CORTISONE is being used in a wide variety of clinical conditions. This drug has profound physiologic effects, and occasional undesirable reactions are to be expected. Several observers have noted convulsive seizures in patients receiving the adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) of the pituitary body, which is closely related in its effects to Cortisone, but to our knowledge no such case is recorded in the literature. Some of these patients suffered from diseases that are known to cause seizures occasionally. In others the seizures have been ascribed to contamination of the preparation with hormone from the posterior pituitary body or to cerebral edema . . .


In the absence of a universally agreed-upon defi nition of successful aging, researchers increasingly look to older adults for layperson views of aging and defi nitions of successful aging. To use lay defi nitions in studies of aging, however, researchers must address the defi nitions' consistency. In 2004, surviving members of the Manitoba Follow-up Study male cohort (mean age: 83 years) were asked twice for their defi nition of successful aging. A consistency category was assigned based on the similarity of themes in each of 654 pairs of defi nitions. At least half of the main themes were similar in 70 per cent of the defi nition pairs; 80 per cent of respondents repeated at least one theme. Positive or negative health events in the four-week interval between defi nitions and specifi c respondents' characteristics did not vary across consistency categories. This evidence for consistency supports our continued reliance on lay defi nitions of successful aging. * The authors sincerely acknowledge the 60-year ongoing contribution of the 3,983 members of the Manitoba Follow-up Study cohort. We gratefully acknowledge the invaluable assistance of the research staff Madge Biddell and Barbara Masterman, and clinical staff Drs. T. Edward Cuddy and Leon Michaels. The Manitoba Follow-up Study is funded by the Manitoba Health Research Council and by an operating grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR MOP-67019). Manuscript received: / manuscrit reçu : 06 / 06 / 09 Manuscript accepted: / manuscrit accepté : 21 / 07 / 09 Mots clés : coherence , vues profanes , vieillards , vieillissement réussi


thischannel, local destruction of the cell wall isnecessary. Hydrolases, excreted by the yeastcell, areresponsible forthis local destruction (2,10, 12, 22). Theyare thoughtto be transportedto the cell periphery bythe so-called glucanasevesicles (7, 8, 24).Concomitant with local destruction, a newcell wall is built up. The material from whichthis wall is manufactured is inserted


Postmenopausal bone loss is clearly associated with a deficiency of sex steroids (1), and estrogen replacement therapy prevents it (2). Progesterone (Prog) deficiency could also be a factor, and Prog replacement therapy has indeed been shown to prevent postmenopausal bone loss and bone loss associated with ovarian dysfunction (3). In the osteoprogenitor assay system that we developed, morphologically recognizable osteoblasts and bone nodules appear in long-term rat calvaria or adult rat vertebral cell cultures at predictable and reproducible periods after plating (4-7). The uniqueness of this system is that it allows one to identify osteoprogenitors on the basis of a clearly identifiable end point, i.e. bone formation, and thus is able to identify populations of progenitors that could be heterogeneous for several other characteristics (for example, surface antigens, receptors). In our studies of these osteoprogenitors, we have discovered that, in addition to the previously found dexamethasone (Dex)-dependent and Dexindependent classes of progenitors found in calvaria of fetal rats (4), a new class of Prog-responsive progenitors was present in female-derived but not in male-derived adult cell populations (5,6). The main aim of the present study was to investigate the changes with aging of the characteristics and the sex steroid regulation of proliferation and differentiation of these osteoprogenitors and whether Progand Dexresponsive osteoprogenitors are two different and distinct progenitor populations.


The present invention relates to peptides derived from human Basic Proline-rich Lacrimal Protein (BPLP), notably opiorphin, for use as psychostimulants. These peptides are useful in the treatment or prevention of diseases such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), narcolepsy, hypersomnia, vigilance drop, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), attention deficit and/or hyperactivity in adults and in children, depression, bipolar disease, dysthymic disorder and cyclothymic disorder.


