Clustering has been used as a fundamental tool to improve scalability in large wireless ad hoc networks. Techniques based on clustering, such as routing, self-organization, context management, service discovery, etc., ensure QoS in wireless ad hoc networks when the number of devices increases. The crucial issue of clustering is the overhead generated during the cluster formation and maintenance phases. An in-depth study of the influence of node mobility on cluster formation and maintenance overhead is still missing. There is little insight into the performance of clustering in the presence of different node mobility patterns. This paper presents a detailed analytical study of the clustering overhead considering node mobility in wireless ad hoc networks, and offers a way to understand how different the node mobility parameters influence the clustering overhead. The analytical results are compared with the simulation results with sufficient accuracy. In summary, this paper provides a fundamental understanding of mobility behaviors of devices and the clustering overhead.


Herbal cosmetics have growing demand in worldwide market because of lesser or nil side effect. The current review is on the oils used in formulation of various herbal cosmetics such as for skin treatment and hair care treatment. For e.g. Coconut oil, sunflower oil, almond oil. Cosmetics alone are not sufficient to take care of skin and body parts, it require association of active ingredients to check the damage and ageing of the skin. Herbal cosmetics are the preparations, which represent cosmetics associated with active bio-ingredients, neutraceuticals or pharmaceuticals. There are mainly two types of oils volatile oil and essential oil. Both have wide significance in cosmetic formulation. Oils for skin treatment are used for moisturizing and soothing purpose. Oils in hair care preparations used for the prevention and treatment of baldness or other ailments, aggression of hair. They also promote the luxurious growth of hairs. Hair oil containing herbal drugs are used as hair tonic.


Ten sounds Movement of Chicken Feet (1), Hens with Chicks (2), Clucking (3), Regular Soft Timid Hens (4), Chick to Chick (5), Chicks Peeping (6), Chicks Care (7), Chick Sounds (8), Movement in Hen House (9) and Movement of Chicks (10) were experimentally tested to determine the which best attracted chicks to feed and water. This study was conducted from 01/ April/2015 to 19/April/2015at the experimental field of the Department of Animal Resources, College of Agriculture, Al-Anbar University, Iraq. Chicks (n=150) were randomly distributed among 10 treatments, which , corresponded to the 10 sounds mentioned above, with three replicates per treatment and 5 chicks per replicate (15 chicks/treatment). Rectangular wooden boxes were designed to test condition place preference (CPP) for sounds, and the study was carried out in four steps: habituation training, pre-conditioning, conditioning, and post-condition. Each day, blood was collected before and after each experimental sessions and analyzed for concentration of total protein, glucose, uric acid and cholesterol and behavioral traits were quantified. We developed a novel equation to calculate the CPP factor, and the results indicated that sounds 1, 4 and 7 yielded significant (P< 0.05) changes in the blood parameters, and best attracted chicks to food and increased in CPP factor.


A group of 200 malnourished children and a control group o/118 well-nourished children were surveyed/or baeteriuria and pyuria. The children were either ambulatory or hospitalized patients suffering from a variety o/illnesses, but none had signs directly referable to urinary tract infection. Clean-voided specimens were obtained using a strict technique in the collections. Incidence o/bacteriuria was found to be equally common in the two groups. Significant bacteriuria was found in 6 per cent of the malnourished group and in 4 per cent o/the control group. The correlation between pyuria and bacteriuria was similar in the two groups.


The first measurement of the hyper-Raman signals from optic phonons for dyelaser excitation was successfully performed in SrTiO 3 , Thereby, the frequency dispersion of the hyper-Raman efficiency was studied in such a range that the relevant photon energies, i.e., twice the incident one, \(2{\hbar}{\omega_{\imath}}\) and the scattered one, \(2{\hbar}{\omega_{\text{s}}}\) were across the fundamental absorption edge. It was found that the efficiency for the TO phonon increases monotonously with an increase of \(2{\hbar}{\omega_{\imath}}\), aside from a small anomaly around 3.3 eV, whereas that for the LO phonon remains almost constant over the transparent range, but increases rapidly as \(2{\hbar}{\omega_{\text{i}}}\) exceeds 3.3 eV. A tentative interpretation of the result is presented on the basis of the electronic band structure.


This paper proposes a new method for measuring a longitudinal distribution of the Raman gain efficiency in concatenations of single-mode optical fibers by using a backscattering technique and a pulsed pump light. The advantage of this method is that it can provide us with an easy way of evaluating optical fiber networks because we can measure from only one end of optical fibers. We perform an experiment employing this method and confirm that it can be used to measure Raman gain efficiency distribution easily.


In the past, taxi booking can be a hassle. Consumers must queue at one of the designated taxi stands, hail a taxi by the roadside or dial through a specific phone-based booking hotlines. However, with the recent agglomeration and proliferation of three important technologies (e.g. 4G, GPS and smartphone devices), taxi booking has never been easier. Today, consumers can book a taxi using one of the available apps in their smartphone. This new technology innovation is known as mobile taxi (m-taxi). Although there are huge potential of adopting m-taxi, surprisingly little research was conducted on the acceptance of consumers. The study intends to close the research gap by proposing a conceptual model on the motivation of consumer to adopt m-taxi. The study serves valuable information to scholars and also practitioners such as mobile software developers, policymakers and tourism-related organisations who wish to integrate m-taxi as part of their business and marketing strategies.


A Thesis Submitted To School of Business, the Department Of Accounting and Finance, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Kumasi in Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirement for the Award of Master of Business Administration (Finance Option), School of Business, College of Art and Social Sciences , 2015


In Reply.— We appreciate the comments of Dr Rice and Dr Rieger. Dr Rice's question deals with the difference between sensitivity and positive predictive value. Sensitivity is the probability of a positive test in patients known to have disease. Positive predictive value is the probability of disease in patients with a positive test. The two are related by Bayes' theorem, which states that positive predictive value = (sensitivity × prevalence)/(probability of a positive test). Using the sensitivity (53%), specificity (96%), and prevalence (7.94%) values given in our article, one can calculate the probability of a positive test (7.9%) and the positive predictive value for the direct antigen test (53%). That the positive predictive value and the sensitivity are numerically identical is perhaps confusing, but the figures in the article are correct. We certainly advocate treatment for sexual partners of infected women and made this point in our article. Dr Rieger wishes


While progress is being made on integrating unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into our national airspace on a broad scale, much work remains to establish appropriate certification standards and operational procedures, particularly with respect to routine commercial operations. This paper summarizes research to examine the extent to which today's civil aircraft taxonomy applies to UAS, and, if needed, how that taxonomy could be amended to better cover different UAS designs and operations. Factors that shape the current taxonomy, as defined in the Federal Aviation Regulations, were assessed for applicability to UAS, potential incompatibilities were identified, and additional factors were proposed that might be useful for an updated aircraft taxonomy intended to cover UAS. The results suggest the possibility of constructing new groups in the taxonomy for UAS under a restricted category that share common airworthiness standards. Establishing distinct groups for UAS and associated standards that enable low risk operations for compensation or hire could be a timely step toward full integration. Such a step would allow the civil aviation industry and regulators to gain valuable experience with UAS while carefully controlling access and potential harm to the aviation system as a whole.


There aren't ellipse interpolate function and canned cycle programming function for elliptic table side cutting in NC systems in domestic market.An equation for the path of ball-end cutter with layer milling method was deduced by analyzing the process of elliptic table side milling.The methods calculating the tool-step length and angle-step degree were presented according to the allowable residual altitude and approximate error.A canned cycle function to mill the oval side surface using user macro function of NC system was developed.So the function of NC system is expanded.


The mechanism of A1 uptake by plant roots in relation to non-metabolic conditions was investigated. Under normal conditions A1 is absorbed in an exchangeable manner at almost all the Ca existing sites on the cell walls of roots. Various kinds of metabolic inhibitors, especially chloroform gas and DNP, increased the A1 uptake by roots significantly. N4 gas treatment injured irreversibly the membranes of the cells of the cortex and the endodermis which are regarded as the barrier to the passive movement of Al, and consequently A1 uptake by roots increased appreciably. Resistance of cell membranes to the N2 gas treatment was in the order of cucumber, bottle gourd, rice, asparagus ≫ pea, Japanese radish > barley, edible burdock, spinach. This order was similar to that of Al tolerance among plant species. From these results, it was demonstrated that the maintenance of the normal physiological function of roots and the improvement of root environment are essential to minimize Al toxicity.


As computer software systems grow ever more sophisticated, so do the mechanisms used in compromising them. Some of the most advanced cyber attacks in recent years would have required considerable preparation and research on the specific software applications and the hardware they targeted. In this paper we focus on native applications and evaluate different reverse engineering techniques with a focus on memory manipulation, used to compromise their security. Additionally we discuss different protection mechanism and their practicalities. The techniques discussed are executed against a well known application (i.e. the Microsoft Windows Solitaire game) and the results are presented.


Hydrocephalus and Posterior Reversible Encephalopathy Syndrome (PRES) are under-diagnosed conditions in peri-partum period. As eclampsia mimics these conditions and it can mislead the clinician to an incorrect diagnosis causing potential morbidity and mortality. A case of a 35 year old pregnant woman with seizures presented that was initially diagnosed as eclampsia but failure to regain consciousness post-delivery led to a multi disciplinary team formation and further investigation through Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) that finally revealed communicating hydrocephalous and PRES. Prompt management was initiated by placing a Ventriculo-Peritoneal (VP) shunt resulting in full neurological recovery afterwards. As per author's knowledge there has not been a similar case reported as yet. with a good APGAR score (Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, Respiration). Laboratory tests showed white blood cell (WBC) count of 31.1, serum glutamic pyruvic transaminase (SGPT) of 58 and leukocytosis in the urinalysis but no proteinuria. Arterial blood gas (ABGs) analysis showed metabolic acidosis. Electrocardiogram (ECG) and chest X-rays were normal. Peri-operative for blood pressure


The development and deployment of interactive applications is an important aspect of the adoption of digital television in Colombia. It opens up possibilities not just for entertainment and commercial purposes, but also for education, political participation, cultural inclusion and other aspects of well-being. For decades, broadcast television has been the primary source of information and entertainment for most people in Colombia. According to a recent quality of life survey, 91 per cent of Colombian homes possess one or more colour television devices. Television can reach remote areas, some of them important in terms of bio-diversity where the inhabitants tend to be unaware of the need to preserve valuable ecosystems.


