermal loading of Er-doped 3 μm Q-switched lasers can be significantly improved by enabling free-running upper- and lower cascade lasing at the 4S3/2 → 4I9/2 and the 4I13/2 → 4I15/2 transitions. Using Er:YLF as an example, we numerically and experimentally demonstrate, how overall performance of the cascade laser depends on Er concentration and pumping regimes. The best results were obtained with 1% of Er-doping of YLF. While the influence of the lower cascade (1.62 μm) vanishes after ~ 2% of Er3+, the upper cascade (1.73 μm) continues to provide some thermal relief even at very high Er-doping level The experimental results with 1% and 2% of Er-doped YLF, based in a split-channel cavity supporting cascade-assisted Q-switching, are in a good agreement with conclusions of theoretical modeling.


The epidermal growth factor receptor ( EGFR ) gene mutation has changed the clinical practice of stage IV non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) (1). Many well designed randomized trials have shown that EGFR-tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are better treatment than conventional chemotherapy in patients who had sensitizing EGFR mutations (2,3). Therefore, identification of EGFR -sensitizing mutations in tumor tissue is the current standard biomarker to identify candidates who will benefit from first-line EGFR-TKI targeted therapy (4). However, multiple factors make it difficult to obtain enough tumor tissue for EGFR genetic analysis (5,6). When only a small tumor specimen is available, it is more feasible to assess tumor genomics via a blood sample or other body fluid, termed a 'liquid biopsy' (7).


A review of the existing literature relative to the symptom of depression in alcoholism indicated that this symptom apparently had not come under direct investigation. Accordingly, 73 consecutively admitted alcoholics were given the Zung scale, a 20-item self-report depression scale, at the beginning and end of a 21-day treatment period. A descriptive analysis of the data indicated that 70% of all the alcoholic patients exhibited mild to deep depression. An ANCOVA indicated that depression as a symptom decreases over time and the rate of decrease is not affected by the type of drug regimen employed. A further analysis of depression by levels (low, mild, high) indicated that amount of change is proportional to the initial level of depression. These findings were discussed in regards to traditional treatment and research strategies.


The main research subject in this paper is swimmer detection for visual surveillance of pool. A drowning detection method based on background subtraction is presented in this paper. The consecutive sequence of visual surveillance was obtained by the fixed camera installed in the pool wall. Each pixel is described by Gaussian Mixed Model, set up self-adapted background model and updating timely. When the foreground objects was separated, for getting good results, the shadows and noises must be removed. The experiments results show that this method is effective to detect the drowners and eliminate the shadows.


Crowd counting estimation is an extremely challenging task due to various crowded scenarios. In this paper, we present a deep learning framework for crowd counting from a single static image with different number of people and arbitrary perspective. In the design of convolutional neural network structure, we employ the VGG16 model but drop the fully connected layers. Meanwhile, high-level features are combined with low-level features through laterally connected feature pyramid network by element-wise addition to ensure higher resolution and more context information. Extensive experiments are conducted on ShanghaiTech and UCF_CC_50 datasets. The results show that our model achieves the lowest mean absolute error (MAE) and comparable mean square error (MSE), and outperforms the current state-of-the-art methods.


Many literary critics maintain that a novel as narrative should be analysed only on the basis of the be based on narrative or epic elements. However, many novels, among others Chaka by Mofolo, Mosali a nkhola (Woman deceive me) by Khaketla and Nna Sajene Kokobela by Ntsane involve dialogue as a dramatic communicative mode in the expression of tragic events. This paper demonstrates the occurrence of dramatised tragic events with a view to demonstrate the dramatic mode of presentation in the novel Lehlaba la lephako (Pain of hunger). The aim of the paper is to illustrate overlap in the use of narrative as well as dramatic elements in a novel. A novel does not need therefore not be confined to only a telling mode of presentation, but could also incorporate both the telling (narrative) and the showing (dramatic) modes of presentation. Textual elements such as character, plot and theme will be demonstrated as reflecting tragedy as presented within the context of dialogue. Furthermore, dramatized tragic events in a novel could be as effective to provoke pity and fear on the part of the reader as in any drama-text. Tragedy and the tragic (though they are different concepts) they overlap and are relevant to either novel (telling) or drama (showing).


The rise of popular culture and the reversion of secular society are two backgrounds behind the popular narrative history.The extreme pursuit of scientific in history studying sets up an insurmountable obstacle for the public readers.With the emergence of post-modern historiography in 1960s and 1970s,the voice of narrative writing requested by the readers give a strong challenge of so-called right and proper concepts,such as Grand Narration,Great History.Today,the most remarkable event is the changing from the Narrative Philosophy of History to the long-standing Analytic Philosophy of History.In fact,the post-modern historiography is a popularization movement of historiography in western areas of historical research.This movement injectes a new vitality in historical research,promotes the expansion of the historical research field,and changes the historical research writing style.Therefore,the contribution brought by post-modernism to the development of history must be affirmed,though the extreme relativism in post-modernism itself should be criticized.


Practice teaching process is an important part of environmental engineering specialty, which plays a key role in cultivating students' practical ability and innovation ability. The current situation and typical problems of the three kinds of environmental engineering practice in Wuhan University of Science and Technology have been studied in this paper, Using process management PDCA model to build a high performance practice management model.


Corruption is a hideous crime and dangerous disease which must be tackle immediately and effectively by all societies and in all countries. The effect of corruption is very severe not only to the involve individual to such crime but also to the entire society and country itself. In late January 2021, Malaysian were sadden with the dropping of the country Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranking for the year 2020 released by the Transparency International (TI). Malaysia Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ranking for the year 2020 has drop to 57 among 180 countries compared to 51 which being achieved in 2019. At the same time, Malaysia scored through such index has also gone down to 51 points out of 100 compared to 53 points which being achieved in 2019. However, the fall of the country ranking and scored through the CPI has already been expected by many due to political instability which engulf the country and due to lack of effective measures taken by the country to deal with the issue of corruption itself. Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) is an index published annually by Berlin-based Transparency International (TI) since 1995 which ranks countries by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, as determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys. If the country don"t want their CPI ranking and number continue to drop in coming years, drastic measures must be identify and taken in order to make sure corruption will not continue to grow and become out of control problem. Amongst the ideal measures which can be taken to combat corruption is through education and legislation. Education is most important tool in combating corruption. Educational process need to be carry out constantly and effectively so that everybody able to comprehends about corruption and its effects. Beside education, having adequate legislations is also vital to combat corruption. Due to these, it is the objects of the paper to identify and examine further the role of education and legislation in combating corruption in the country. The outcome of this research paper would offer varieties of proposal to the government to give their focus over education and legislation in addressing with the issue of corruption.


In this paper a comparison between different methods for block matching in image processing with respect to the efficacy of their digital VLSI implementation is presented. In this framework a new method based on limiting the role of mismatching pixels is proposed. The results obtained on different kinds of images show that the new method achieves the best trade-off between complexity and results.