This study analyzed the research on using a psychoeducation support group for alleviating the burden of schizophrenic individuals. The research from an electronic database was searched, yielding 8 selected research items conforming to search criteria. The following major recommendations were obtained. 1. Components of a psychoeducation support group, i.e. 1.1 ) Group characteristics and size should contain small, medium, and large group sizes of 4-12, 8-12, and 20-40 members, respectively, depending on the purpose of the group; 1.2) A group leader could be from any related field but should have the skills and experience of a therapeutic group leader; 1.3) The group members should be primary caregivers,i.e., parents, spouses; 1.4) Duration of group session should range from 1-2 hours; 1.5) Frequency of group session can be 2 times per day ,once a week, twice a week , once a month, or one time per two months; 1.6)Numbers of group session should range from 3-8 times . 2. The group activities and contents included 2.1)knowledge of schizophrenia: causes, symptoms, and treatment; 2.2) interpersonal relationships and motivation; 2.3) problem coping skills and stress management; 2.4)social skills; 2.5)effective communication between caregivers and patients; 2.6) eliminating negative thoughts and adjustment of attitude 3.the curative factors of psychoeducation support group were imparting information, catharsis, universality, group cohesiveness, instillation of hope, interpersonal learning , altruism, and existential factors. 4. Instruments used: the Caregivers Burden Assessment Form, the Knowledge Test Form, the Ability Assessment Form, the Emotional Expression Assessment Form, and the Satisfaction Survey.5. The findings of s psychoeducation support group were that the burden of schizophrenia caregivers was decreased, they possessed more knowledge and competency in handing schizophrenia, and improved their coping skills. According to these findings, schizophrenia patients were calmer, improved their interpersonal relationships, performed better in their ADL, and had a decreased frequency of exacerbation and relapse. The results gained from the evidence can be applied to arrange effective psychoeducation support groups to reduce the burden of caregivers of schizophrenia patients. Key words: psychoeducation support group, burden, schizophrenia, caregiver


In recent years, E-commerce had made a tremendous impact on the world. However before the emergence of E-commerce, individuals can't skim the information about the products within short time of the period, so therefore recommendation system was introduced. The principle point of the recommendation system is to prescribe the most appropriate items to the user. Many of the recommendation systems mainly use content based method, collaborative filtering method, demographic based method and hybrid method. In this paper, the major challenges such as "data sparsity" and "cold start problem" are addressed. To overcome these challenges, we propose a new methodology by combining the clustering algorithm with Eclat Algorithm for better rules generation. Firstly we cluster the rating matrix based on the user similarity. Then we convert the clustered data into Boolean data and applying Eclat Algorithm on Boolean data efficient rules generation takes place. At last based on rules generation recommendation takes place. Our experiments shows that approach not only decrease the sparsity level but also increase the accuracy of a system.


Investigations of amplitude and phase characteristics of metamaterial cells in a rectangular waveguide were performed. Structures based on split ring resonators (SRR), as well as disk, spherical and cubic dielectric resonators (DRs) are considered. They have anomalous resonance characteristics that differ from the resonance characteristics of the "Lorentzian" type. The possibility of modeling metamaterial equivalent bridge circuits based on lumped elements was demonstrated. The coincidence of the calculated and measured characteristics indicates the adequacy of the proposed models. The use of two dielectric resonators excited in the regions of elliptical polarization of the waveguide by different components of the electromagnetic field makes it possible to independently adjust the characteristics of individual oscillations. The degree of excitation of the resonators is regulated by rotating them relative to the walls of the waveguide. When modeling the obtained characteristics with the help of resonant structures on lumped elements, the so-called bridge circuits, unique phase and amplitude, were widely used in telecommunication systems. With the help of these bridge circuits, it was possible to simulate not only the unique amplitude but also the phase characteristics of metamaterial cells, especially the so-called GD, which can take on rather large positive values, which is completely atypical for ladder equivalent circuits on lumped elements.


Chronic thoracic duct drainage in the experimental animal has been employed to deplete thymic dependent lymphocytes with resultant cellular immune deficiency.1-3 The human clinical correlate is the patient with chylothorax or even more analogous, chronic chyluria. The most common cause of chyluria worldwide is filariasis. Other causes include trauma, tuberculosis, neoplasms, infections, lymphactic aneurysm, and thoracic duct stenosis.4 We recently evaluated a child with this defect, giving us the opportunity of evaluating the effect of chronic T-cell depletion on immune reactivity.
 CASE REPORT
 J.K. is a 6-year-old Korean boy who was adopted at 2 years of age. Family history is unknown.


OBJECTIVE To evaluate the safety and efficiency of intravenous iron dextran in rHuEPO-treated hemodialysis patients.METHODS Forty-four HD patients were randomly dividied into 2 groups,21patients received intravenous iron dextran(IID) and 23 patients received oral iron(OI),8 weeks in total.Levels of serum ferritin(SF),transferrin saturation(TSAT),hemoglobin(Hb),hematocrit(Hct) were tested before and after the treatment.RESULTS At eight weeks,the levers of Hb,Hct,SF and TSAT were all increased in 2 groups,But IID group were significantly higher than OI group(P0.000).The level of serum albumin were also increase in 2 groups and serum creatine increase in IID group.One case in IID occurred with lower blood pressure and two patients occurred with tetter,Nine patients in OI showed adverse gastrointestinal effects.The rate of side effect in IID(3/21,14.2%) was significantly lower than in OI(9/23,39.1%),P0.001.CONCLUSION Intravenous iron dextran is better than oral iron in treatment of anemia in chronic hemodialysis,and the incident rate of adverse reaction is lower,So,it can be used for long period to HD patients which is iron deficiency.