The effect of single overload on crack growth rate was studied for A537 steel under constantbaseline K condition. The speCkle nit6rferometry technique was useg to investigati in situ the variation ofcrack tip strain and crack closure in the crack groWth retardation process. The results showed that, after applying a tensile overload, crack closure showed a tendency of increase while crack tip strain showed a tendency of decrease. Tensile overload caused a delayed retardation to crack gtowth. The crack propagation afteroverloading included three processes: accelerated growth, retardation growth and recovery growth. TheseProcesses were controlled by various factors such as plasticity induced crack closure, residual compressivestress, hardening of crack tip materials et al. The effect distance of overload was larger than the width ofcrack tip plastic zone.


Synthetic 2D shapes. We use the grammar described in the Section 4.1 to create our 2D dataset. The dataset is created by randomly generating programs of lengths 3 to 13 following the grammar. While generating these programs we impose additional restrictions as follows: a) Primitives must lie completely inside the canvas, b) Each operation changes the number of ON pixels by at least a threshold set to 10% of sum of pixels in two shapes. This avoids spurious operations such as subtraction between shapes with little overlap. c) The number of ON pixels in the final image is above a threshold. d) The previous rules promotes programs with the union operation. To ensure a balanced dataset we boost the probabilities of generating programs with subtract and intersect operations. Finally we remove duplicates. We only use upright, equilateral triangles and upright squares. Note that locations (L) are discretized to lie on square grid with spacing of 8 units and size (R) are discretized with spacing of 4 units. Figure 1 shows examples from our dataset.


The decomposability of honeycomb microporous structure polyester and normal polyester fiber were analyzed in these chemical solutions,such as NaOH(concentration 1?%,2?% and 3?%),NaClO(concentration 1%,2?% and 3?%),H2SO4(concentration 50?%,80?% and 98?%) and 0.5% washing powder with various temperature(from room temperature to boiling temperature).Results show that temperature,concentration,and reaction time can influence decomposition velocity,but the concentration of NaOH dominates leading function,while the leading is the temperature factors in H2SO4 solution.At the same time,the decomposition velocity of honeycomb microporous structure polyester is significantly higher than the velocity of normal polyester fiber.


The water resources and it's current using status in Hejin city of Shanxi Province was analyzed in this paper. Based on the development rate of the Loess Plateau, the water demand water supply from the year 2005 to 2050 was forecasted, and the water demand water supply in different cases was analyzed. The water resources utilizing policy of social economic sustainable development was given at last.


(54) APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR (30) Foreign Application Priority Data TRANSMITTING REVERSE CHANNEL INFORMATION OF A MOBILE STATION IN Dec. 10, 2003 (KR)....................................... 8974.0/2003 A MOBILE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM Publication Classification (75) Inventors: Hwan-Joon Kwon, Hwaseong-gun (KR); Jung-Soo Jung, Seoul (KR); (51) Int. Cl." .............................. H04B 71216; H04J 3/24 Ju-Ho Lee, Suwon-si (KR) (52) U.S. Cl. .............................................................. 370/349


Objective To report the experience obtained from a combined treatment program with intravenous (i v) lipo prostaglandin E 1(Lipo PGE 1,Alprostadil, Beijing Taide pharmaceutical co LTD )and oral sildenafil in patients with severe pulmonary hypertension secondary to atrial septal defects(ASD) during peri operation Methods The two ASD patients were diagnosed PAH by right heart catheterization Their pulmonary pressure almost equal to artery blood pressure The changes of clinical manifestation (NYHA functional class), heart rate, echocardiography (including to estimate pulmonary pressure) were evaluated before and after treatment The treatment program was intravenous (i v) lipo prostaglandin E 1 20 μg daily 2 weeks, and 2~4 ng/(kg·min) from operation to 4ths day Then, sildenafil was added to the treatment Initial sildenafil dose was 12 5 mg 2 times daily for a week So in succession 12 5 mg 3 times daily, 25 mg 2 times, 25 mg 3 times,50 mg 2 times daily respectively a week and another intravenous (i v) lipo prostaglandin E 1 20 μg daily 2 weeks Results By the end of the program the symptoms of dyspnea were disappeared Their cardiac function converted to class I (previously classⅡ and Ⅲ) The systolic pulmonary artery pressure decreased in 2 patients (average reduction 47%) The right ventricular were diminished apparently The only side effect of sildenafil seen was mild headache They all recovered to their original work positions when the follow up were 5,10 months Conclusion Our experience supports the value of our program in the treatment of PAH It is useful for rescuing patients who has severe pulmonary hypertension secondary to congenital heart disease


The malikane regime which existed in central and eastern Anatolia during the preOttoman periods was transformed into the malikane-divani system which means a kind of double taxation with the entering of this regions under the Ottoman administration. Under this system, tax-paying subjects paid double tithe, one tithe to the local nobles who had already held the ownership right to the land as malikâne part, a second tithe to a dirlik-holding official assigned by the State in the context of the timar system as divani part. The malikane holders gradually transformed some part or the whole of their revenues into wakfs for their offsprings. In this way, a number of wakfs for off-springs were established in Anatolia. One of the provinces that the malikane-divani system was applied during the Ottoman period was also the province of Rum. In this province, the malikane holders also gradually transformed some part or the whole of their revenues into waqfs for their off-springs. One of the greatest ones in terms of revenues among the waqfs for off-springs founded in the province of Rum was the waqf for offspring of Abdulvahhab. Abdulvahhab and his sons allotted the important part of their malikane revenues to their waqf of off-spring while they used the minor part of their malikane revenues as personal asset. In this article, the identification of Abdulvahhab, his waqf of off-spring and malikane holdings were examined with the help of the archival documents. Examining the situation of the waqf for off-spring and malikane holdings of Abdulvehhab during the Ottoman period, the study aims to contribute to the social history of the province of Rum.


The interaction between root-knot (Meloidogyne incognita and M. javanica) and reniform (Rorylenchulus reniformis) nematodes in bidi tobacco cv. Anand 119 was investigated with reference to the reproduction of the nematodes aver a period of 60 days. The reproduction of M. incognita or M. javanica inoculated individually or in combination with R. reniformis was greater than R. reniformis alone. When inoculated alone, R. reniformis reproduced at a greater rate than when inoculated with M. incognita or M. javanica. Hence, M. incognita or M. javanica were predominant aver R. reniformis.


This research aims to identify and analyse the factors that are affecting the performance of expatriates. The population in this study were expatriates who worked in Indonesia. The sampling method was snowball sampling. The number of respondents of this study was 453 expatriates who worked in several companies in Indonesia. Questionnaires were distributed using Google Form, while the analytical tool used was path analysis. The results of the analysis showed that self-efficacy, multicultural personality, and collective efficacy directly affect the performance of individual expatriates. Sobel test was used to see the mediating effect collective efficacy on expatriate performance. The results showed that the collective efficacy mediated the effect of self-efficacy on expatriate individual performance and the collective efficacy mediated the effect of multicultural personality too on expatriate individual performance.


Determination of chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) distribution in the coastal waters is important to understand the coastal environmental conditions. This study was conducted to understand the spatial and temporal distribution of Chl-a along coastal waters of east Peninsular Malaysia and factors influencing its variability using Chl-a data derived from Aqua MODIS satellite (1 km spatial resolution) from January 2006 to December 2012. Chl-a variability was described using empirical orthogonal function (EOF) analysis. In-situ data (temperature, salinity, density and nitrate) and rainfall data from the Department of Meteorology were analyzed using spatial interpolation to determine factors influencing the distribution of Chl-a. The seasonal progressions of Chl-a showed high value during northeast monsoon along the coast. This variability was described by four modes of the EOF analysis. The first mode (72.08% of total variance) indicated seasonal cycle with high variability along the coast. Second mode (17.03% of variance) explained the northeast monsoon with high variability from river mouth to the south. Third mode (2.39% of variance) indicated variability during southwest monsoon along the coast and much higher to the south. Mode 4 (1.93% of variance) explained the inter-monsoon period observed along the northern and southern coastline. Concentration and distribution of Chl-a were related to availability of nutrient influenced by rainfall. The thermohaline front was also observed to play an important role in accumulation of phytoplankton biomass during northeast and southwest monsoon.


Application of lasers as cutting or coagulation instruments is based on the conversion of light energy into heat in the irradiated tissue. The extent and degree of the thermal action depends on the beam geometry and the energy of the incident light, as well as on the optic and thermal properties of the tissue. The extinction behavior in the tissue differs for the various laser systems employed in medicine. A comparison is made with Nd:YAG laser and those of the argon and CO2 types. For the transurethral use of laser beams in urology a special lasercystourethroscope has been developed. This is a modified Albarran attachment using a highly-flexible quartz fiber to transmit the laserlight. The proximal end of the light conductor is used without any sealing window and can be bent through up to 800.