Abstract Objective: The purpose of this study was to determine the magnitude and determinants of urban household food insecurity in East Africa. Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Setting: Studies conducted in East Africa. Participants: Seventeen studies (fifteen cross-sectional and two cohort) that enrolled 156 996 households. We used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guidelines to search electronic databases (PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, CINAHL, African Journals OnLine, Web of Science, Scopus and Google Scholar; date of last search: 10 June 2020) for studies reporting the prevalence and associated factors of urban household food insecurity. Results: A total of 17 studies with 156 996 households from 8 countries were used for the analysis. The pooled prevalence of urban household food insecurity in East Africa was 60·91 % (95 % CI 47·72, 74·11; I 2 = 100 %; P < 0·001) where the highest (91 %) and lowest (36·5 %) was observed in Sudan and Burundi, respectively. Household head educational status (illiterate) (AOR = 2·53; 95 % CI 2·11, 2·95, I 2 = 90 %; P < 0·01), female as household head (AOR = 1·45; 95 % CI 1·16, 1·75; I 2 = 0·0 %; P = 0·993), large family size (AOR = 1·43; 95 % CI 1·09, 1·76, I 2 = 0·0 %; P = 0·863) and poorest wealth quantile (AOR = 3·95; 95 % CI 1·93, 5·98; I 2 = 57·2 %, P = 0·053) were factors which significantly increased odds of urban household food insecurity in East Africa. Conclusions: The prevalence of urban household food insecurity in East Africa remains high. Therefore, policies and intervention programmes should be designed to reduce the high burden of food insecurity among urban households considering the identified factors.


An analysis of the composition of soil minerals in the Hetao area shows that the main arenaceous components are quartze,feldspar and calcite,whereas the clay minerals are composed of illite,chlorite and kaolinite.The contents of various minerals are different from each other.Quartz and feldspar are relatively high in sandy soils,while clay minerals are comparatively high in clay soils.


In 1720 Abraham Vater (1684–1751) published the first description of the Papilla at the junction of the common bile duct and the pancreatic duct that today bares his name.1 It would remain his most clinically relevant discovery, particularly since the introduction of endoscopic papillotomy in the 1970s2 and the recognition of endoscopic retrograde cholangio-pancreatography (ERCP)-induced pancreatitis as a significant disease risk.3 The anatomy of the papilla is not uniform among mammals. The rabbit has completely separate junctions of both ducts with the intestine4 and the mouse carries no smooth muscle sphincter.5 Closest to the human anatomy is probably the American Opossum,6 which has therefore been used experimentally to study the mechanisms involved in gallstone-induced pancreatitis.7 The papilla of Vater has remained the subject of many investigations in humans,8 because its impairment …


A hybrid neural network is proposed for speaker verification (SV). The basic idea in this system is the usage of vector quantization preprocessing as the feature extractor. The experiments were carried out using a neural network model (NNM) with frame labeling performed from a client codebook known as NNM-C. The work also examines how the neural network model with enhance features from the client barcode compares to NNM client codebook with linear time normalization (LTN). Improved performance for NNM (client barcode) with more inputs and proper alignment of the speech signals supports the hypothesis that a more detailed representation of the speech patterns proved helpful for the system. The flexibility of this system allows an equal error rate (EER) of 0.62% (speaker specific EER) on a single isolated digit and 1.9% (SI EER) on a sequence of 12 isolated digits.


Aims Interest in soft tissue Radiostereometric Analysis (RSA) is rising. Previous authors have tried, with varying levels of success, to use this technique to analyse the intra-substance portion of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) graft constructs. These methods were either prone to large amounts of marker migration, deemed unsuitable for in-vivo use or, where alternative markers such as stainless steel sutures were used, lost the inherent accuracy that made RSA an attractive tool in the first place. We describe a modification of tantalum marker balls that allows for a new method of secure fixation to soft tissue in order to accurately analyse stretch, displacement and, potentially, dynamic movement using RSA. Methods 1.5 mm tantalum tendon markers were predrilled with 0.3 mm holes, allowing them to be sutured directly to soft tissue. Using a previously described ACL graft model, the amount of marker ball migration was then analysed using RSA after cyclical loading between 20 N and 170 N at 25 Hz for 225,000 cycles. Results None of 40 balls loosened or became detached from the tendon grafts after 225,000 cycles. Mean migration of the tendon attached marker balls was Conclusions This method of attachment of marker beads to soft tissue is simple, reliable and mechanically sound. This technique could potentially be used not only for the post-operative assessment of ACL reconstruction, but in all areas where soft tissue RSA is of interest.


Social media refers to a combination of three elements: content, user communities and Web 2.0 technologies. This foresight report presents six roadmaps of the anticipated developments of social media in three themes: society, companies, and local environment. One of the roadmaps, the meta-roadmap, is the synthesis of them all. The society sub-roadmap explores societal participation through communities. There are three sub-roadmaps relating to companies: interacting with companies through communities, social media in work environment, and social media enhanced shopping. The local environment sub-roadmap looks at social media in local environment. The roadmapping process was carried out through two workshops at VTT. The results of the report are crystallized into five main development lines triggered by social media. First development line is transparency referring to its increasing role in society, both with positive and negative consequences. The second development line is the rise of ubiquitous participatory communication model. This refers to an increase of two-directional and community-based interactivity in every field, where it has some added value. The third development is reflexive empowerment. This refers to the role of social media as an enabler of grass-root community collaboration. The fourth development line is the duality personalization/fragmentation vs. mass effects/integration. Personalization /fragmentation emphasises the tailoring of the web services and content. This development is counterweighted by mass effects/integration, like the formation of super-nodes in the web. The fifth development line is the new relations of physical and virtual worlds. This development line highlights the idea that practices induced by social media, e.g. communication, participation, co-creation, feedback and rating, will get more common in daily environment, and that virtual and physical worlds will be more and more interlinked.


With reference to dielectric scatterers, in this paper we briefly report the performance of a nonlinear inversion approach as tested on the 'Marseille data'. Moreover, a simple, yet very effective, regularization scheme exploiting the homogeneous nature of the scatterers at hand is proposed and tested.


In this article are analysed infl uence of religiousness on the modern education system based on the constitutional beginnings of good breeding, the problem of a ratio of religion and the rules of law existing in the state, and also possible prospects of their further interaction in education is considered.


Strain-relaxed crystalline Si0.5Ge0.5 layers were irradiated with U ions of various energies (0.8–2.64 GeV) but of approximately identical electronic stopping power. Transmission electron microscopy reveals tracks of different morphology depending on the velocity of the projectiles. For decreasing beam energy, individual dotted defect structures form aligned discontinuous tracks including a large number of dislocation loops. No indication for track amorphization is found.


Public health problems and interventions are often addressed in sub-optimal ways by not prioritizing them based on the best available evidence.

 The public health report 2019 for the Stockholm region aims to inform decision makers, politicians, and public health workers about the risk factors and diseases that account for the biggest part of the burden of disease with a clear focus on high quality evidence and communication of main messages. How did the public health report 2019 affect public health policy in the Stockholm region?

 The public health report 2019 influenced agenda setting, resource allocation and priority setting in the Stockholm region.

 We identified the following facilitating factors in the process, of which most also are supported in scientific literature, in chronological order: 1) understanding the policymaking context to be aware of windows of opportunity, 2) establishing relationships with relevant policymakers, engage with them routinely in the decision-making process, and being accessible for questions, 3) doing high-quality research by considering the latest scientific literature, multiple data sources and involving academic experts in the field, 4) communicating clear and relevant messages for generalists by translating research into easy-understandable texts and attractive figures, and 5) active dissemination of the report through multiple channels. In addition, the following barriers were identified: 1) the timeframe of the policymaking process was not in line with the research process, and 2) involving politicians in an early stage can potentially harm the objectivity of research in media messages.

 By focussing on major problems, high quality evidence and clear messages a public health report can contribute to more evidence-informed policy making. Engaging decision makers in the process of public health reporting is critical for the impact on agenda setting, resource allocation, and priority setting.


To obtain the bar length optimization for serial robot and the best mounting position of serial manipulator, a method based on point group about multivariate nonlinear optimization is proposed. Taking a type of ABB robot as the example, businesses provide the robot parameters of joint variables and linkages. This paper obtain the limit position of the robot based on the 2D "complete boundary", analysis the multiple arcs of the robot workspace based on the group in the workspace and write out the constraint equations of mechanical arm. Then, the paper creates workspace to restrain the points and to optimize the bar length by the function of MATLAB. The method is simple, applicable and can be applied to all serial manipulator based on two-bar designed.