Objective: To confirm the unifactorial structure of the Scale of Specific Perceived SelfEfficacy of Academic Situations (Eapesa, by its acronym in Spanish), its reliability and validity in relation to other variables in Ecuadorian university students. Methodology: Eapesa's convergence validity, reliability and factorial instrumental study. Participants: 466 university students from Ecuador, 35.2% men and 64.8% women, aged between 17 to 39 years (M= 21.27; SD= 2.9). Results: Eapesa's unifactorial model is confirmed with 7 items that presents an adequate adjustment: χ= 40.01; p< .05; gl= 14; χ/gl= 2.9; CFI= .966; TLI= .950; SRMR= .034; RMSEA= .063 IC95% [.050 .076] above the versions of 10 and 9 items. A high reliability of ω= .92 [.90 .94] and moderate convergence of r= .685; p< .01. Conclusions: The 7-item Eapesa is the version with the best psychometric performance for its applicability in university students in Ecuador.


Combining hot Brownian motion theory with forward-scattered light analysis, we show a method for determining temperatures of optically-trapped nanoparticles in nonisothermal solvents. Results for trapped silica microspheres in D2O show heating to 35.9 °C.


The latest fad in business journalism is to sound the alarm about the United States having become the biggest debtor in the world. This is intended to bring visions of our country sliding into a third world-type debt trap. But even those who don't draw such dire inferences nevertheless assume that a ballooning U.S. debt is in itself the prelude to economic disaster. That too is far from reality. In fact, both the size and the threatening nature of the debt burden are greatly exaggerated, largely the result of statistical mystification. Furthermore, to the extent that there is a debt problem, it is a symptom and not a cause of the real problems, including the potential of a financial breakdown, facing the United States and other capitalist nations.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.


The effect of column preconditioning temperature (Tcp) on the measured heats of adsorption of selected aliphatic and aromatic compounds for kaolinite and illite, two clay minerals commonly encountered in the oil sands industry, was studied using the technique of inverse gas chromatography (IGC). Tcp was varied from 100 to 340 °C. Our results showed that, as Tcp was increased from 100 to 170 °C, the heats of adsorption (affinities) of the selected aliphatic solutes for kaolinite increased slightly, but those for illite stayed nearly the same. At higher Tcp values (170–230 °C), solute adsorption exhibited essentially no dependence on Tcp for both kaolinite and illite. This observation is attributed to the decreasing hydrophilicity for kaolinite from 100 to 170 °C, but not for kaolinite from 170 to 230 °C or for illite from 100 to 230 °C. Higher Tcp values (230–340 °C) were used for the two aromatic solutes (benzene and toluene), and it was found that their heats of adsorption for illite were significantly r...


This paper proposed a method for modelling of power system fault diagnosis process. In this process, electrical power system fault diagnosis needs three kinds of information to identify fault components: protection-breaker associations, breaker-primary component (such as line, transformer, bus and so on) associations and protection-primary component associations. Firstly, the protection setting values were compared with short circuit calculation values to determine the protecting zone. I.e. determine protection-primary component associations. Then the component connecting topology trees were used for creating the Petri Nets model of possible fault components. Finally according to Petri Nets model the true fault primary devices were identified. At the same time, the false tripping or operating information were picked out. (4 pages)


Simulated fault injection (SFI) is widely used to assess the effectiveness of fault tolerance mechanisms in safety‐critical embedded systems (SCESs) because of its advantages such as controllability and observability. However, the long test time of SFI due to the large number of test cases and the complex simulation models of modern SCESs has been identified as a limiting factor. We present a method that can accelerate an SFI tool using a checkpoint forwarding (CF) technique. To evaluate the performance of CF‐based SFI (CF‐SFI), we have developed a CF mechanism using Verilog fault‐injection tools and two systems under test (SUT): a single‐core‐based co‐simulation model and a triple modular redundant co‐simulation model. Both systems use the Verilog simulation model of the OpenRISC 1200 processor and can execute the embedded benchmarks from MiBench. We investigate the effectiveness of the CF mechanism and evaluate the two SUTs by measuring the test time as well as the failure rates. Compared to the SFI with no CF mechanism, the proposed CF‐SFI approach reduces the test time of the two SUTs by 29%–45%.


This paper reviews properties of sugars and polyols that are used in the production of a variety of medicated confectionery products. These include lozenges, tablets, chewing gums, hard boiled candies and gums and jellies.