A multivariate model developed to predict the probability of fi nding eggs of either anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus) or sardine (Sardinops sagax) in the southern Benguela from four remotely-sensed environmental variables (Twatwa et al., 2004) was tested by comparing predicted spawning habitat with observed spawning habitat in 2000 and 2001. These years were not used in construction of the predictive model and therefore provide an independent test to assess model validity. The multivariate model was based on quotient curves of anchovy/sardine egg abundance and four environmental parameters, namely water depth, wind speed, SST and ocean colour (Fig. 1). These quotient curves were considered as references for defi ning ranges of each environmental parameter that were suitable for spawning, with a quotient value above 1 considered to indicate selection. Predicted spawning habitat was derived from 3-day "moving average" (to account for daily cloud cover) satellite images of SST (AVHRR), ocean colour (SeaWiFS), satellite-derived daily measurements of wind speed (Quickscat), and from measured water depth (ETOPO 2). These temporal composite data were then combined to provide a spatial composite of the surveyed area using a Dirichlet tessellation algorithm based on the survey track. Such spatio-temporal composite images are considered to provide the most realistic illustration of actual environmental conditions observed during the survey. The environmental parameter ranges identifi ed from the quotient analysis as suitable spawning habitat were then applied individually to the spatial-temporal composites to provide spatially explicit visualisations of suitable spawning habitat over the duration of the survey.


The synthesis and antiviral evaluation of new 3′-O-phosphonoethyl modified phosphonate nucleosides related to PMDTA and PMDTT is described. The reaction scheme starts from protected L-threose and the phosphonate group is introduced by the Arbuzov reaction. The 2′-OH as well as the 2′-deoxygenated nucleosides have been obtained. Unfortunately, none of these synthesized compounds shows activity against HIV and HCV.


Escalating energy costs in resource-limited cassava growing regions impede industrial exploits, which contribute to high postharvest loss in the cassava value chain. Studies have uncovered potentials for replacing up to 50% of spaghetti wheat flour (WF) with cassava flour (CF) (i.e., cassava-wheat flour spaghetti (CWFS)). Modification of the CWFS scheme is proposed to eliminate the CF drying energy and explore the direct use of dewatered cassava pulp (DCP) and WF to produce spaghetti (i.e., cassava dough-wheat flour spaghetti (CDWFS)). However, uncertainties regarding the energy and product quality impacts of CDWFS compared to conventional wheat flour spaghetti (WFS) are foreseeable constraints to the industrial adoptions. Therefore, the referred impacts were analysed based on established schemes for the feedstock production (i.e., CF, WF, and DCP) and laboratory demonstrations of the spaghetti processing. All three schemes showed comparable product yields (≈0.665-0.671 kg/kg dough). Egg incorporation to augment the protein content in the CWFS and CDWFS also proved strategic for achieving comparable compositions (moisture, crude fiber, and carbohydrate), energy content, and cooking qualities (cohesiveness, adhesiveness, and water absorption) with commercial WFS products. The CWFS and CDWFS schemes could mitigate the process energy by 5.64% and 14.25%, respectively, compared to the WFS. Hence, the CWFS and CDWFS schemes are promising for energy cost reduction and advancing sustainable spaghetti industries in energy-resource-limited cassava growing regions.


Among renewable generators, photovoltaics (PV) is showing an increasing suitability and a lowering cost. However, integration of renewable energy sources possesses many challenges, as the intermittency of these non-conventional sources often requires generation forecast, planning and optimal management. There exists scope to improve present PV yield forecasting models and methods. For example, the popular dynamic neural network modelling method suffers from the lack of a selection mechanism for an optimal network structure. This paper develops an enhanced network for short-term forecasting of PV power yield, termed a `focused time-delay neural network' (FTDNN). The problem of optimizing the FTDNN structure is reduced to optimizing the number of delay steps and the number of neurons in the hidden layer alone and this problem is conveniently solved through heuristics. Two such algorithms, a genetic algorithm and particle swarm optimization (PSO) have been tested and both prove efficient and can improve the forecasting accuracy of the dynamic network. Given the success of the PSO in solving this discontinuous structural optimization problem, it is expected that PSO offers potential in optimizing both the structure and parameters of a forecasting model.


SINCE THE INTRODUCTION of chemotherapy, resection for pulmonary tuberculosis continues to offer more to an increasing number of patients. The surgical principles and indications for operation have been clearly laid down by early pioneers in this field.'-' The indications generally accepted for extirpative surgery have been: (1) failure of thoracoplasty, (2) persisting cavity, (3) empyema, (4) bronchostenosis, (5) destroyed lung, (6) bronchiectasis, (7) inspissated round lesion, and (8) residual necrotic focus. As results have become more favourable, surgeons have become more aggressive and bolder in offering this type of definitive therapy to a wider group of patients. The advent of newer antibiotics promises some protection to those considered resistant to streptomycin, para-aminosalicylic acid (PAS) and isoniazid. Depending upon the type of case operated upon and the extent of surgery carried out, the end results reported as satisfactory vary in different series of cases from 70 to 90%, and reported mortality rates vary from 2 to 30%.5-7 In reviewing the literature one is struck by these differences in mortality and cure rates in different series. In seeking the reason for this, it becomes readily apparent that these differences are directly related to the class of case operated upon and to the type of surgery carried out. The higher mortality and lower rate of cure are found, as one would naturally expect, in the patients with far advanced bilateral disease, who frequently have had everything else tried as well as multiple courses of several antibiotics, and whose operation must be considered as frankly salvage resections. These are apparently hopeless cases. In carrying out 589 consecutive resections, Douglass et al.5 report a cure rate of 70% and a mortality rate of 12% in those considered as salvage resections, in contrast to 95% well and 2%o dead after elective procedures. Ottosen7 reports on 20 salvage resections for thoracoplasty failure with a mortality rate of 30%o.


Bloch oscillations in a two-dimensional periodic potential under a (relatively weak) static force are studied for separable and non-separable potentials. The dynamics depends sensitively on the direction of the static field with respect to the lattice. Almost dispersionless periodic motion of the wavepackets is observed, as well as breathing modes. The origin of the weak dispersion is analysed. In addition, the coherent Bloch–Zener oscillation for a double-period potential inducing an additional Rowland ghost gap is discussed.


This paper is the review of the wave forces exerted on pipe-line at or near ocean bottom. The fluid forces of this problem depend on the characteristics of wave motion, the Keulegan-Carpenter number as the period parameter of fluid in back and forth motion, the Reynolds number from low to high value, the clearance between cylinder and bottom and the surface roughness of both cylinder and bottom. As the analytical solutions for this problem have been based on the potential theory because of the complexity of phenomena, there have been no complete solutions. Therefore almost solutions for practical purposes have been obtained from experimental results in laboratory basins.


On what might be called a Marxist reading, Hegel's analysis of civil society accurately recognizes a necessary tendency toward a polarization of classes and the pauperization of the proletariat, a problem for which Hegel, however, has no solution. Indeed, Marxists think there can be no solution short of eliminating civil society. It is not at all clear that this standard reading is correct. The present paper tries to show how it is plausible to understand Hegel as proposing a solution, one that is similar to that of social democrats, and one that could actually work. I. The Marxist Reading Duncan Forbes argues that, "Marxist and marxist-influenced studies of Hegel's idea of the state have seen it as helpless in the face of the problem of poverty ... and as an essentially self-contradictory reflection of a bourgeois state on its way out."1 We find this Marxist interpretation set out at greater length by Avineri:


Implementation of a low cost wideband multi-channel up-convertor for future wireless communication System is reported in this paper. The up-convertor converts the IF signal of 1.45GHz to the RF signal of 6GHz–6.5GHz, the channel bandwidth is 100MHz. In order to obtain wideband LO and reduce the cost, the scheme of frequency multiplication is employed in the design of the LO. System block diagram and design considerations are included in this paper. Finally, measurement results of the convertor are provided, which indicates that the up-convertor has excellent performance, such as high output power, good linearity, and low EVM (Error Vector Magnitude).


The development is a multidimensional process that requires fundamental changes in cultural and social structure on the one hand; and economic growth and reduction of poverty and inequality on the other hand. The intense focus and imbalance are features of the Third World and the results of polar growth policies. As a result of these policies, a limited number of regions have a key role and the other ones are marginalized. Identifying and exploring the possibilities and abilities and consequently determining the development level of regions are challenges facing to urban planning. Determining and trying to establish a reasonable balance in urban network system are effective strategies for space organizing and facilitate the sustainable development process. Hence, the general objective of this study is evaluation of the development level in Shirvan County across the North Korasanand to determine the development level of the county in terms of the development index using the latest statistics and information. To assess the development level of the counties in the North Khorasan and to determine the development level, it's been used the Numerical Taxonomy Model with 30 variables in the form of cultural, health and institutional-framework. We use descriptive-analytical method in this study. Some results of the study indicate that there are facilities and services in Bojnord (capital of North Khorasan).


In the interests of making the MAV a practical weapon,dynamic character and flight control design problems of the MAV are put forward,based on the results of aerodynamic studies.As a summary of our former work,the structure,hardware and system integration of the MAV's flight control system introduced.


Optimized design for the substation construction in city which is lack of land source is an important research for electric power grid development.Taking a certain substation in Zhengzhou as an example,the paper describes the principle of substation design,researches the method for reducing land occupation for substation construction through the application of new technology and equipments,and the adjustment of allocation of substation functional areas and overall layout.