Policy issues have impacted on cropping since the earliest days of European colonial settlement. Following emigration to Australia, secure land titles were required, with the Torrens title system being progressively introduced from 1858. This provided the basis for landholders to be able to borrow to develop land. Closer settlement policies were adopted, underpinned by the development of transport infrastructure. The demand for education resulted in Agricultural Colleges in the colonies from the 1880s, with Departments of Agriculture soon afterwards. Federation of the colonies into the Commonwealth of Australia and the creation of the states resulted in a separation of powers, with the Commonwealth assuming responsibility for external powers including overseas marketing, import quarantine, health and quality standards of exports and credit and financial powers. Natural resource management matters and education were among those remaining with the states. Regular intergovernmental meetings were held to discuss research from 1927 and a broader range of agricultural issues from 1935. The Great Depression in the 1930s, poor commodity prices and serious land degradation led to government support for debt reconstruction and the introduction of soil conservation services. Realising the need for innovation to successfully compete on world markets, farmers, led by cereal growers, petitioned for the establishment of statutory research programs with joint grower/government funding from the 1950s. These have been remarkably successful, with the uptake of new technologies contributing to an average multifactor productivity growth of Australian grain farms by 3.3% per year between 1977-78 and 2001-02. With community and policy recognition of the need to conserve natural resources, the Commonwealth Government is playing an increasing role in this area. Farmers are required to meet standards for the use of agricultural chemicals and for occupational safety, welfare and environmental protection. The states have taken a conservative stand against the growing of genetically modified food crops in the name of protecting overseas markets. New water management regimes are coming into place with the separation of water titles from land. Market-based instruments are being introduced to encourage more sustainable production systems and saleable ecosystem services. Research and innovation along with complementary policy initiatives will continue to underpin farmers' adaptive management skills to ensure dryland crop producers have sustainable production systems while remaining competitive in world markets.


As a constructivist learning tool, information security laboratories can facilitate student learning. However, they also present challenges. The ability to confine malware within laboratory boundaries, repeatability and flexibility are desired qualities in laboratory design. This paper shares my experiences in using virtualization technology to achieve those qualities.


Nine new cobalt(III) complexes containing N,N-dimethylethylenediamine are prepared. The geometrical configurations of isomers are assigned on the basis of their visible and ultraviolet absorption spectra, proton magnetic resonance spectra, and the optical resolution of the chiral isomers. The absorption and circular dichroism spectra are discussed in comparison with those of the corresponding complexes containing ethylenediamine, N-methylethylenediamine, N,N′-dimethylethylenediamine, or tris-2-(aminoethyl)amine.


A manufacturing method of extract having killing insects is provided to use environment-friendly natural material and to solve problem due to remain agricultural medicines. A manufacturing method of extract having killing insects comprises steps of: injecting extraction solvent to Rhododendron brachycarpum and Paulownia coreana into a weight ratio of 1: 10~200; extracting extracts in which solvent is put and filtering it; reducing pressure and concentrating the extracted extracts; and mixing the concentrated and decompressed extracts to constant rate.


Contents Acknowledgments * Introduction * An Old Woman's Story * Beginning Assumptions * The Role of Personal Experience * The Role of Grief Education * Concerns About Aging * Historical Trends and Eldercare * The Grief Education Workshop Format * An Overview of This Book * Chapter 1: The Challenge of Grief Education for Caregivers of the Institutionalized Elderly * Grief and Loss Support Services Needed * The Scope of the Need * A Mandate for Grief Education * The Goal of Grief Education * Grief Education Objectives * Chapter 2: Aging and the Elderly * The Development of Life Span Perspective * Characteristics of Old Age * Definitions of Aging * The Grief of Growing Old * A Description of the Aging Process * Explanatory Theories of Aging * Chapter 3: Bereavement and the Elderly * Universal Bereavement Responses * General Observations * Why Do We Grieve? * Grief as Normal Life Crisis * Bereavement Study * Types of Loss * The Tasks of Mourning * Grief Work: How Long? * Factors That Affect the Course of Grief * Phases of Bereavement * Effects of Bereavement in Elderly * Chapter 4: Death and Dying and the Elderly * Death and Society * Dying and the Individual * Death and Dying: A Developmental Point of View * Death and Dying Responses * Dying with Integrity * The Dying Process * Tasks of the Dying Person * Complications * Death and Dying and Elderly Persons * Death and the Life Cycle * Chapter 5: Workshop Design--A Successful Model * Workshop Expectations * A Successful Program * Phases of Workshop Design * Generalizations of Learning * Summary: The Ten Commandments of Grief Education * Chapter 6: Caregivers: Practitioners, Helpers, and Companions * Who Is a Caregiver? * Developing a Continuum of Care Model * Continuum of Care Contexts * Caregiver Frustrations * Obstacles to Caregiving * To Help or Not To Help? * Predisposition to Assist Aging and Dying Elderly Persons * General Caregiving Intervention Goals * Stage-Appropriate Objectives * The Role of the Grief Counselor * Counseling and the Elderly * The Caregiver and Self-Care * Chapter 7: Clergy as Caregivers * Pastoral Care Traditions * Community Traditions of Pastoral Care * Pastoral Caregiving Experiences * Assessment of Clergy as Caregivers * Problems with the Pastoral Caregiving Task * A Definition of Pastoral Care to the Grieving and Elderly * The Goal of Pastoral Caregiving * Pastoral Objectives for Working with the Aged, Bereaved, and Dying * General Pastoral Care Strategies Reviewed * The Art of Pastoral Caregiving: Learnings from Ministry with Elderly People * The Pastoral Caregiver as Recovered Healer * Chapter 8: Envisioning Eldercare: The Next Fifty Years * The Future of Eldercare * Challenge One: Understanding the Realities of Old Age * Challenge Two: Creating Spaces for Ethical Dialogue * Challenge Three: Conserving Resources and Enhancing Quality Care * Challenge Four: Using Education As a Resource * Challenge Five: Caregiving When All Our Houses Are Full of the Elderly * Conclusion * Appendixes: Workshops * Workshop 1. Attachment, Loss, and the Process of Mourning * Objectives * Schedule * Personal Grief History * Grief and Loss Case Study * Participant Evaluation Form * Workshop 2. Bereavement * Schedule * Aging: As I Imagine Myself * Behaviors That Encourage Expression of Needs * Bereavement Workshop Evaluation Form * Workshop 3. Grief and Loss * Schedule * Death and Dying: Attitudes Checklist * Workshop 4. The Art of Caring for the Dying Person * About the Workshop * Schedule * Registration Form * Workshop 5. When Someone Dies * Workshop Objectives * Schedule * Caregiv


Although small and medium-sized bridges are closely related to people's lives, safety and maintenance are often neglected compared to the large bridges. Moreover, the frequent occurrence of safety accidents due to aging, they are often placed in a blind spot for safety management. This study aims to develop a performance evaluation system suitable for small and medium-sized bridges based on the results of simulations on various performance evaluation methods using facility information.


Abstract:The article examines the ethics and politics of international gestational surrogacy contracts through a three-dimensional framework that combines political accounts of framework precariousness, accounts of norm incompatibility in contracting scenarios, and feminist accounts of domination. This framework, which can be applied to a host of contemporary bioethical controversies, articulates the ways in which individuals' medical experiences are shaped and determined by social structures (e.g., the law) that lie beyond their field of control, thus pushing feminist bioethics toward closer collaboration with legal and political theory.