In Morocco, medical care for women with severe obstetric complications (near‐miss cases) ends at discharge from the hospital. Little information exists regarding what happens after returning home. The aim of the study was to assess the physical and mental health consequences of near‐miss events on Moroccan women 8 months after childbirth.


Boreal peatlands are substantial terrestrial carbon storages. They are also important for the function of several large-scale cycles and systems that humanity benefits from. Drainage affects peatla ...


Utilizing large general-purpose finite element analysis software the influences of the thickness of column flange and transverse stiffening rib on mechanical performances of joint panel zone of steel beam-column under directional monotonic loading are analyzed.In the end conclusion is made.


Absiraci—Esaki tunneling diodes are reemerging as a viable technology option in helping to improve speed and performance of many high speed device applications. The revival of this technology may be linked to the development of new substrates available to research that allows for the fabrication of a device comparable to current silicon technology. Using a 111-V on Silicon Substrate, it was demonstrated that it is possible to create working Esaki Tunneling Diodes.


As the proliferation of mobile malware advertising, there are no existing industry rules and legal restrictions on them, users need to identify and undertake adware risk by themselves. In response to this situation, it puts forward mobile advertising security risk assessment model based on AHP. This model refers to industry standards, mobile Internet malicious code description specifications and the large number of mobile advertising sample results, dividing risk into privacy disclosure, flow-consuming and hooliganism three risk factors and assessing risk factors and their relative importance of sub-factors. Based on AHP theory calculating the risk factor weights, it solves the problem for assessing the risk of malicious ads. Finally, it actually analyzes the risk level of mobile advertising in mobile applications and validates the model is feasible.


Seven peas (Pisum sativum L.) varieties different originated, i.e, X07P54, X06PWY, NDPO80138-B-2, CA1P, L020140, Wt6803 and Mir were studied. Biochemical assessment of fresh aboveground biomass and seeds of peas varieties were done. At the beginning of flowering stage the NDPO80138-B-2 and X07P54 were reported high levels for crude protein (22.33% and 21.87%), crude fibre (25.94% and 25.76%) and crude ash (10.39% and 9.47%). In technical maturity with high crude protein and crude fibre contents NDPO80138-B-2 (21.59% and 21.38%), X06PWY (19.95% and 21.36%), X07P54 (19.78% and 20.57%) and CA1P (19.60% and 22.53%) were distinguished; by calcium CA1P (2.09%), and by phosphorus Wt6803 (0.54%). More significant variability in phosphorus content (21.27%) and Ca:P ratio (25.65%) in fresh biomass was observed. The lowest coefficient of variation was found for crude fibre (5.43%), crude ash (7.81%) and crude protein content (9.00%). The variability of parameters in technical maturity was found low and ranges from 2.34% for crude protein to 9.27 for phosphorus. The green mass yield is positively correlated with the calcium content (r = 0.581), phosphorus (r = 0.316) and crude ash (r = 0.077) and the seed yield positive correlated with calcium content (r = 0.79). The relationships found between qualitative indicators could be used in the breeding programs of peas.


In the component mounting device, a conveying device for conveying the flat plate surface direction of the substrate the substrate is adsorbed and held in a substantially vertical position, to the mounting region of the edge of the substrate of the substantially vertical orientation received from the conveying device and a plurality of working devices for performing work processing, each working device includes a substrate holding unit for attracting and holding the substrate in substantially vertical orientation, and a holding part moving device for moving the substrate held adsorbed to the working position below , it includes a receiving member for supporting an edge of a substrate that is positioned in the working position from the back side, and a working unit for performing work processing from the surface side of the mounting region of the edge of the substrate positioned in the working position there.


The jitter of the transmitting system can cause the light intensity fluctuation at the target position of the laser transmission, which affects the performance of the laser communication, imaging and the adaptive optical system. In this paper, the platform jitter is modeled by Gaussian random fluctuation phase and the analytic expression of the system jitter effect on the fluctuation of light intensity is obtained under the vacuum condition based on extended Huygens-Fresnel principle. The numerical simulation is compared with the theoretical expression and the consistency is obtained. At the same time, the influence of the jitter of the launch system on the intensity fluctuation of the target system under different turbulence conditions is analyzed by numerical simulation. The result show that normalized intensity fluctuation variance induced by platform jitter seems to be unrestricted. The jitter of the transmitting system has a more important influence on the fluctuation of the target position caused by the atmospheric turbulence, as the jitter increase. This result provides a reference for the application of the actual laser transmission system.