A large quantity of animal remains was uncovered from a section of the Cahokia Site (Ramey Farm, Madison Co., Illinois) between mid-September, 1956, and January 1, 1957, by Gregory Perino, under the sponsorship of the Thomas Gilcrease Foundation, Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Cahokia Site was probably the largest Middle Mississippi site in North America (occupied approximately 1200 to 1550 a.d.) and included the area that is now East St. Louis as well as extensive regions to the north and south and along both banks of Cahokia Creek. Moorehead (Univ. of Illinois Bull., 26 (4), 1928) presented a rather complete description of the site, its history and cultural affiliations known at that time. …


This paper presents the RECOPS project that aims to study the use of reconfiguration in military applications. The project explores the new potentials and possibilities offered by reconfigurable components like FPGA. It identifies specificities related to the use of this technology in military applications and proposes solutions to support them. Specific techniques like dynamic reconfiguration or high speed serial I/Os are also covered. The paper gives a description of the project and then presents preliminary results on the advantages and impacts of using reconfiguration in military applications. It also gives a synthetic view of the needs and challenges that need to face this technology to be integrated in professional and military electronics applications. They are based on a study made over a broad range of seven demonstrators covering most of the fields of military applications


Integrating programming in K‐12 curriculum has become a global consensus. Teachers are central figures in programming instruction. But the majority of current research focuses on teachers' external teaching behaviours and less on teachers' attitudes towards programming.The purpose of this study is to validate the K‐12 in‐service Teacher Programming Attitudes Scale (TPAS), to analyse teachers' programming attitudes and their differences in personal, teaching, and environmental factors, and further explore the predictive relationship.The sample is 888 K‐12 teachers from China. First, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were adopted to validate the availability and reliability of TPAS; Second, independent sample t‐test and one‐way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were adopted to explain the differences. Finally, correlation analysis and linear regression analysis were adopted to verify the correlation and prediction relationship.TPAS possess good reliability and validity (χ2/df = 2.488, RMSEA = 0.055, CFI = 0.943, TLI = 0.935, and IFI = 0.943). Further analysis found that, first of all, male teachers possess more positive programming attitudes than female teachers; second, young teachers who are under 30 and the length of teaching under 5 years possess more positive programming attitudes; thirdly, in addition to Information and Communication Technology teachers, primary science teachers also possess high programming attitudes, followed by teachers of Humanities and Arts, reflecting the potential of teaching programming in integrated subjects and the humanities. Finally, primary school teachers possess the best programming attitudes. With the growth of grade, teachers' enthusiasm for programming has gradually decreased. Additionally, discipline, grade and gender factors were considered to predict K‐12 teachers' programming attitudes.The results of this study contribute to integrating programming teaching of teachers and promoting programming education in K‐12 classrooms.


A new parallel multiplier structure is proposed. In this multiplier the operands are partitioned into four groups of bits to produce 16 partial product terms. The novelty of the new structure is that these partial product terms are each repartioned further into two groups. This will enable the use of parallel counters rather than carry lookahead adders in the intermediate stages. It is shown that the proposed technique has better performance than existing designs with respect to both area and speed.


In 1996, I worked with what appear to have been the last fluent speakers of Ngarnka, a language of central northern Australia. To the best of my knowledge, the last fluent speaker passed away in 1997 or 1998. In 2000, I began to collect all available information on the language. This article describes some of the challenges that have arisen in working with a language during and after the final stages of its death, and examines some of the possible reasons for, and impact of, this kind of work.


As a merger of two trusts had occurred, and recent research on the impact of the delay of initiating clozapine (1), this study was initiated to investigate if NICE guidelines for the management of treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TR-SCZ) were followed.
 NICE recommends that clozapine is offered after a trial of two antipsychotics drugs of appropriate dose and duration. The risk of potentially fatal side effects and the need for regular blood monitoring can deter patients and prescribers in initiating clozapine at an earlier stage (1).

 To evaluate the prescribing of clozapine in patients with TR-SCZ in a large NHS trust against NICE guidelines.

 Due to a fixed project time scale of 3 months, the medical records of 20 patients with TR-SCZ were accessed in November 2019 in order to determine compliance with NICE guidelines. Inclusion criteria for the study included a diagnosis of TR-SCZ in patients over 18 but under 60 years-old and a first attempt of prescribing clozapine after 2017. The records were analysed to establish how many antipsychotics were prescribed before clozapine was initiated, the number of patients remaining on clozapine after nine months, and the reason for stopping (where appropriate). A collection tool was created in Excel and data was analysed using descriptive statistics.

 All 20 patients had tried at least two antipsychotics, with 75% (n=15) having tried more than two before the initiation of clozapine. The mode number of antipsychotics prescribed was three. At the point of data collection, 75% (n=15) of the patients remained on clozapine. Of the five patients no longer taking clozapine, three patients remained on it for more than nine months before it was stopped. Documented reasons for stopping included side effects (neutropenia (n=1) and tachycardia (n= 1)) and patient choice (n=3).

 Clozapine is an effective treatment for TR-SCZ (1), (2). This is backed up by the majority of patients in this study remaining on the treatment after nine months. This study also agrees with previous research (1) indicating guidelines for prescribing clozapine are not followed. 75% of patients were prescribed more than the recommended two antipsychotics before clozapine was initiated. However, the patient notes did not indicate the reasons for using more than two other antipsychotics before trialling clozapine or impact of the delay of its initiation. It would therefore be prudent for future research to determine the reasons for and impact of prescribing clozapine after more than two other antipsychotics had been trialled.

 (1) Shah P, Iwata Y, Plitman E, Brown EE, Caravaggio F, Kim J, Nakajima S, Hahn M, Remington G, Gerretsen P, Graff-Guerrero A. The impact of delay in clozapine initiation on treatment outcomes in patients with treatment-resistant schizophrenia: a systematic review. Psychiatry research. 2018 Oct 1;268:114-22.
 (2) National Institute for Health and Care Excellence. Psychosis and schizophrenia: treatment and management. (Clinical guideline 178.) c2014. [Updated 2021; cited 2021 Oct 14]. Available from: http://guidance.nice.org.uk/CG178


COVID-19 crisis has changed the way we work. Work-fromhome, which was a possibility in some sectors, has become a compulsion for all, which has affected the work-life balance of working professionals. Depending on where the employees are working, the office hours have noticeably increased by one to five hours longer as this supplementary time is spent in conferences and follow-ups, or an endeavor to improve productivity, or just being unaware of the time as there is no clear boundary that exists between work and life now. During this unprecedented time, the augmented center of attention should be towards the welfare of the employees and the acknowledgment, recognition, and acceptance of the fact that work and personal/ family needs will overlap. This paper intends to investigate the various factors impacting work-life balance during the lockdown imposed by the government in light of the coronavirus, which is spreading at a rapid pace. Key insights were obtained by conducting a factor analysis and extracting four main factors, which have been explained further below. Data was collected from 225 employees across India belonging to various sectors. The findings of this study can be a crucial contributor to organizations by taking inputs. Then this prescience will help organizations to be prepared during unforeseen events by further refining their policies to benefit their employees.


Using density-functional perturbation theory and the Gr\"uneisen formalism, we directly calculate the linear thermal expansion coefficients (TECs) of a hexagonal bulk system ${\mathrm{MoS}}_{2}$ in the crystallographic $a$ and $c$ directions. The TEC calculation depends critically on the evaluation of a temperature-dependent quantity ${I}_{i}(T)$, which is the integral of the product of heat capacity and ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}}_{i}(\ensuremath{\nu})$, of frequency $\ensuremath{\nu}$ and strain type $i$, where ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}}_{i}(\ensuremath{\nu})$ is the phonon density of states weighted by the Gr\"uneisen parameters. We show that to determine the linear TECs we may use minimally two uniaxial strains in the $z$ direction and either the $x$ or $y$ direction. However, a uniaxial strain in either the $x$ or $y$ direction drastically reduces the symmetry of the crystal from a hexagonal one to a base-centered orthorhombic one. We propose to use an efficient and accurate symmetry-preserving biaxial strain in the $xy$ plane to derive the same result for $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}(\ensuremath{\nu})$. We highlight that the Gr\"uneisen parameter associated with a biaxial strain may not be the same as the average of Gr\"uneisen parameters associated with two separate uniaxial strains in the $x$ and $y$ directions due to possible preservation of degeneracies of the phonon modes under a biaxial deformation. Large anisotropy of TECs is observed where the linear TEC in the $c$ direction is about 1.8 times larger than that in the $a$ or $b$ direction at high temperatures. Our theoretical TEC results are compared with experiment. The symmetry-preserving approach adopted here may be applied to a broad class of two lattice-parameter systems such as hexagonal, trigonal, and tetragonal systems, which allows many complicated systems to be treated on a first-principles level.


Invasive fungal infections are on the rise due to an increased population of critically ill patients as a result of HIV infections, chemotherapies, and organ transplantations. Current antifungal drugs are helpful, but are insufficient in addressing the problem of drug‐resistant fungal infections. Thus, there is a growing need for novel antimycotics that are safe and effective. The ebselen scaffold has been evaluated in clinical trials and has been shown to be safe in humans. This makes ebselen an attractive scaffold for facile translation from bench to bedside. We recently reported a library of ebselen‐inspired ebsulfur analogues with antibacterial properties, but their antifungal activity has not been characterized. In this study, we repurposed ebselen, ebsulfur, and 32 additional ebsulfur analogues as antifungal agents by evaluating their antifungal activity against a panel of 13 clinically relevant fungal strains. The effect of induction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by three of these compounds was evaluated. Their hemolytic and cytotoxicity activities were also determined using mouse erythrocytes and mammalian cells. The MIC values of these compounds were found to be in the range of 0.02–12.5 μg mL−1 against the fungal strains tested. Notably, yeast cells treated with our compounds showed an accumulation of ROS, which may further contribute to the growth‐inhibitory effect against fungi. This study provides new lead compounds for the development of antimycotic agents.