As an important control station for the mainstream of the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, studing the runoff change characteristics in dry season at Datong Hydrological Stations can provide a comprehensive grasp of the hydrological conditions in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. This study uses linear trend method, Mann-Kendall method and wavelet analysis method to analyze the dry season runoff change characteristics at Datong Station, and the following conclusions are obtained: the average flow in the dry season at Datong Station has shown a significant increasing trend and a significant change period, while the first main period is 35-year; for the typical dry months, there is no significant increasing trend in December, but the increasing trend is significant in January and February; The dry season runoff at Datong Station accounted for a significant increase in the proportion of the entire year since 2003.


AbstractPagaralam is one of the tomato suppliers for the South Sumatera region. Tomatoes are often attacked by pests such as aphids. Aphids fleas (Aphid sp.) are one of the main pests besides that aphids are important vectors that can transmit viral disease. The use of chemical insecticides can damage agricultural land for the use of vegetable insecticide alternatives. Alkoloid, Flavoid, Saponin, and Tanin contained in papaya leaves (Carica papaya) can be used as a plant aphid insecticide. The sample in this study was a 2 month old tomato plant with 20 aphids in each tree. Treatment was given to 5 treatment with 5 replications. This treatment by giving different concentrations of papaya leaf solution in the crop of 0%, 15%, 30%, 45%, and 60%. To determine the effectiveness of papaya leaf solution (Carica papaya) as a vegetable insecticide aphid done spraying as much as 100 ml once spray with contact time observation 12 hours and 48 hours. The results showed that the application of papaya leaf juice was effective in killing aphids, so that high concentrations that gave greater precentage of aphids deaths ranged from 24 hours showed F count > and F table and received at level 1% means that papaya leaf juice was very influential on aphids death. Then the results of cofactor coefficient (KK) 24 hours and 48 hours were 10% and 4%, before using The Smallest Significant Difference Test (BNT) to see the effect of each concentration. BNT Test pre view, each concentration was very significant which had a different effect on the death of ticks to analyze probit LC50 to determine the effective concentration of killing 50% of the samples at 39,81%. This is related to every usage given such as concentration and monitoring time.
Keywords: Papaya Leaf (Carica papaya); Papaya Leaf Solution Concentration; Fleas (Aphid sp.)


The suface tension of N alky N,N,N trihydroxyethyl ammonium chloride (AEEC) synthesized and purified in this work was determined by drop volume method. It was found that the surface excessive concentration of AEEC was decreased with the increase of carbon number of the hydrophobic group. The AEEC's molecular surface area at the surface of aqueous solution was affected by the hydrophobic group. The effectiveness and efficiency of AEEC in decreasing surface tension was increased with the increase of carbon number. The log CMC is proportional to the carbon number. At 25 °C , entropy change is the main drive force for the micelle formation of AEEC.


The main aim of the work is to identify the requirements of managers' education in the company by using the data about actual balance in individual areas of production. These data have been acquired by means of questional papers and by personal interviews with employees of the company. Actual analysis has detected that the company has a great reserves in the area of managers' skills. It rebounds in bad company direction, insufficient comunication and motivation of personnel. Thus, at the end of our work we provide some suggestions (recommended trainings for individual groups of managers) how to improve the actual situation.


Realization of the envisioned sixth generation (6G) of wireless networks will require unprecedented technology advances over the next decade. It is expected that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will extend the services offered to end-users, also driving a new era of self-evolution of network operations. In order to support these developments, the Hardware-Software (HW-SW) design/development approaches used today, may no longer be appropriate. In this paper, a partial reformulation of the concept of HW is proposed, relying on the analogy between HW-SW components and the four classical natural elements. The corresponding ecosystem is termed the WEAF Mnecosystem, standing for Water, Earth, Air and Fire Microtechnologies and Nanotechnologies Ecosystem. Within it, devices and solutions based on Micro/Nanosystems, Micro/Nanoelectronics and novel materials, are accounted to be pivotal in the transition of 6G visions to future reality.


Plant species identification and detection of moisture, protein, lipid ash and sugar contents of plants that are consumed by hamadryas baboon in Awash National Park was studied from March 2015 to April 2016. The methods used were scan sampling following the baboons from early morning to late afternoon until 6:00 PM. and laboratory for moisture, protein, lipid ash and sugar content analysis. Samples were collected from Filwoha area where the baboons largely resided. Samples were collected through scan sampling technique from March 2015 to April 2016 both during wet and dry seasons. The samples were taken to Addis Ababa University herbarium for species identification and 73 species that are consumed by hamadryas baboons were identified. The species were identified by their scientific name, common name and local names. For moisture, protein, lipid ash sugar content analysis, the samples were collected shade dried, packed in plastic bags and transported to the laboratory for chemical content analysis. Samples were collected following the AOAC official methods of analysis (2005), method number 922.01. For nutrient content analysis, different methods were used. Drying oven for moisture, micro Kjeldahl for protein, Randal modified Soxhlet for lipid extraction, electric muffle furnace for ash were used to analyze the sample fruits under investigation. Total carbohydrate was determined by difference. DNS (Dinitrosalicylic Acid Solution 1%) and potassium sodium tartrate solution 40% was used to analyze reducing sugars. B. aegyptiaca, Acacia species gum, and Hyphaene thebiaca have high contents of moisture and other samples have more or less similar and it is less because Filoha area is semi-arid. Herb, B. aegyptiaca leave, Acacia Senegal seeds have contents of protein but Acacia species gum, has the lowest protein content, while other samples have more or less moderate content. Almost all samples analyzed for lipid, they have low content. Dobera glabera leaves have the high content of ash. But herb leaves, B. aegyptiaca leaves, grass leaves, Hyphaene thebiaca fruit have moderate ash content in compared to WHO/FAO standard. The rest of the samples have less contents of ash. The B. aegyptiaca fruit (mesocarp) has high content of sugar and even the pericarp also has high sugar content relative to other species of plants collected and analyzed for their sugar content. But the leaves have less content of sugar. Next to B. aegyptiaca fruit, H. thebaica fruit has high content of sugar than other plant species analyzed for their sugar content. D. glabra leaves have the least sugar contents than other plants analyzed for their sugar content.


Many countries have been interested in sustainable development of buildings for environmental preservation. Thus it is significant to assess building envelopes in terms of CO₂ emissions owing to Kyoto Protocol. In this paper, a Double Skin Facade(DSF) installed in a general office building was assessed by CO₂ emissions(one of the performance-based assessment). To predict CO₂ emissions caused by the building energy consumption, the dynamic simulation program(EnergyPlus) and CO₂ emission factor was used. Because DSF has various airflow regimes, pre-simulation runs were conducted to decide proximate optimal airflow regimes depending on seasonal variation. It is shown that the DSF can achieve 17.1-36.5% of annual energy savings.


X'tal cube is the 3D position-sensitive radiation detector we have developed. Its structure uses multi-pixel photon counters (MPPCs) that are coupled on all sides of the scintillation crystal block which is segmented into a 3D array of cubes. No reflector is inserted into the crystal block so that scintillation light originating in one of the cubic segment spreads 3-dimensionally and distributes among all MPPCs on the crystal block. We have already succeeded in identifying 18 × 18 × 18 segments of 1 mm × 1 mm × 1 mm in size with a simple Anger-type calculation of the MPPC signals when we used the crystal block having 3D segmentation inside by laser processing (the 3D crystal block). On the other hand, we have explored the possibility of structuring the crystal block by stacking scintillator plates having 2D segmentation by laser processing (a plate crystal block) instead of the 3D crystal block. The 2D segmentation in thin scintillators is much easier to achieve than the 3D segmentation and in the event that the crystal block has a crack, we can exchange the scintillator partially for the plate crystal block. In our previous study, we proved that the plate crystal block has sufficient segment identification ability for a 9 × 9 × 9 array of 2 mm × 2 mm × 2 mm crystal segments. In this study, we aimed for higher spatial resolution and examined the use of 1 mm thick scintillator plates segmented in an 18 × 18 array of 1 mm × 1 mm elements. We used LYSO for the scintillator. Performance of the plate crystal block was compared with that of the 3D crystal block.