This thesis considers the application of neural networks to automotive suspension
systems. In particular their ability to learn non-linear feedback control
relationships. The speed of processing, once trained, means that neural networks
open up new opportunities and allow increased complexity in the control
strategies employed.
The suitability of neural networks for this task is demonstrated here using multilayer
perceptron, (MLP) feed forward neural networks applied to a quarter vehicle
simulation model. Initially neural networks are trained from a training data set
created using a non-linear optimal control strategy, the complexity of which
prohibits its direct use. They are shown to be successful in learning the
relationship between the current system states and the optimal control. [Continues.]


In Reply.— Determination of an antithrombin III level was performed and found to be 168%. Thus, it cannot account for the abnormalities detected in the patient described.


Although dietary restriction (DR) is known to extend lifespan across species, from yeast to mammals, the signalling events downstream of food/nutrient perception are not well understood. In Caenorhabditis elegans, DR is typically attained either by using the eat‐2 mutants that have reduced pharyngeal pumping leading to lower food intake or by feeding diluted bacterial food to the worms. In this study, we show that knocking down a mammalian MEKK3‐like kinase gene, mekk‐3 in C. elegans, initiates a process similar to DR without compromising food intake. This DR‐like state results in upregulation of beta‐oxidation genes through the nuclear hormone receptor NHR‐49, a HNF‐4 homolog, resulting in depletion of stored fat. This metabolic shift leads to low levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), potent oxidizing agents that damage macromolecules. Increased beta‐oxidation, in turn, induces the phase I and II xenobiotic detoxification genes, through PHA‐4/FOXA, NHR‐8 and aryl hydrocarbon receptor AHR‐1, possibly to purge lipophilic endotoxins generated during fatty acid catabolism. The coupling of a metabolic shift with endotoxin detoxification results in extreme longevity following mekk‐3 knock‐down. Thus, MEKK‐3 may function as an important nutrient sensor and signalling component within the organism that controls metabolism. Knocking down mekk‐3 may signal an imminent nutrient crisis that results in initiation of a DR‐like state, even when food is plentiful.


OBJECTIVE To strengthen the management of medical garbage. METHODS The medical garbage management group was established to make clear responsibility and duty. Management systems of medical garbage were established. To strengthen relative knowledge training for all staffs of the hospital. To make clear the responsibility and duty for all staffs of the hospital. Surveillance and inspections had been strengthened. To put forward scheme of correction in time and take these works into the part of the quality control system of the hospital. RESULTS The management of medical garbage had under the control of the system and reached the goal of the standardization and systematization. CONCLUSIONS All staffs of the hospital taking part in the surveillance and inspection steps and synthesizing management are the effective power to manage medical garbage according to the law.


As an emerging network application,micro-blogging is popular among netizens yet poses new questions in copyright.According to related legal regulations,micro-bloggers can claim copyright as long as their contents are original.However,since most micro-bloggers are not aware of copyright,various types of conflicts concerning the copyright arise frequently.This is harmful to the innovation of micro-blogging contents and harmonious competition among enterprises.Given the cultural characteristics of micro-blogging and real difficulties in its copyright protection,the regulations of micro-blogging copyright should be based on the strategy in which autonomy is coordinated with the law.


The annual cycle of plasma antifreeze polypeptide levels and Na+ and Cl− concentrations were measured in sea raven (Hemitripterus americanus) from a New Brunswick population. Both Na+ and Cl− concentrations showed a distinct seasonal cycle, with the highest concentration of both ions occurring during the winter months. Mean plasma antifreeze levels also showed a significant seasonal cycle, with the highest values occurring during winter. Two features of the annual plasma antifreeze cycle differed considerably from the annual cycles observed in other temperate water fish: antifreeze polypeptides were present throughout the year and, during the winter, 40–50% of the fish had antifreeze levels that were the same as those observed during the summer. Thus, our results modify the generally accepted view that the presence of plasma antifreeze proteins correlates with the seasonal period of low water temperatures and that only fish inhabiting polar oceans maintain high levels of antifreeze peptides in their blood...


The interaction between casein and maltodextrin during the formation of microcapsule wall was investigated using fourier transform infrared spectroscopy combined with other mathematical treatments such as deconvolution, second derivative spectroscopy and curve fi tting. A preliminary investigation was conducted to explore the mechanism of interaction between these two materials. Results showed that following heating and spray drying treatments, changes of the amide Ⅰ bands and the amide Ⅲ bands of casein occurred. The interaction between casein and maltodextrin was present in the form of cross-linking and a strong hydrogen bond was then formed. In this study, the emulsifying capacity and emulsion stability of casein were also measured with or without the addition of maltodextrin. The increased content of α-helix and random coil contributed to the higher emulsifying capacity and stability of casein in the presence of maltodextrin.