An experimental study of nucleation and growth of carbon dioxide hydrate in the natural porous medium is used as an analog for understanding how hydrate forms in marine environments. Detection of hydrate is achieved by monitoring the bulk electrical resistance in the porous medium. Carbon dioxide is chosen as the hydrate-forming gas because it ionizes in water to provide with the main source of charged particles for conduction. Since hydrate formation causes a decrease in the dissolved gas concentration (and hence the number of ions in solution), we use the measured changes in the conductivity over time to obtain quantitative information about rates of nucleation and growth. Our experiments indicate that the rate limiting process for hydrate formation is nucleation. Once hydrate crystals nucleate, their subsequent growth is controlled by mass transport. This means that the local equilibrium in the immediate vicinity of hydrate crystals is readily established and kinetics of growth and dissociation is mainly regulated by diffusion of gas. We have developed a theoretical model to recover nucleation rates from our experimental data. Estimates of these rates for carbon dioxide hydrate are used to infer nucleation rates for methane hydrate, which is the most abundant in the natural environment. The results are applied to marine situations to show that nucleation occurs well above BSR when methane migrates into the hydrate stability zone from below. Hydrate formation is only possible if the stability zone is deep enough to ensure that sufficient overcooling can be achieved in the sediments. During the Paleocene, when the seafloor was warmer and the stability zone was narrower, nucleation of hydrate in sediments would have been much less probable than it is today. A similar difficulty may arise in shallow water where the lower pressure yields a narrow stability zone. This may explain why hydrates are rarely found in the minimum water depth of 500-600 meters even though thermodynamic conditions predict stability.


[Purpose] To investigate the epidemiology of cancer mortality in Zhongshan in 1970~2007,and to provide scientific information for cancer prevention and control in Zhongshan.[Methods] The data of cancer death in Zhongshan in 1970~2007 were collected.The numbers of death cases,crude mortality rate,China and world standardized mortality rate,proportion and ranks were analyzed.[Results] The cancer world-standardized mortality rate was 91.45/105 in 1970~2007 in Zhongshan.The mortalities of lung cancer,liver cancer,esophagus cancer,larynx cancer in male,and lung cancer,colon cancer and uterus corpus cancer in female were increased markedly.[Conclusions] The cancer mortality rates in 1970~2007 show an obviously increasing trends in Zhongshan.It suggests that cancer prevention and control should be enhanced in Zhongshan.


The military fields biggest challenge is reducing the batterys weight that a soldier carries at fighting. For example, military landings, operational combat with the enemy, and defensive training, all the batteries must be charged before carried by soldiers. A very high chance that a soldier loses his life when the battery he takes is empty, which is costly [1]–[5]. New technology to charge many electronic devices that a soldier carries during military operations, such as night vision (AN / PVS14), headphone, LMR… Like this, we can increase the combat time even more and at the same time reduce the weight of the batteries. The study is to develop and design a microwave harvester circuit attached to a protective jacket that can harvest the microwave energy sent from the microwave power plant. The harvesting device consists of a patch antenna and a DC microwave converter circuit that can collect microwave energy and send it to charge the electronic devices with the soldier during the military operation. The challenge facing this research is to design a correction antenna and to modify the correction circuit to obtain the maximum power that can charge the batteries carried by soldiers.


I submit the reports of the following cases of Intestinal obstruction. Intestinal obstruction is not an uncommon malady. Early diagnosis is of vital importance, but at times Is extremely difficult. The best treatment to be adopted in the individual case may be the subject of anxiety to the surgeon and can only be decided at the time of operation, after taking everything Into consideration. I am indebted to Dr. E. S. Stokes and Dr. E. Smith for the notes from which the abstracts have been taken. The patients were operated on In the Sydney Hospital. CASE I.-J.I. , aged 49, labourer. The"patlent came to the hospital at 12.45 p.m. on March 16, 1920. As he walked to the Casualty Room he appeared to be In great pain, was "doubled up" every few yards as he walked, and at such times yelled vociferously. On arrival at the Casualty Room he behaved in \uch an extraordinary way that the Casualty Surgeon could not make a diagnosis and was Inclined to think that the patient was not seriously ill, so he referred him to the Out-patients Physician Instead of admitting him to Hospital. Whilst at the Out-patients Department he had dry retching and at Intervals screamed out. His temperature was subnormal and pulse-rate 50 per minute. The abdomen moved freely and there was no distension. He was tender on palpation,' especially in the left lower quadrant. No tumour was felt. He described the pain as starting in the. region of the left iliac fossa, .radiating to the epigastrium and then back to the point of onset. There was an easlly reducible Inguinal hernia on the left side. The urine was scanty, but contained no abnormal constituents. The patient stated that he had suffered from attacks of dlarrhcea recently, but had gone to bed feeling quite wettrat night, to be awakened by an attack of vomiting and purging at 1 a.m. and this had continued at Intervals since. His previous health had been good. The patient was admitted to a surgical ward late in the afternoon, when his temperature was 36.1 C. and pulse-rate 100. He was very restless and when questioned, threw hh;pself about the bed and screamed out. :rhe abdomen was distended; the distended bowel gave the abdomen a "ladder pattern." There was no dulness on percussion, but generalized tenderness. Two enemata had been given without result. At 6.30 p.m., on seeing the patient, I decided to open the abdomen at once. Ether was administered by the open method and the abdomen opened by a median incision below the umbilicus (a rectal tube and catheter were passed without result as soon as the patient was anresthetlzed). Fluid escaped from the peritoneal cavity and black, distended bowel presented at once. Volvulus of the small bowel was suspected and a considerable length of distended bowel was pulled out through the wound. It was then found that there was a tight band of omentum fixed to the brim of the pelvis and about 240 em. of the Ileum had' passed through and the mesentery was twisted, completely shutting off the blood supply to the affected bowel. The band was easily cut through. After a short time had elapsed and warm pads had been applied to the bowel, there was no improvement in the appearance of the bowel, no pulsation In the vessels. After consideration I decided to excise the bowel and after closing the cut ends, made a lateral anastomosis. The patient was on the operating table for one hour; four hours later the pulse was 126 per minute and the patient. warm but restless. His bowels moved later and, although his pulse was feeble, he seemed to have a chance of recovery; but at 10.50 p.m, next day he suddenly died.


In construction engineering safety management, the problem of construction workers' unsafe behavior (CWUB) has always been a focus for researchers as well as practice managers. Currently, most studies focus on the influencing factors and mechanisms of (CWUB), with less attention given to the dissemination process and control effects of CWUB. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate a safety control detection system for the transmission process. The heterogeneous cellular automaton (CA) has advantages in constructing such a system as it can reflect the interactive processes of construction workers from micro to macro, local to global, and consider the heterogeneity of individuals and space, satisfying unequal interaction probabilities between individuals and spatial variations in characteristics. The SEIR model accurately categorizes construction workers and visually represents the changing quantities of different state groups at each stage. It effectively describes the process of CWUB transmission among construction workers. Based on the aforementioned foundation, a safety control and monitoring system was proposed for the implementation stages of the project. Finally, the control detection system is simulated to assess its effectiveness. Simulation results closely align with reality, showing a continuous decrease in susceptible individuals, a peak followed by a rapid decline in latent and infected individuals, and a steady increase in immune individuals. To control CWUB transmission, it is crucial to enhance immunity against unsafe behaviors, reduce the rate of immunity conversion, and shorten the disease cycle caused by such behaviors. This research has practical implications for construction projects.


The invention concerns a method of enriching a mine or waste tip gas containing from 20 to 65 % methane by the following steps: a) the mine and/or waste tip gas is removed (2) and compressed to between 5 and 15 bar (3, 4); b) CO2 and/or water (6, 8) is removed from the compressed gas; c) the compressed mine and/or waste tip gas is pre-cooled (A) such that the methane is partially condensed; and d) this gas/liquid mixture is separated by cryogenic separation (49) into a product gas, containing at least 85 % methane, and a residual gas.


ABSTRACT This article was presented at the 2018 American Academy of Religion conference at a panel honouring the work of Christopher Southgate. The first half is a response to the theology of glory in Southgate's Theology in a Suffering World (CUP 2018). The second half expands on Southgate's work on practical theodicy. I argue for a redirection of the work of theodicy toward a compassionate approach, outlined by three principles that are centred around helping those who suffer create their own theodicies. The job of the practical and compassionate theodicist, then, is not to provide answers for why suffering occurs, but rather to offer resources to help others frame their own experience.


An investigation was made on 250 layers aged 55 weeks to assess the effect of herbal products on feed consumption, egg production and profitability. The experimental layers were randomly divided in five groups with 50birds in each and were housed in identical management and environmental conditions. Dietary treatments were prepared by addition of Standard layer ration (T1) (CTRL), AV/VSP/15 (M/s Ayurvet Ltd.) 200g/ton (T2), brand-A, 200 g/ton of feed (T3), brand-B, 200 g/ton of feed(T4), brandC, 200 g/ton of feed(T5)in the basal diet. Feed intake, egg production and mortality were recorded throughout the observation period of 55 to 65 weeks. Feed per unit of egg production, hen day percentage, were calculated. The results obtained showed that the performance of T2 was better when compared to other groups in aspects of feed efficiency per dozen eggs produced, feed consumption, feed conversion ratio, keeping quality of egg and egg quality traits.


The relevance of the research problem is justified by the fact that contemporary political experts consider the political process of democratic ruling elite forming as in Russia so in other countries only in general aspects and there is no unified understanding of this process. The aim of this article is to summarize the scientific knowledge on the problem under consideration and to propose criteria for political elite selection in democratic States. A leading approach to this problem study is a positional approach. From the point of view of the positional approach the political elite is defined as the range of persons who has attained powerful positions and who has the right of direct participation in the process of government decision-making through open competition for votes and political elections' win in representative bodies of power. The article can be useful for political scientists and sociologists studying the problems of political elites' formation and functioning.


Mathematical models and calculation's algorithms of the stress-strain state of a cylindri- cal shell in a zone of its distortion are developed. In places of fixing, presence of connections and joints, actions of local loadings arise additional in relation to the classical theory quickly damped stresses. The boundary value problem is solved and calculations of stresses near rig- idly mounted shell edge at axisymmetrical loading are carried out.


In this paper a description of the status of knowledge and practice related to career development in Uganda is given. A candid critique of the status quo of the industry, touching on the gaps, strengths and opportunities in/ for the industry, is offered and the possibilities for transformation and change that promote the optimal career development are suggested. In particular, the paper calls for capital investments in human and financial resources in career guidance activities that will realize integral human resource development and successful global market competition and lifelong career planning and adaptability to changing workforce demands.