Transmission electron microscopy and oxidation simulation based on the viscoelastic model were used to study oxide edge shapes during the local oxidation of silicon. Upon reducing the pad oxide thickness, local retardation of oxide growth, resulting in pinched shapes, was observed at field oxide edges at oxidation temperatures below 1000° C, and {111} interfaces between silicon dioxide and silicon were found to be formed at temperatures above 1000° C. These characteristic shapes were discussed in terms of the viscous flow of oxide, the simulated uniaxial stress in oxide during oxidation and the distortion energy of the interface. It was concluded that pinched shapes were formed by the anisotropic diffusion of oxidants and {111} interfaces resulting from the reaction of minimizing the distortion energy of the interface.


The microbial resistance to antibiotics and the generation of free radicals inside as a result of different oxidative processes are modern global challenges for researchers. The exploration of MOFs as an antibacterial agent against pathogenic bacteria and as an antioxidant agent to scavenge free radicals as countermeasures to alleviate these problems. For this purpose, the metal organic framework (MOF), composed of L-leucine as a linker and nickel as a metal, was synthesized via a convenient, one-pot process under reflux conditions. The products formed were characterized through different techniques, including N2 adsorption experiments, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The physicochemical analysis shows that the MOF has a crystalline nature with a surface area of 129 (±5) m2/g and a pore size of 1.95 nm. The synthesized MOF was then subjected to antibacterial activity, and the high activity was recorded against S. aureus. The dose-dependent antioxidant study shows the activity increases with increasing the concentration of the MOF. However, both the antibacterial and antioxidant activities were found to be less than those of the standard drugs (clindamycin and ascorbic acid).


The protection and treatment of witnesses, particularly victim-witnesses, has been one of the greatest challenges that has faced the ICTY. This chapter focuses of the discussion on the development of witness protection and assistance to witnesses (particularly victim-witnesses) at the ICTY. It reviews the various categories of witnesses and the assistance and support with which they are provided. The chapter examines the legal framework for witness protection as well as the policy implications that arise regarding such protection. It discusses other non-judicial matters, principally international relocation as well as specific problems encountered in the countries of the former Yugoslavia. The chapter considers the implications arising from cases that are to be transferred from the ICTY to courts in the region, pursuant to the Completion Strategy. The act of testifying may be a difficult and intimidating experience for witnesses appearing before the ICTY. Keywords: Completion Strategy; ICTY; non-judicial matters; witness protection


[Extract] In 1967 the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) created an ambitious participatory media programme called Challenge for Change/ Societe Nouvelle (CFC/SN) that sought to give disenfranchised and marginalized communities of Canada a voice by giving them access to the media. Post World War II, the NFB had prided itself on its activist agenda and 1960s technological and cultural developments inspired the development of CFC/SN, with a vision that the process of filmmaking not only document social issues, but play an active role in them as well. Challenge for Change was envisioned in three streams with one stream forming a platform whereby non-media professionals in Canada could make films about their own concerns and problems (1), with NFB support. This was a process that John Grierson observes as the shift from films made about people to films made with people.(2) For directors such as Colin Low and others involved, the Challenge for Change studio represented a return to the Grierson philosophy of government-sponsored documentary, with a new twist – not only would the government inform the people, but the people would also inform the government, a rare example of a government funding public criticisms of itself (as George Stoney recalls when asked, "Does the government know you're making these films?" he replies – "Know! They're paying for it" (p. 318)). Low wrote in 1972: "The means of communication – real two-way communication – must be made accessible to ordinary people for dialogue in meaningful local debate. In this way, we could generate a much more vigorous problem-solving capacity based upon local initiative and creativity." (3)


Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a common disease that is associated with the proliferation and apoptosis of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs). VSMCs are regulated by microRNAs (miRNA). The aim of the present study was to identify miRNA sequences that regulate aortic SMCs during AAA. miRNA-504 was identified using a miRNA PCR array and by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction analysis, and its expression levels were observed to be downregulated in the aortic cells derived from patients with AAA when compared with controls. Transfection of SMCs with pMSCV-miRNA-504 vector was performed, and cell proliferation and the expression levels of proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), replication factor C subunit 4 (RFC4), B-cell lymphoma-2 (Bcl-2) and caspase-3/9 were measured by western blotting. The mechanisms underlying the effects of miRNA-504 was then analyzed. The results demonstrated that overexpression of miRNA-504 significantly upregulated the expression levels of PCNA, RFC4 and Bcl-2, while caspase-3/9 expression was significantly inhibited when compared with non-targeting controls. In addition, miRNA-504 overexpression was observed to promote the proliferation of SMCs. The expression level of the tumor suppressor, p53, which is known to be a direct target of miRNA-504, was inhibited following transfection of SMCs with pMSCV-miRNA-504. In addition, the expression of the downstream targets of p53, p21 and Bcl-like protein-4, were significantly reduced following overexpression of miRNA-504. These results revealed the anti-apoptotic role of miRNA-504 in SMCs derived from patients with AAA via direct targeting of p53.


Through tissue isolation and plate dilution,891 bacteria isolations were obtained from healthy and diseased leaves of pines. By the dural culture method on PDA plates with pathogens,16 bacteria isolates had strong antagonism against Sphaeropsis sapinea. Under artificial inoculation 10 representative strains were used on the seedling of pines in green house for identifying their biocontrol effects on S.sapinea. Three(Strain number N29,M(2)21 and S(1)102) of 10 isolates had both good roles on PDA plates and seedlings of pine trees.The diameters of their inhabit circle were respectively 28.5,31,37.5 mm and protective effection to the seedlings of pine was over 60%. The result of pathogenicity test demonstrated that they had no harmful influence to the seedling of pine.


What is the topic of this review? We review sex differences within physiological systems implicated in exercise performance; specifically, how they integrate to determine metabolic thresholds and fatigability. Thereafter, we discuss the implications that these sex differences might have for long‐term adaptation to exercise. What advances does it highlight? The review collates evidence from recent physiological studies that have investigated sex as a biological variable, demonstrating that the physiological response to equivalent 'dosages' of exercise is not the same in males and females; thus, highlighting the need to research diversity in physiological responses to interventions.


Relation extraction is a necessary step in obtaining information from clinical medical records. In the medical domain, there have been several studies on relation extraction in modern medicine clinical notes written in English. However, very limited relation extraction research has been conducted on clinical notes written in Chinese, especially traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) clinical records (e.g., herb-symptom, herb-disease). Instead of independently extracting each relation from a single sentence or text, we propose to globally and reasonably extract multiple types of relations from the Chines clinical records with a novel heterogeneous graph representation learning method. Specifically, we first construct multiple view medical entity graphs based on the co-occurring relations, knowledge obtained from the clinic, and domain texts with the corresponding information of two medical entities from the Chinese clinical records, in which each edge is a candidate relation; we then build a Graph Convolutional Network (GCN)-based representation learning with the attention mechanism to simultaneously infer the existence of all the edges via classification. The experimental data were obtained from the Chinese medical records and literature provided by previous work. The main experimental results on Chinese clinical records show that our proposed model's precision, recall, and F1-score reach 10.2%, 13.5%, 12.6%, demonstrating significant improvements over state-of-the-art.