Fair income distribution and fair human capital investment are two hot issues. By analyzing their relationship, this paper points out that gaining fair return from human capital investment should be based on fair social income distribution and the country should undertake the responsibility for investment in education, credit support and social security.


The present invention relates to a mobile communication system for transmitting packet data through an uplink, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for a user terminal (UE) transmits the control information to the base station. Packets transmitted for a terminal is a transmission interval in the uplink, the multiplexed control information of the data and the MAC layer of multiple higher layer. Be a header of the packet, storing the multiplexed information, the base station demultiplexes the upper layer data from the packets. The UE receiving the MAC layer control information in the payload of the packets, storing the information for demultiplexing the MAC layer control information in a header of the packet. At this time, by the information for demultiplexing the MAC layer control information, so as to have the same structure as the information for demultiplexing the common user data, which is to simplify the structure of the packet header, and minimize the size of the packet header. WCDMA, UPLINK PACKET DATA SERVICE, E-DCH, EUDCH, MAC-e, MUX ID, DDI


Rhazya stricta and Zingiber officinale rhizomes Gmger are commonly used in folk medicine in the Arabian Peninsula for the treatment of many diseases. In many studies, relatively large doses of the plant extract were used to determine the pharmacological and toxicological actions. Therefore, it was necessary to study the biochemical effects of these plants using low doses, almost near the dose that is used by humans in the folk medicine. In the present study we investigated the genotoxicity and antigenotoxicityof Rhazya stricta leaves and Zingiber officinale rhizomes aqueous extracts as single and in combinations using Salmonella typhimurium. mutagenicity (Ames) test and single cell gel electrophoresis (comet) assay at the maximum tolerant dose for each assay. Although these plants are heavily investigated but their mixtures have has not. So we intended to investigate the possible occurrence of antagonistic, additive or synergistic interactions implications for risk assessment. Result showed that none of R. stricta and Z. officinale extractions in single and in combinations showed any mutagenicity effect on the battery of Salmonella typhimurium mutant test strains TA98TA79a, TA100, TA102 and TA1535, at concentration of 10mg/plat. In comet assay, results showed genotoxicity effect of the R. stricta (1.5g/kg) and Z. officinale (10g/kg) extraction produced significant (P<0.05) effects on comet percent and the mean tail moment value in single and combination, the result for the same dose in counteracting the genotoxicity induced by MNNG (30μg/ml of blood) in comet test showed nosignificant result of the R. stricta and Z. officinale in single and combination (P> 0.05). R. stricta and Z. officinalee extraction in single and in combinations increased the cytochrome p450 1A1 concentration in mice liver (P< 0.01). However, more work is needed, with the growing interest of the world in complementary and alternative medicines applications, to investigate possible mechanisms of action of Rhazya stricta leaves and Zingier officinal rhizomes using the same method of extraction that have been used by humans in the folk medicine.


The case study titled "All in Smoke Ltd: Valuing a Private Firm" highlights several issues in financial valuation, such as Discounted Cash Flow (DCF), illiquidity discounts, comparable approaches and Real Options Analysis (ROA). The case deals with the valuation of the company under review and highlights several issues in financial and business valuation such as bottom-up beta, forecasting uncertain cash flows, and uneven investment for expansion. Appropriate liquidity discounts are to be used to reflect the peculiarities of the firm. The case provides a holistic approach to valuation and incorporates some of the widely known models for a real life situation.


Density and size structure of lionfish Pterois volitans (Scorpaenidae) in the insular Western Colombian Caribbean. The problems produced by invading species have been recognized in the last years, considering the situation the second cause of biodiversity lost, after habitat degradation. The lion fish (Pterois volitans), a species native to the Western Pacific, was first detected in southern Florida in 1985. Since 2000 the species began dispersing, extending first to the east coast of the United States, Bermuda, and Bahamas, and, after 2007, it has expanded to the Caribbean, appearing in Colombian oceanic and continental localities in 2008 and 2009, respectively. San Andrés natural conditions ease deeper understanding of several aspects of the invasion and constitutes a natural experiment to study the process and behavior of the colonization. Estimations of its abundance, density and size structure in the ART 7


The hapTEL project, has been developing and evaluating a virtual dental work-station since July 2007, with over 400 dental undergraduate students learning clinical skills. Since July 2011 the work of the project has been augmented to include extending and evaluating the work-station for other health science teaching and studying the relationship between students' clinical and drawing skills. The hypothesis is that practical drawing activities can improve confidence in specific motor skills in conjunction with virtual learning tools. This paper reports on the first phase of the research to compare the students' drawing of teeth with the log-files of their performance using the hapTEL systems. The results of the relationship between drawing and dental skills and performance show how these can inform the development of haptic technologies particularly 3D interface design and a practical example of a pedagogical strategy that could incorporate TEL methods into undergraduate and post-graduate programmes both in dentistry, surgery and other related studies.