The Device-to-Device (D2D) communication underlaying cellular networks has advantages of improving the spectral utilization, data rate, and energy efficiency. This paper studies a position-based mode selection and resource allocation scheme for D2D communications underlaying cellular networks. With position information available, first an offline channel state information (CSI) retrieval model is introduced. Divide a cell into multiple geographical grids with equal size. Within each grid, each mobile station feedbacks the received strength of signals from eNBs or D2D transmitters in other girds to the connected eNB with location information. The eNB will average the collected signal strengths and further retrieve CSI which will be used to estimate SINR in that grid. Based on this model, an optimization problem is formulated to maximize the sum rate of all users. We propose to employ the differential evolution algorithm to solve this problem to find the optimum mode and resource allocation. Simulations are conducted to verify the advantages of the proposed scheme.


The resonances of the non-exchangeable base protons and 1' protons of the octamer d(G-G-C*-C*-G-G-C-C), C* = m5dC, have been assigned by means of NOE difference NMR spectroscopy at 500 MHz. From the measured J1'2' and J1'2" it follows that the octamer at low temperature prefers to adopt a B-DNA double-helical conformation in solution, however, some residual conformational freedom is detected at the 3' terminus. From the chemical shift versus temperature profiles it is concluded that no major conformational change occurs below 60-65 degrees C where the duplex formation for residues (2) to (6) is essentially completed under the conditions used.


The paper presents the main elements in the formation of culture of health of personality of cadets, the basic concepts of the term «culture of health»


This article addresses the shift inthe paradigm of fundamental rights protection on the Internet. More and morethe enforcement of such rights is being delegated to private Internet operators, and the urgent question is how the task of balancing conflicting rights affects the status of Internet Service Providers (ISPs). The article examines the increasing privatisation of fundamental rights enforcementon the Internet, highlighting the impact of this trend. Following the analysisof recent developments, it argues that the pillars governing ISP liability should not be altered. In particular, the early determination that ISPs should not be presumptively saddled with content monitoring tasks should not be called into question. Therefore, the regulatory pressure on ISPs shouldbe lowered, as the spectre of liability, combined with ISPs' increasing role indeciding the proper balance between conflicting rights, unduly burdens the activity of ISPs and generates incentives to delete even lawful content


At the heart of a great business is a product or service, and every business wants to be its customer's first choice. Building and managing a brand can play a large part in making this happen. Exhibitions and trade shows give businesses the opportunity to bring their brand to life in real time through a good exhibition stand design. According to the 'Changing Environment' study by the Center for Exhibition Industry Research, 99% of marketers said they find unique value in exhibitions that they do not get from other marketing mediums.


When Species Meet (2008) is a book about the interconnected, worldly relations, behaviours, and histories of dogs, humans, and other companion species that inhabit everyday life. The oeuvre of Donna J. Haraway constitutes the cutting edge of more than two decades of feminist theorizing, cultural studies, and science and technology studies (STS). As it comprises a generous scholarly companion to critical analysis, multisited ethnography, and materialist feminism—one that always has an uncanny knack of getting under your skin—you can imagine my excitement and level of expectations before this book. I sank my teeth into it in a way that resembles the excited behaviour I saw in my late dog, Blackie Lawless who died in 2003. We were companions for almost ten years, and perhaps her story can function as an introduction to the worldliness of Harawayan dog culture. She was a shiny, black-coated, back-yard cross-breed between a German Shepherd and the Nordic Lapphund. The latter kind is in effect a series of breeds of the Sami people, appropriated, like their land, by Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, and Russian interests, and the former, a breed that reminds of the terrible force of the nation-state politics of Germany, GDR, and Czechoslovakia as well as of popular culture's romance with Rin Tin Tin and Inspector Rex. Emerging from the reading of When Species Meet, my account here is an understanding of how dogs literally deconstruct idealistic notions of thinking species apart. Further, we learn that dogs, in the flesh, comprise worlds of geopolitics, nationalism, racism, sexism, and breeding practices that hinge in a surprisingly mundane way on science and technology in advanced capitalism (a state of affairs that Haraway explores and refers to as ''technoscience''). As co-constituted with humans, dogs are figures of abundant relationality. Blackie joining my single woman household as a replacement dog at nine months of age, we grew (up) together. She raised me as much as I raised her. Actually, since I had a lot more experience and knowledge of horses, I trained her at first like a small dressage horse with some comical outcomes. Soon enough I realized that I had to adjust to the behaviours of a canine that, in evolutionary terms, only yesterday split from the wolf pack to join the human camp for better or worse. A curious example of what can emerge when companion species meet; she lived also as a cyborg. However, perhaps she was not so much a cyborg in any kind of Harawayan sense NORA—Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, Vol. 16, No. 4, 264–269, December 2008


This article analyzes the process of progressive elaboration of the UE gender equality policy since the 1970s, and the agenda-setting process of gender mainstreaming at the EU level from the end of the 1980s to the beginning of the 2000s. The emergence and subsequent institutionalization of this policy instrument resulted in incremental changes in the notion, conceptualization and public treatment of the problem of gender inequalities. Our analysis of this process reveals the profound transformation that EU gender-equality policy underwent during that period, but also the dramatic shift in the distribution of power between feminists and non-feminists in the gender-equality struggle.


From Arisaema amurense, four new cerebrosides were isolated along with a known cerebroside. The new cerebrosides were characterized as 1-O-β-d-glucopyranosyl-(2S,3R,4E,8Z)-2-[(2(R)-hydroxyicosanoyl)amido]-4,8-octadecadiene-1,3-diol (1), 1-O-β-d-glucopyranosyl-(2S,3R,4E,8Z)-2-[(2-hydroxyoctadecanoyl)amido]-4,8-octadecadiene-1,3-diol (2), 1-O-β-d-glucopyranosyl-(2S,3R,4E,8E)-2-[(2-hydroxyicosanoyl)amido]-4,8-octadecadiene-1,3-diol (4), and 1-O-β-d-glucopyranosyl-(2S,3R,4E,8E)-2-[(2-hydroxyoctadecanoyl)amido]-4,8-octadecadiene-1,3-diol (5), respectively. These cerebrosides displayed significant antihepatotoxic activity.


This paper yields with the Maximum likelihood estimation using the EM algorithm. This algorithm is very used to solve nonlinear equations with missing data. We estimated the linear mixed model parameters and those of the variance-covariance matrix. The considered structure of this matrix is not necessarily linear.

Keywords: Algorithm EM; Maximum likelihood; Mixed linear model.


An electric motor armature current control circuit includes an electric motor with an armature in series with a protective device comprising a pair of polymer PTC elements connected in electrical series with the motor armature windings and in electrical parallel and thermal contact with each other. The first polymer PTC element, a temperature compensating element, has a very low cold resistance and a trip temperature higher than the maximum expected ambient temperature to which it is to be exposed in motor operation and generates heat in motor operation to trip to a much higher resistance and become self-regulating at that trip temperature. The second polymer PTC element is maintained at least at the trip temperature of the first through thermal contact and has a lower resistance at that temperature than the cold resistance of the first. Its trip temperature is higher so as to be reached only with excessive armature current. Due to the temperature compensation element, the protective device limits excessive armature winding current after a period of time independent of ambient temperature.


Quantum mechanics continues to intrigue us with bizarre predictions that seemingly run counter to our everyday classical intuition. Superposition, zero-point motion, entanglement, and inescapable bounds on measurement precision are just a few purely quantum mechanical effects that come to mind. The promise of observing such effects in mesoscale mechanical resonators some orders of magnitude larger than the systems these effects had once been confined to, has resulted in surging interest in the field of cavity electro- and optomechanics. In these systems, the strong interaction of light and matter allows radiation pressure forces to provide significant damping to the mechanical motion, and serves as a means to mitigate the quantum-destroying, decohering effects of the pervasive thermal bath. However, for this backaction cooling to reduce the phonon occupation of a mechanical mode below unity, the confluence of the device and experimental setup must conform to a very strict set of conditions characterized by high optical and mechanical cavity quality factors, low optical absorption, low drive noise, and sufficiently sensitive detection. In this work, we describe the first optomechanical device and all-optical experimental setup to simultaneously satisfy these conditions, realizing the quantum ground state cooling of a 3.7 GHz mechanical mode (with a final phonon occupation of 0.85 +/- 0.08) in a picogram and micron-scale patterned nanobeam structure from a bath temperature of approximately 20 K. In context, subunity occupation of a mechanical mode in a similar-sized object had previously only been achieved by electromechanical devices operating in millikelvin dilution refrigerator environments. We also discuss the numerical simulation efforts involved in designing and optimizing these novel, coupled optical and mechanical resonators, and the fabrication procedure to realize them in silicon microchips. We recognize that this cooling result represents only an initial step toward the complete optical control of mesoscale mechanical oscillators in the quantum regime. To this end, we summarize an experiment we performed to detect the quantum zero-point motion of a nanobeam via scattering sideband asymmetry. We further show work in improving the optomechanical coupling and quality factors of these devices, as well as devising more efficient coupling schemes to improve measurement sensitivity.