Concrete is in many ways particularly favorable as a building material for gas carriers. However, both gas tankers and steel shipyard capacity are presently in substantial surplus. The authors review the market for gas tankers and the situation of shipyards, and conclude that in the mid-1980's, there will be a demand for gas carriers and other ships placing a strain upon the capacity of conventional steel yards.


Although wake vortices are known to decay more rapidly near the ground than away from the ground, the details of the ground interaction are not well understood. Propeller anemometer arrays located under the approach path have been used to study vortex transport and provide some information about the vortex interaction with the ground, such as the generation of secondary vortices via boundary-layer detachment. A propeller anemometer array at John F. Kennedy International Airport using 8.5-m poles was augmented with 1) a sonic anemometer measuring three-dimensional wind and temperature at 10 Hz and 2) a vertical array of vertical wind and crosswind anemometers, mounted at four additional levels (4.2, 3.2, 1.05, and 0.5 m). The sonic anemometer gave 1) measurements of turbulence inside the vortex flowfield and 2) indications of vertical variations in the ambient headwind and temperature, which were brought down to the measurement level by the descent of the vortex recirculation oval. In general, under conditions of low to moderate turbulence, the turbulence level inside the wake vortex flowfield is greater than that in the ambient wind. The vertical anemometer array showed that the crosswind profile under a wake vortex in ground effect has a very thin boundary layer, much thinner than that of the ambient wind. It also provided some details concerning the wind profile of the secondary vortex.


This paper describes a benchmark study for a lightweight and low-cost dementia screening tool. The tool is easy to administer, requires no additional experimentation material, and automatically evaluates and indicates potential subjects with dementia. The protocol foresees that subjects answer four distinct tasks, three of which are ordinary questions and one is a counting prompt. In our care use case, older people are assessed remotely via the tool, potentially even via telephone or within a daily care service routine. The assessment results are subsequently sent to professionals who initiate further steps. A machine learning classifier was trained on the French Dem@Care corpus. Solely utilizing vocal features, the classifier reaches 89% accuracy. Implications for the use case and further steps are discussed.


The localization of sound sources in urban environments is a challenging task and the self-position and self-orientation of the individual sensor nodes can usually not be assumed to be precisely known. Therefore in this paper, a method for simultaneous sensor and source localization under line-of-sight conditions in urban environment is proposed. The method is based on acoustic bearing and relative time difference of arrival measurements as well as self-position and self-orientation measurements of an asynchronous acoustic sensor network. Here, both direct wave and first-order reflections are taken into account. We derive the Cramér-Rao bound for the corresponding localization problem and compare it with results from a Monte Carlo simulation. We consider cases where the sensors provide all measurements as well as cases where parts of the measurements fail, resulting in sub-measurement data sets. Here, a focus is on scenarios with fully unknown sensor states. Depending on the measurement data set under consideration, the initial self-position measurement is improved by taking into account the acoustic measurements, which in turn has a positive impact on the source localization accuracy in many considered cases.


Abstract : Infection via the respiratory tract is by no means less prevalent or less severe than infections via other routes. It often endangers the people's labor capacity and health. Therefore, it is essential in preventative medical practice to study the different aspects of respiratory infection, including the mechanism of air-borne infection and its disinfection. There are numerous reports and reviews concerning these studies in other countries, especially on the problem of disinfection. However, such study in China is still very limited.


The authors argue that a better knowledge base about Social Work in Prisons is essential before any decision can be made about future staffing and style of service.


The estimation of the protein requirement for the maintenance and growth of young lambs by the factorial method (Mitchell, 1929; Blaxter & Mitchell, 1948) necessitates the determination of the endogenous urinary nitrogen, the metabolic faecal N and the N requirement per unit live-weight gain. In a previous paper (Walker & Faichney, 1964a) values were given for the endogenous urinary N and the metabolic faecal N of young lambs. The present paper describes an experiment in which the live-weight gain and N balance of the milk-fed lamb were measured when different amounts of protein were given. The protein content of the diets varied from 18 to 33 % of the dry matter : in comparison, ewe's milk contains about 30 % protein on a dry-matter basis (Perrin, 1958).


Background: Tobacco is a major public health problem all over the world with 82% of the world's 1.1 billion smokers residing in low and middle income countries. The government of India has taken several measures, including legislation to control tobacco intake. Numerous surveys conducted worldwide and in India show a greater prevalence of smoking tobacco use among the less educated, illiterate and rural population. Objective: Objective of this study was to assess the prevalence and factors influencing smoking tobacco use among rural Community of Dehradun.


The objective of the present study was to increase the solubility and oral bioavailability of aceclofenac by formulating the solid self-emulsifying (SE) pellets. The pellets were prepared by extrusion/spheronization technique, using oleic acid, cremophor, lactose, polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) K30 and microcrystalline cellulose. The solid self-emulsifying drug delivery systems (SEDDS) were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, in vitro and in vivo pharmacokinetic studies. SE pellets
exhibited uniform size (800 to 2000 μm) and were spherical in shape. Droplet size distribution of the optimized pellets (SF9) following self-emulsification in water was 234.9±16 nm. In vitro release of optimized pellets was higher (95±4.21%) compared with aceclofenac pure drug
(40±4.55%) at the end of 15 min. In vivo pharmacokinetic studies in Wistar rats revealed that, AUC and Cmax of SF9 were notably higher than aceclofenac pure drug. SEDDS showed feasible approach to improve the dissolution and bioavailability of poorly water-soluble drug aceclofenac.


Overview Our objective was to develop a regression classifier to capture book review sentiments on Amazon.com. We experimented with regularization methods, penalty functions and optimization algorithms before settling on a Ridge-Regression model. The Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) estimator was employed; the cost function minimum was found using a Stochastic Gradient Descent algorithm. Ten-fold testing showed that our classifier had an AUC of 0.841 with a 1% lift factor.


If a composer were asked to create a new tune using only eight notes or keys on the piano or if an accomplished pianist were asked to perform on only eight notes, they could both undoubtedly do a respectable job. But consider how much less restricted they would be and how much better they could do if they were allowed to use all 88 keys or notes covered by the piano. This analogy holds for the extent to which we are now having students use all their known talent powers in classes. Both we as teacher and they as students could do considerably better if we would deliberately try to have them use all of their known talents or all of the keys of their mind.


The insecticidal activities of the Eucalyptus dives and Thymus vulgaris oils were assessed against Plodia interpunctella and Tribolium castaneum in granary. Insecticidal activities of the E. dives oil showed 100 % mortality against P. interpunctella larvae for 72 h and P. interpunctella adults for 3 h. Moreover, the T. vulgaris oil was observed with 100 % mortality against T. castaneum larvae for 120 h and T. castaneum adults for 120 h. These results indicate that it may be possible to control P. interpunctella and T. castaneum through the application of E. dives and T. vulgaris oils in granary.


American educators are currently debating the question of whether computers in the classroom are fact or fad. In spite of the pressure of massive sales campaigns and the American society's love of technology, it would appear that educators have not lost sight of the need for systematic instructional planning as the underlying structure for computer-related decisions. The "bionic perspective" or the point of view that permits us to consider the performance of tasks we would he incapable of performing without computer support is a valuable perspective, as long as we clearly remember that it is the human component in education that is responsible for deciding when to make use of the technology.