Unitary evolution in PT-symmetric quantum mechanics (QM) with a time-dependent metric is found to yield an interesting class of adiabatic processes. As an explicit example, a Berry-like phase associated with a PT-symmetric two-level system is derived and is interpreted as the flux of a fictitious monopole with a tunable charge plus a singular string component with nontrivial phase contributions. To gain more insight, the Hermitian analog of our non-Hermitian problem is also analyzed, which results in an intriguing class of geometric-phase problems in conventional QM as well, where the Hamiltonian includes a perturbative term that is proportional to the rate of change in adiabatic parameters.


In this paper, we propose a composite capital allocation measure integrating regulatory and economic capital. The approach builds upon the economic framework underpinning traditional RORAC-style business decision rules, allowing for an optimized risk-return tradeoff while adhering to regulatory capital constraints. The measure has a number of depictions, and it can be viewed as a weighted sum of economic and regulatory capital, as economic capital adjusted for a regulatory capital charge, or as regulatory capital adjusted for concentration risk and diversification benefits. Intuitively, when represented as economic capital adjusted for a regulatory capital charge, the adjustment can be represented as the additional top-of-the-house regulatory capital, above economic capital, allocated by each instrument's required regulatory capital. We show that the measure has ideal properties for an integrated capital measure. When regulatory capital is binding, composite capital aggregates to the institution's top-of-the-house target capitalization rate. We find the measure is higher than economic capital, but lower than regulatory capital for instruments with high credit quality, reflecting the high regulatory capital charge for this instrument class. Finally, we address how IFRS 9/CECL impacts the CCM and discuss the broader implications of the new accounting standards. * An earlier version of this paper first circulated in 2015. MAY 2017


CuS thin films were deposited onto microscope glass slide by chemical bath deposition method. Recently , chemical bath deposition method became very popular method due to some advantages such as simple, low cost, abi lity to cover large substrate areas and can operate at low processing temperature. In this study, aqueous solu tions of copper sulphate, thiourea and tartaric acid have been used as precursors during deposition process. In this e xperiment, the solution concentration was varied from 0.05 to 0.2 M in order to investigate the optimum conditions fo r the preparation of CuS thin films. The structural, morp hological, compositional and optical characterizati on of the films were carried out by X-ray diffraction, scanning ele ctron microscopy, energy dispersive analysis X-ray and UVVisible spectrophotometer, respectively. The X-ray diffraction analysis showed the polycrystalline in nature with hexagonal crystal. The dense morphology of CuS films with homogeneous grains could be observed for the films deposited using 0.2 M of solution concentration. Th ese films also exhibited higher absorption value as compared with other solution concentrations.


The Gross-Perry-Sorkin spacetime, formed by the Euclidean Taub-Newman-Unti-Tamburino space with the time trivially added, is the appropriate background of the Dirac magnetic monopole without an explicit mass term. We show that there exists a very simple five-dimensional metric of spacetimes carrying massive magnetic monopoles that is an exact solution of the vacuum Einstein equations. Moreover, the same isometry properties as the original Euclidean Taub-Newman-Unti-Tamburino space are preserved. This leads to an Abelian Kaluza-Klein theory whose metric appears as a combination between the Gross-Perry-Sorkin and Schwarzschild ones. The asymptotic motion of the scalar charged test particles is discussed, now by accounting for the mixing between the gravitational and magnetic effects.


From the Publisher:
Would you like to protect your UNIX system from unwelcome intruders? Are you looking for a guide that will introduce you to the essentials of UNIX system security without spending an age to do it? If you answered yes to both questions then this is the book for you.
In less than 200 pages you will explore:
The critical threats to data security that UNIX system users should recognize, avoid and overcome. How system administrators create and monitor secure UNIX systems What measures UNIX programmers and application developers need to take to ensure that their programs will integrate successfully into a secure sytem A summary of the key UNIX systems security commands and systems calls


1,2,3-Thiadiazoles are brominated in the α-position of the side chain linked on C-4 or C-5. Several methods for the dehydrobromination are compared. Besides eliminations, nucleophilic substitutions can be observed. Regioselectivities are discussed concerning the ring closure in the generation of the 1,2,3-thiadiazoles, the bromination and the SN-reactions. The most surprising result is the change of the positions of the substituents in the formation of 11b from 4b via an EA-mechanism involving the intermediate 10b.


The harmonisation of law by means of directives is increasingly assuming the role of creating a common market in Europe, principally through civil and business law. This article traces this legislation and its associated judge-made law. In addition, the Reformed German Law of Obligations Act of 2002 (Schuldrechtsmodernisierungsgesetz) is examined, which reintegrates private law statues into the German Civil Code. Numerous conventional civil law principles will have to be rationalised anew.