The ability of millimeter waves (1-10 mm, or 30-300 GHz) to penetrate through dense materials, such as leather, wool, wood and gyprock, and to also transmit over long distances due to low atmospheric absorption, makes them ideal for numerous applications, such as body scanning, building inspection and seeing in degraded visual environments. Current drawbacks of millimeter wave imaging systems are they use single detector or linear arrays that require scanning or the two dimensional arrays are bulky, often consisting of rather large antenna-couple focal plane arrays (FPAs). Previous work from INO has demonstrated the capability of its compact lightweight camera, based on a 384 x 288 microbolometer pixel FPA with custom optics for active video-rate imaging at wavelengths of 118 μm (2.54 THz), 432 μm (0.69 THz), 663 μm (0.45 THz), and 750 μm (0.4 THz). Most of the work focused on transmission imaging, as a first step, but some preliminary demonstrations of reflection imaging at these were also reported. In addition, previous work also showed that the broadband FPA remains sensitive to wavelengths at least up to 3.2 mm (94 GHz). The work presented here demonstrates the ability of the INO terahertz camera for reflection imaging at millimeter wavelengths. Snapshots taken at video rates of objects show the excellent quality of the images. In addition, a description of the imaging system that includes the terahertz camera and different millimeter sources is provided.


Background: Locally advanced breast cancer (LABC) includes stage III along with stage IV breast cancer and consists of operable and inoperable advanced breast cancer and metastatic disease. LABC is among the most common breast malignancies with increasing incidence now a days. In India, it accounts for 30-35% of all cases.  The use of neo-adjuvant chemotherapy (NACT) for the treatment of LABC offers benefits like initiation of early systemic treatment, the drugs can be delivered via intact vasculature, the tumours can be down staged which helps to convert inoperable tumours into operable tumours and renders tumours suitable for breast conserving surgery (BCS). This study is aimed to compare the outcomes of neoadjuvant and adjuvant chemotherapy using taxane based drugs for locally advanced breast cancers.
Methodology: This was an observational study will be undertaken in AVBRH.  Total 40 patients will be enrolled in the study. Confirmed patients of breast malignancy either by FNAC or true cut histopathology with advanced breast malignancy confirmed on FNAC or true cut histopathology and planned for neo-adjuvant chemotherapy will be included in the study. For all the patients HER2, PR and ER status will be checked via immunohistopathology. Data will be analysed with appropriate statistical tests.
Results: We expect neoadjuvant chemotherapy to have better surgical outcomes compared to neoadjuvant chemotherapy.
Conclusion: Neoadjuvant paclitaxel based chemotherapy can be a better option for patients undergoing BCS (breast conserving surgery).


Today we demand highly experienced surgeons who are capable of performing any surgical procedure. Unfortunately many patients deny medical students and physicians to perform surgery even under experienced supervision, since they are afraid of mistakes. This paper gives an overview of four different medical training simulators which can replace the initial training sessions in an operation room. These simulators are using complex computer algorithms for simulating the human anatomy and deliver the correct physical force through a force feedback interface. Our work aims at replacing the hand written software with models in a modern, strongly typed, declarative and object-oriented language for modeling and simulation of complex systems, and methods for combining such models to develop complex medical simulation software.


Results of measurement of proton polarization in the regions of the second and third maxima of the total cross section of the p..gamma -->..p..pi.. /sup 0/ reaction are given. The measurements were carried out by means of a carbon polarimeter including wire spark chambers and a magnetic spectrometer. A resonance-like behavior of the polarization is manifested in the energy dependence. The results of the measurement are compared with phenomenological calculations.


To better understand the biological feature of transmission of H9 virus infection in chickens, the pathogenicity,replication and route of transmission of the two H9N2 viruses were compared.SS representing the earlier strain isolated in chickens in Guangdong province in 1994,whereas F was isolated in Shanghai during 1998 pandemic.Transmission experiments were designed.The results of virus isolation showed that only F could be transmitted from inoculated to uninoculated chickens by aerosol.The HA and NA fragments of SS were amplified by using universal primers of influenza A.Phylogenetic analysis of HA and NA genes of SS were compared with those of F and other H9 viruses.We found that the HA1-HA2 cleavage site of HA gene of SS was PARSSR↓GL.The homologies of HA and NA genes of SS and F were high,and both NA genes lost 9 nucleotides between nt 205 and 206 as compared with that of CK/BJ/1/94.The hemadsorbtion(HB) sites of NA gene of SS and F virus were IKEDLRSG and IKKDSRSG respectively.Further studies are needed to ascertain the biological significance of HA and NA genes in the transmission ability of H9 viruses by aerosol.


According to the mechanism of the main reducer abnormal sound signal is different from the interfering noise, a detection method based on the digital signal processing technology was proposed. With the qualified main reducer noise signal as the reduction sample, the detected main reducer noise signal is de-noising by means of spectrum analysis, and then be estimated whether the detected main reducer is qualified based on certain threshold values. Finally, the detection method is validated, which provided a new thought on the final drive abnormal sound on-line detection.


Transporters are expressed on plasma membranes as well as on intracellular organelle membranes. Transporting solutes across biological membrane is one of the most critical processes for living cells and is essential for all organisms. Correct transporter functioning is essential for maintaining cells and body homeostasis. The discovery of disease-related transporter genes can open new biological pathways and suggest new targets for intervention. Studying the effect of membrane transporters on human diseases is important for understanding drug-related organ toxicity.


The conversion into euro of prices expressed in their current national denominations has raised fears as to its effect on inflation in most Member States participating in the Monetary Union. In order to assess the extent to which these fears are warranted in the Portuguese case, the National Statistics Office (INE) and the Banco de Portugal have defined a set of simulations, making it possible to envisage three scenarios under which the impact of the conversion on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) can be analysed. The simulations were conducted by the INE, taking as a basis the price sample from which the national CPI for January 2001 was computed. This monthly sample was chosen so as to ensure that simulations were affected by the same seasonal effects which will likely occur in January 2002, the month in which the new euro banknotes and coins will start being used. This paper's aim was not estimate the probable change in the CPI in January 2002, or even to fully assess all the potential effects of conversion, all the more as it would be virtually impossible to thoroughly isolate, from among general price changes, those exclusively attributable to the conversion of banknotes and coins from escudos into euro. It is even possible that conversion may sometimes be used as a pretext for a price change, which would inevitably occur whether or not there was a conversion. These price revisions essentially depend on the changes that companies face as regards production and market conditions. However, in addition to these key factors, price revisions can also be influenced by the so-called "menu costs". These costs basically correspond to expenditure related to the replacement of labels, of catalogues and, more generally, of the information on the prices charged. The existence of this type of costs tends to limit the frequency of price revisions. Considering that these changes are inevitable, the conversion of prices from escudos into euro, may lead to earlier price revisions. However, the fact that the dual display of prices has already started and that the conversion will last until the end of February 2002, is likely to smooth this type of effect. Actually, it should be noted that other types of factors are likely to have an opposite effect, in particular the potential beneficial effects on production costs and market operation brought about by the use of the same monetary unit in twelve European Union countries. These factors will tend to last over a far longer period than the first two months of 2002. In addition, the conversion may give rise, at least during these two transition months, to a higher sensitivity of consumers to differences among prices charged for the same goods in different retailers. The possibility of a strong negative


Some years ago D. I. Muller [1] developed a method for the solution of algebraic equations, approximating them by quadratic equations. The method proved extremely efficient in many tests. However, the theoretical discussion given by Muller can hardly be considered as adequate, in my opinion, as his convergence proof culminates in a vicious circle (cf. the formulae (15)?(17) of his paper). In this article I give a detailed and rigorous theoretical discussion of the method from the point of view of local convergence. Some parts of the argument run closely parallel to the proofs given in my book [2] in the discussion of w-point inverse interpolation. This book will be cited hereafter as S. This article begins with a special chapter about Newton's divided dif? ferences, which had to be added as the usual discussion of these differences could not be directly used in the present connection. I discuss in this article generally approximation by polynomials of order n ? 1 (n ^ 3) as does Muller in his paper. My attention was drawn to this method by Dr. V. Pereyra of the Nu? merical Analysis Institute of the University of Buenos Aires. I am grateful to him for discussions concerning Chapter II of this article.


The modus operandi of central banks in terms of implementing monetary policy has changed materially over the last six years since the start of the global financial crisis. Prior to the crisis, many central banks implemented monetary policy by specifying a target for the rate on unsecured loans of overnight funds between banks. The target rate in turn influenced other interest rates and hence financing conditions in the wider economy. The stance of monetary policy was loosened (tightened) by lowering (increasing) the target for the overnight rate. Central banks guided the overnight rate through a combination of open market operations and standing facilities where banks could either deposit or borrow funds (against collateral). However, in response to the financial crisis and the ensuing economic downturn, central banks adapted monetary policy in unconventional ways. 1 Central banks provided liquidity backstops to many parts of the financial system and cut policy rates aggressively to their effective lower bounds. Some central banks now even provide explicit guidance on how long policy rates will stay low. Moreover, several major central banks embarked on large-scale asset purchase programs or very long-term refinancing operations with a view to reducing either term premia or liquidity risk. Both types of measures significantly expanded central bank balance sheets. 2 Furthermore, many central banks loosened the collateral requirements in their funding operations while others began subsidising the funding costs of financial firms with a view to boosting credit availability to the real economy. Yet, the current state of affairs is temporary and central banks will – sooner or later – exit from their current extraordinarily accommodative polices. 3 But where will they exit to in terms of monetary policy implementation (Cœure 2013b)? The unsecured money market showed an unexpected degree of fragility during the financial crisis. Lending at longer tenors all but disappeared and the reference rate setting process was shown to be faulty. The large amount of reserves pumped into the banking system by unconventional policies has further affected stressed market dynamics. To the extent that resilience has not


The review of the main transport projects in the Arctic zone Russian Federation, and also development in the field of infrastructure objects imitating modeling of transport and warehouse economy, and also prospects justification of their application for such large-scale transport project as a transport complex development of the Arctic zone Russian Federation is presented in article.