At present, there exists the phenomenon that each airport management department does things in his own way and each system operates independently, so it is necessary to establish a unified platform to realize the collaborative operation of multiple departments. In this paper, 3S (GIS/GPS/RS) technology is used to realize precise positioning of vehicles, personnel and flights through multi-sensor fusion. To achieve the dynamic monitoring of vehicles, automatic alarm and fence management, draw a custom electronic map of the airport based on the high-resolution remote sensing image. Adaptive genetic algorithm is applied to optimizing vehicle scheduling. The vehicle asset analysis and vehicle maintenance management are integrated into the vehicle intelligent control platform, so as to realize the organic integration of airlines, ground service, maintenance center, flight, asset procurement and multiple departments of various organizations. Through the establishment of the platform, the accurate and reasonable dispatching and operation of ground vehicles can be achieved, the operational efficiency of the airport can be effectively improved, and the maintenance of airport ground safety provides a powerful guarantee.


: Over the last two centuries, the western part of the African continent has been a place of dilution and reinvention of linguistic boundaries. This article considers Senegal and Cape Verde as a whole to assess the pertinence of a language-based identity (Francophone or Lusophone) born out of the colonial relationship and ap-pearing in a contemporary globalized world. To apprehend colonial languages as legacies calls to emerge from too-restrictive spatial and temporal constraints in order to consider changes in its actual geographical, symbolic, and historical porosity. This article examine in parallel two territories usually studied separately and gives an account of a constantly changing postcolonial inheritance of which the South Atlantic is the first witness.


The Purpose of this Booklet
This booklet is intended to provide succinct guidance to teachers, leaders and other practitioners in schools on current research and methodologies related to coaching.
Coaching is increasingly seen as an important, key element in practitioner professional learning.
The Welsh Government's recent publication 'Investing in excellence: Our national workforce development plan 2019–21' (Welsh Government, 2019) includes commitments to:
• a dedicated programme of coaching and mentoring and a set of standards for
mentor support along with a programme of common professional learning for mentors. (designed for) practitioners in the early career stages
• the introduction of an enhanced programme that includes coaching, mentoring and a high-level development programme (to support leadership and succession planning)
The national professional learning model (NAPL) is the government's vehicle for the design and delivery of professional learning (https://gov.wales/national-approach-professional-learning-napl ). In the context of practitioner coaching and mentoring, the following design features are particularly pertinent:
The professional learner is near the centre of our national approach. Professional Learning should be intended and designed to be a personalised response to individual professional learners' needs, taking into account their experience, expertise and aspirations.
(Welsh Government, 2019)
There are clearly links to effective teaching and learning also, and hence to the Welsh Government's professional standards for teaching and leadership (Welsh Government, 2018).
Whilst the focus in this booklet is on the teaching profession, coaching has already been shown to be truly beneficial for the development of a wide range of professions, and for activities both inside and outside work (Passmore & Fillery-Travis, 2011).
Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash


Nearly 10 months after the identification of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) as the virus responsible for coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), therapeutic options remai...


Almeida F. Reproductive alterations caused by infection by Wolbachia pipientis in Culex quinquefasciatus [Ph. D. thesis (Biology of Host-Pathogen Relationship)]. São Paulo: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas, Universidade de São Paulo; 2012. Wolbachia belongs to the group of -proteobacteria and was first reported in the early twentieth century. Since then, this endosymbiont was detected in dozens of invertebrate species and the effects of these bacteria in the reproduction of their hosts have been increasingly studied. Among the effects of infection by Wolbachia one may cite: parthenogenesis, male-killing, feminilization, alterations in reproductive fitness and cytoplasmic incompatibility. This study evaluated and compared physiological and reproductive differences between Culex quinquefasciatus infected and non-infected with Wolbachia. We noted that the mosquito larvae of both groups exhibited the same survival rate, although non-infected ones developed faster to adulthood. Uninfected adult females have higher ability to lay eggs, lay more eggs and those eggs have higher viability. In contrast, infected females live longer when fed with blood, and require less time after blood feeding to lay eggs. Our studies indicate that there are quantitative differences concerning the amounts of proteins in the ovaries of mosquitoes during vitellogenic stage between two colonies. The fact that non-infected mosquitoes have better reproductive fitness may be related to differences in the amount of vitellogenin, the major protein on vitellogenic process, which are produced by fat body and incorporated by oocytes through vitellogenin receptor. But these differences are not related with differencial transcription of vitellogenin receptor or vitellogenin genes. We noted that wing size is not significantly altered by the infection, although infected mosquitoes showed higher bilateral wing asymmetry.


On the basis of ordinary mathematical methods we discuss new classes of solutions of the Maxwell's equations discovered in papers by D. Ahluwalia, M. Evans and H. Munera et al.


In this special review edition ofMolecular Human Reproduction, we examine the impact of cell cleavage timing and morphology on the viability of preimplantation embryos. The concept of cleavage timing and morphology is brought into relevance by initially examining how cleavage planes, position and number in the early cleavage embryo impact developmental potential in different models, from flies to human. Finally, the historical use of cleavage assessment and morphology in human IVF in addition to the current clinical use of time-lapse imaging is discussed. Preimplantation embryo morphology and the timing of cleavage has been a mainstay for the clinical embryologist in human IVF. In the first reported case of IVF and embryo development in the human, Rock and Menkin (1944) made the following observation about the developing fertilized embryo: 'One of these (embryo), when first seen in cleavage, consisted of one large blastomere and two smaller ones, each of the three containing a round, vesicular nucleus. The second egg from this same patient was in a similar stage, but part of the cytoplasm appeared fragmented, and soon proceeded to undergo rapid degenerative changes.' Since that first observation, embryologists working in the field of IVF have relied largely on examining the morphology and timing of embryo development to select the best embryo. The underlying importance of these two observations has, however, not always been appreciated and the need of the cells within the embryo to cleave in the correct manner and to be in the right place at the right time has sometimes been overlooked by the clinical embryologist. The first two reviews (Ajduk and Zernicka-Goetz, 2016; Piliszek et al. 2016) examine the question of 'Is the way a cell divides and where it goes important?' In these reviews, we gain a better insight into how cleavage patterns impact molecular expression patterns and subsequent viability in species that have a more definitive animal and vegetal pole. We learn that despite the diversity in cleavage patterns between phyla, the molecular mechanisms regulating early embryonic divisions remain strongly conserved. The concept that cleavage division can lead to cells of not only different sizes but inherently different components is introduced and how this ultimately causes cells to follow distinct developmental paths. The observation of how the viability of a mouse embryo is affected by the pattern of segregation and inheritance of material from the daughter blastomere which undergoes at least one meridional division sheds light on the subtle importance of correct cleavage (Ajduk and Zernicka-Goetz, 2016). Piliszek et al. (2016) also discuss cell fate in mouse and human blastocysts again highlighting the importance of cells being in the correct place at the right time. This impacts the concept of just scoring blastocysts in human IVF and highlights the question: are we missing aspects of their development by just scoring expansion, inner cell mass and trophectoderm? The importance of cell positioning in the blastocyst also leads to questions of how much information we can glean from a trophectoderm biopsy when performing preimplantation genetic screening. In the third review, Gardner and Balaban (2016), the key features of the human preimplantation embryo are considered in light of historical data on the relationship between morphological characteristics and developmental potential. They argue that these observations have not only taught us about embryo potential, but also inform us about the impact of the culture environment on morphological traits and how key morphological qualities reflect aspects of embryo physiology. The importance of these observations has been an ongoing discussion for human embryos; however, it has now come under more scrutiny with the advent of video imaging or time-lapse systems. The final review from the group of Meseguer (Motato et al., 2016) discusses how timelapse systems have provided us with a multitude of data which are now being used to track cleavage patterns and timing more precisely. They show how time-lapse systems have taken the evaluation of embryo morphology and developmental kinetics to another level and how it is starting to impact clinical practice. Unfortunately, however, further studies are required to improve the quality of the current evidence. Our excitement in being able to visualize the preimplantation human embryo in its first few days of development using time-lapse systems is best summarized by Gardner and Balaban (2016), who stated that 'it has reopened our eyes and given us a new vantage from which to view the beauty of the initial stages of human life'. By assessing the scientific evidence in different species that relates the viability of an embryo to its early cleavage planes, timing and position,


This paper examines some causes of strain and frustration among police officers. Previous research suggests that police officers sufferfromthe lack of communication and support from their community. The failure of communication has caused turmoil in the past between communities and their police. A possible solution is community policing. Community policing is supposed to establish communication between the public and the police.
Causes of strain and frustration among the police are discussed along with the possible benefits of community policing. Research has shown that community police officers suffer less strain and frustration than their brethren. On this premise a quantitative examination a police force in Northumbria, England was conducted. The quantitative analysis focuses on two groups; community police officers and police officers not involved in community policing.


Satellite observations of convective towers penetrating the tropopause are summarized. Three classes of thunderstorm cloud tops including storm tops that have a monotonic temperature-height pattern with the highest point being the coldest point (class 1), tops that have a colocated cold and high point with the warm point on the downward slope to the rear of the highest point (class 2), and tops in which the cold point is offset upwind from the high point, with a cold-warm couplet straddling the convective cloud top (class 3), are described. A one-dimensional cloud parcel model applied in the overshooting region is used to explore the causes of the storm top's unique temperature/height structures.


The essence of a ranking score and rating management of economic systems are defined. The calculation model of a bank rating is developed. The basic actions for improvement of a condition of bank on the basis of use of his rating are offered. The example of calculation of a bank rating and management is resulted.


Introduction: The traditional interscalene brachial plexus block has a 100% incidence of diaphragmatic paralysis, resulting in a 25-30% reduction in forced vital capacity (FVC). Obesity can result in a restrictive pulmonary syndrome and obstructive sleep apnea, both of which can be worsened by general anesthesia. Obese patients may be more prone to postoperative pulmonary complications. A modified, or low, interscalene block is defined as a brachial plexus nerve block below C6 but above the supraclavicular fossa. The purpose of our study was to determine if a modified interscalene block would prevent diaphragmatic paralysis while providing adequate pain control for morbidly obese patients undergoing shoulder surgery. Methods: 15 patients with a BMI>35 who were scheduled to undergo shoulder surgery were selected. Patients were randomized to receive either a low-modified or a traditional interscalene nerve block. Both groups received 15ml of 0.5% ropivicaine for their brachial plexus block. Post-block lung function was assessed using incentive spirometry. Pain scores and need for supplemental oxygen postoperatively were also assessed. Results: The average decrease in lung volume in the group receiving the low-modified interscalene block was 1150ml, while the decrease in the traditional group was 860ml. The decrease in lung volumes between the two groups was determined to be non-significant (p= 0.535). Conclusion: Low interscalene brachial plexus blockade is often described as a technique used to prevent phrenic nerve blockade and hemidiaphragmatic paralysis. Our group found that phrenic nerve blockade routinely occurred when using this technique in morbidly obese patients, as evidenced by equivocal reductions in incentive spirometry in both groups. Postoperative pain scores, respiratory complications, need for supplemental oxygen, and delay in discharge did not occur in either group. We found that low-modified interscalene brachial plexus blockade in morbidly obese patients provides no benefit.


Population and Development is a complex area for research and it includes issues related to many variables, such as demography, economics, urbanization, gender, religion, politics, food and nutrition, health, human rights etc. The Indian census is used to collect extensive data at household level. Wide Information about source of income, information on demographic variables, household belonging, possession of various durable household goods etc. are collected in Census 2011. The present study is an attempt to analyze the population and development in Uttar Pradesh (UP), highly populated state in India. This paper will provide position of all districts of UP in respect of few selected socio- demographic variables. This study concludes that some districts of UP are performing better than many states in the country but some districts are much behind when compared with some develop states and India.


This paper presents a medium frequency transformer with high insulation level design which is used for the DAB DC-DC converter. The transformer size is largely reduced when operating at medium frequency compared with conventional power frequency transformer which provides the possibility for higher power density. However, there is a trade-off between the high power density and thermal performance. First of all, the exposed cooling surface is reduced accordingly. And the dissipated heat is proportional to the exposed cooling surface directly. Secondly with higher frequencies, effects such as skin and proximity and hysteresis losses are significantly increased compared to transformer operation at 50/60 Hz. Besides the design process should consider high isolation requirement. And this again defects the transformer thermal performance and this is because firstly insulation material adds extra losses to the system, secondly the construction of the insulation will block some cooling surfaces and thirdly those insulation materials normally have relatively low thermal conductivity. As a consequence, the thermal design should be carefully considered and evaluated. To solve this problem, only the high voltage side winding is impregnated in epoxy resin which reduces the insulation material. The stacked transformer cores are gapped from each other which have helped the transformer heat dissipation. Such that, a design with low thermal resistance and high power density is achieved. FEM models are developed to analyze the transformer electric and thermal performances. Finally prototypes are built and tested to verify our design concept.


This study compared the size-resolved trace metal concentrations from a standard ambient sampler to those of three commercial personal samplers. Trace metals data from each personal sampler were al...


Abstract A significant body of evidence from cross-linguistic and developmental studies converges to suggest that co-speech iconic gesture mirrors language. This paper aims to identify whether gesture reflects impaired spoken language in a similar way. Twenty-nine people with aphasia (PWA) and 29 neurologically healthy control participants (NHPs) produced a narrative discourse, retelling the story of a cartoon video. Gesture and language were analysed in terms of semantic content and structure for two key motion events. The aphasic data showed an influence on gesture from lexical choices but no corresponding clausal influence. Both the groups produced gesture that matched the semantics of the spoken language and gesture that did not, although there was one particular gesture–language mismatch (semantically "light" verbs paired with semantically richer gesture) that typified the PWA narratives. These results indicate that gesture is both closely related to spoken language impairment and compensatory.


The novel technologies for the production of hydrogen from sludge by means of microorganism,hydrothermal gasification,and supercritical water gasification are introduced,and the advantages and shortcomings of each method are analyzed in detail.The advances and the prospects of these methods are also reviewed.It was pointed out that the future direction for the disposal of sludge is that to utilize the disposed as resource and recover it as energy source be realized.At last,the application of the supercritical water gasification process in the production of hydrogen from sludge is mainly reviewed.


An index that assesses the multidimensional components of the diet through
conceptual criteria of healthy eating and nutritional recommendations is useful to
describe and analyze the dietary patterns of a certain population. The purpose of this
study was to use the Brazilian Healthy Eating Index-Revised, a measure of diet quality
in accordance with current nutritional recommendations in Brazil so far and also with
international recommendations. Data from 15105 participants of the baseline of the
Longitudinal Study of Adult Health -Brazil, conducted in the period 2008-2010 were
analyzed. Dietary intake in this study was measured by a semiquantitative food
frequency questionnaire validated. The mean Brazilian Healthy Eating Index-Revised
score was 72,6 points, when the index was categorized showed that 82.7% of
participants had a diet that requires modifications. Women had better-quality diet than
men, as well as retired compared to active employees. A direct relationship between diet
quality and age was perceived. Among the components of Brazilian Healthy Eating
Index-Revised, sodium and whole grains were those that presented worst results in the
whole population. Interventions with an emphasis on increased consumption of whole
grains, as well as sodium reduction, will contribute to better the quality of the diet of
this population.