The object of this study is the technical preparation of manufacturing (TPM) of aviation technology (AT) using reengineering technology. The task to reduce the terms of TPM AT was tackled while solving direct and inverse problems of shape formation involving reengineering. The study is based on the equation for calculating the labor intensity of creating an assembly unit (AU) as a mathematical model for the formation and accumulation of components of the total labor intensity at all stages. The following results are reported: a scheme has been proposed for linking homogeneous components of an article obtained using the loft-template method (LTM) with digital mock-up (DMU) when applying the reengineering method. The scheme summarizes and structures the reengineering technology to solve direct and inverse shape-formation problems and could be used to solve the tasks of prototyping, manufacturing, and refurbishment of tooling, as well as article control at all stages of production. An example of the helicopter stabilizer shows that when solving the direct shape-formation problem, the labor intensity is from 294.94 to 315.06 man-hours, and when solving the inverse problem ‒ from 194.78 to 213.22 man-hours. A comparative analysis of the labor intensity of TPM revealed a difference of 1.5 times in favor of the labor intensity of solving the inverse problem. Comparing the labor intensity of creating DMU for the stabilizer of a helicopter has made it possible to establish that the labor intensity of solving the inverse problem is 3.7 times less than the labor intensity of solving a direct problem. Recommendations for reducing the terms of TPM AT with the use of reengineering are given. The results could be used to assess the labor intensity and timing of TPM AT and mechanical engineering objects in general when using reengineering technology


Statistical translation models and latent semantic analysis (LSA) are two effective approaches to exploiting click-through data for Web search ranking. While the former learns semantic relationships between query terms and document terms directly, the latter maps a document and the queries for which it has been clicked to vectors in a lower dimensional semantic space. This paper presents two document ranking models that combine the strengths of both the approaches by explicitly modeling word-pairs. The first model, called PairModel, is a monolingual ranking model based on word-pairs derived from click-through data. It maps queries and documents into a concept space spanned by these word-pairs. The second model, called Bilingual Paired Topic Model (BPTM), uses bilingual word translations and can jointly model query-document collections written in multiple languages. This model uses topics to capture term dependencies and maps queries and documents in multiple languages into a lower dimensional semantic sub-space spanned by the topics. These models are evaluated on the Web search task using real world data sets in three different languages. Results show that they consistently outperform various state-of-the-art baseline models, and the best result is obtained by interpolating PairModel and BPTM.


Objective To learn the pain status in the patients of emergent hand injury and analyze the relative factors which influenced the pain. Methods A total of 210 patients of emergent hand injury were investigated with short McGill pain questionnaire and anxious status scale. Results The VAS at the injury happened and at the visit in 210 emergent hand injury patients were (4.87±2.42 ) and (4.70±2.31 ). During the visit, the PRI was ( 3.34±2.35 ), feeling PRI was ( 3.17±2.26 ), emotional PRI was (0. 17±0.67 ),PPI was (2.80±0.26) ,The variance analysis found the VAS of patients had different degree injury in the past had different VAS of this visit ( F=2. 29, P < 0. 05 ). Relative analysis found the severity of this hand injury ( r = 0. 262, P < 0. 01 ) and the S-AI of this visit ( r = 0.390, P < 0.01 ) had positive correlation with the VAS of this visit. The education ( r = - 0. 172, P < 0. 05 ) had negative correlation with the VAS. Conclusions The pain in the patients of emergent hand injury was medium, releasing the anxiety of the patients at the visit could reduce the pain at that time.

Key words:
Hand injury;  Pain;  Relative factors


In this work, we present a learning method for both lateral and longitudinal motion control of an ego-vehicle for the task of vehicle pursuit. The car being controlled does not have a pre-defined route, rather it reactively adapts to follow a target vehicle while maintaining a safety distance. To train our model, we do not rely on steering labels recorded from an expert driver, but effectively leverage a classical controller as an offline label generation tool. In addition, we account for the errors in the predicted control values, which can lead to a loss of tracking and catastrophic crashes of the controlled vehicle. To this end, we propose an effective data augmentation approach, which allows to train a network that is capable of handling different views of the target vehicle. During the pursuit, the target vehicle is firstly localized using a Convolutional Neural Network. The network takes a single RGB image along with cars' velocities and estimates target vehicle's pose with respect to the ego-vehicle. This information is then fed to a Multi-Layer Perceptron, which regresses the control commands for the ego-vehicle, namely throttle and steering angle. We extensively validate our approach using the CARLA simulator on a wide range of terrains. Our method demonstrates real-time performance, robustness to different scenarios including unseen trajectories and high route completion.


A national scheme to allow the public to have access to information about convicted sex offenders living locally has recently been introduced. This roll‐out follows an evaluation of pilot schemes that operated in four areas. The campaign for the introduction of such a scheme in the UK has had wide media backing but children's charities had previously been reluctant to offer support. This article explores how the views of the children's charities, and other stakeholders, became more positive due to their experience of the pilot schemes. It identifies the characteristics that need to be present to attract such support.


In this paper, long-period ground motion is used as the dynamic input to study the performance evolution of curved tunnel lining structure under seismic wave propagation excitation. This paper presents numerical studies on seismic waves, considering propagation effect, and aims to illustrate the response principle and structural failure mechanism of tunnel structures under long-period ground motion. Firstly, based on the dynamic analysis method, the dynamic balance equation of a tunnel under the seismic wave effect was analyzed. Secondly, this equation was applied to the 3D finite element software, the corresponding numerical model and boundary conditions were established, and the parameterized numerical analysis of the tunnel was carried out. Finally, according to the numerical simulation results, the seismic response principle and structural failure mechanism of a tunnel structure under long-period ground motion were discussed. The research results show that the depth and segment thickness of the tunnel significantly affect the seismic performance of the tunnel. The seismic response mechanism of a curved tunnel is complex, which shows that the relative displacements on the left and right symmetrical positions are different. The displacement inside the curve is less than the displacement outside the curve. Compared with other types of ground motion, the near-site motion considering the seismic wave propagation effect can lead to large deformation of the tunnel, which damages the lining structure greatly, and the enhancement effect is prominent for the long shield tunnel.


Objective: To observe the effects and toxicity of Nedaplatin combined with Pacitaxel of second line chemotherapy in the treatment of advanced esophageal carcinoma.Methods: 26 patients of advanced esophageal carcinoma were treated with Nedaplatin and Pacitaxel combination regimen.Nedaplatin was given at a dose of 80 mg/m2 by intravenous infusion in 1st day,pacitaxol was given at a dose of 75 mg/m2 by intravenous infusion in 1st,8th day,with a course of 21 days for 2 courses at least.Results: The overall response rate was 42.3%,the median time to progression was 4.3 months.The main toxicity was hematological toxicity,grade Ⅲ/Ⅳ leukopenia and thrombocytopenia was 26.9%,19.2% respectively.The other toxicities were mild.Conclusion: Nedaplatin and Pacitaxel combination regimen has good anti-tumor action and good toleration in patients of advanced esophageal carcinoma.The sample size would have to be increased to test and verify if Nedaplatin and Pacitaxel combination regimen chemotherapy may prolong the survival of the patients in stage of advanced esophageal carcinoma.


Beauty is an eternal attraction and art can be considered as the bridge between beauty and humans. Garden building art is one of the oldest Iranian art and it has been also mentioned in writings of the Greeks, Torah, etc. In the context of Iranian art and culture, garden is a mirror that indicates the people's creative imagination and capability .  Ideal garden, a piece of earth which is positioned an example of heaven under our feet with all its farness. This article investigates the effects of aesthetics in the Persian Gardens and compares it with Gardens of three Western countries including Britain, France and Italy. The research methodology of this study is descriptive - analytical. The results show that while aesthetic manifestations in Persian Gardens are overlapping with each other, influences from the monotheistic worldview and Iranian traditional culture have created unique and specific works throughout the history.


Habitat associations were determined for five species of songbirds breeding in sagebrush habitat of the South Okanagan and Similkameen valleys, British Columbia. We examined the relative importance of plant species versus "total forbs" and "total grasses" at a local level (<100 m) with point counts and vegetation survey data collected at 245 points. Logistic regression models showed that individual plant species were often more important than variables that grouped species. Habitat associations varied for each species. Brewer's Sparrow (Spizella breweri) was associated with parsnipflowered buckwheat (Eriogonum heracleoides) and lupine (Lupinus sericeus or sulphureus). Lark Sparrow (Chondestes grammacus) was positively associated with sand dropseed grass (Sporobolus cryptandrus), Grasshopper Sparrow (Ammodrammus savannarum) was positively associated with pasture sage (Artemisia frigida) and cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum), Vesper Sparrow (Pooecetes gramineus) was positively associated with lupine, and Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta) was positively associated with needle-andthread grass (Stipa comata). These herb-layer species have strong associations with rangeland management practices; therefore this information can be used to direct management efforts in this highly threatened area.


Downbeat nystagmus occurs as a result of an impaired vestibulo-ocular reflex1. From animal experiments, the Purkinje cells of the flocculonodular and parafloccular lobes of the cerebellum (also known as the "vestibular cerebellum") are known to negatively regulate the upward rotation of the eyes via feed-forward inhibitory neural circuitry to the vertical vestibulo-ocular reflex [Supplemental figure 1,links.lww.com/CPJ/A199) 2. Although various eye movement abnormalities have been described in congenital and acquired cerebellar disorders, there have been few reports of pure downbeat nystagmus in cerebellitis. Here we report a quite impressive pure downbeat nystagmus in an adolescent female with acute cerebellitis. The electro-oculography of the patient provided compelling evidence that the downbeat nystagmus is indeed the result of feed-forward inhibition to the vestibulo-ocular reflex. Our case may add new insights into the current literature on cerebellar control of eye movement.


A plan by the General Medical Council to improve revalidation could make the process less burdensome for doctors, the BMA has said.

On 20 July the GMC published a plan1 to implement the recommendations made by Keith Pearson's report, Taking Revalidation Forward , which was published earlier this year.2 In that report Pearson, chair of Health Education England and the GMC's revalidation advisory board, said that more should be done to make clear what are …