In our gastrointestinal cancer quiz, you'll get a chance to test your knowledge on the use of endoscopy for acute upper gastrointestinal bleeding.


A trek on Financial Management/Financial Derivatives and Everything Else for BBA/MBA students and Everyone Else. Maps (Syllabus) available from the Travel (Admission) office/SMART System and Everywhere Else.

Or Simply: A trek on Everything for Everyone … Everywhere.

Chapter Zero is for Life. Chapter One onwards from the textbook are for the Exam and to convince others that we know Finance (perhaps, also to convince ourselves that we know Finance, which can be harder at times). Here, there are no right or wrong answers; but for the exams there will be.

An attempt to answer basic yet foundational questions that might arise in the minds of someone, beginning the study of finance, before they can move on to more advanced introductions on this topic.

What is finance? What is the need fulfilled by financial instruments? What is the reason people trade? (and most times, again and again...) Why do we need trading venues? What is an ideal trading venue? What are Bid and Ask prices and why do we have them? How we value financial instruments? Why does this involve Prediction? What are the perils of prediction?

What are the skill sets we need to be successful in business and everything else? What is the most important skill set among all of them?

A look at the cause for the present trend in collecting and analyzing vast amounts of data. What is Finance/Economics? The Nature of Uncertainty; Objectively Subjective; The Circle of Investment; The Miracle of Mathematics; Useful Theories.


Abstract Caudal dysgenesis constitutes a heterogeneous spectrum of congenital caudal anomalies, including varying degrees of developmental defects of the vertebral column, as well as anorectal and genitourinary anomalies. Herein, we are reporting a case of caudal regression syndrome with imperforate anus, bilateral renal hypoplasia, vestigial tail and esophageal duplication cyst in a baby of non-diabetic mother,


On 21 October, for the fourth time in succession, the Swiss People's Party (SVP) won a significant, and largely unexpected victory. At the same time the Social Democrats (SPS) did particularly badly, although their allies, the Greens (GPS), did well. The centre parties had mixed fortunes. Although the results did not do more than rebalance the existing polarisation, they highlighted significant changes going on in Swiss politics. These have became much more national than in the past and are dominated by a different, more European, style of conflictual populism. So it looked as though the old checks and balances form of Swiss consensus democracy was under threat. In fact the second round of Upper House elections saw the pendulum swinging back the other way, demonstrating a strong anti-SVP tendency. This re-assertion of traditional concordance politics, although not in the partisan form demanded by SVP hardliners, again came as a surprise to many. So too did the defeat of Christoph Blocher, the SVP Minister for Police and Justice, by a less confrontational SVP candidate, chosen by the Christian Democrats (CVP) and the SPS, when it came to the election of the Federal Council on 12–13 December. This further re-assertion of consensualism led the SVP to declare that it was going into opposition. So, it seems that although harmony and consensus will return to government, Swiss politics in general look likely to be increasingly polarised and confrontational. The SVP's stance, which will be difficult to realise within the Swiss system, will still mean increased pressure on the other parties. However, while the renewed strength of Parliament and consensus suggests that there will not be major policy switches, the political system is likely to be subject to conflicting pressures over the next four years.


The nature of Science or NOS is the knowledge that explains how science works and how scientists conduct research. The nature of science has aspects in the form of form and nature, namely aspects of the product, scientific attitude, process, subjective, tentative, empirical, Theory and Law, Social and Culture, Creativity, Scientific Method. It is important to convey aspects of the nature of science into the science curriculum and student books because they are a reference in the learning process so that learning objectives can be achieved properly. Submission of aspects of the nature of good science is to convey it correctly and explicitly. Based on the analysis and comparison results, it shows that aspects of the nature of science in the elementary school curriculum and its embodiment in student books are not explained explicitly, both in the curriculum and in student books. The results of the percentage value of the essence of science in the student curriculum have a value of > 80%, namely product, subjective, creative aspects, and in the student's book, only product aspects have a percentage value of > 80%. Meanwhile, other aspects have a low percentage value of <80%.


A kind of hysteretic nonlinear model of magnetic shape memory alloy (MSMA) was developed in this paper, and the nonlinear dynamic characteristics of MSMA actuator were investigated. Van der Pol nonlinear item were introduced to interpret the hysteretic phenomena of strain-magnetic field intensity (MFI) curves of MSMA, and the constitutive relationship among strain, stress and MFI was obtained in partial least-square regression method to describe the variation of strain-MFI curves with stress. The result of significance test shows that all of the items in the constitutive model are significant, and the result of forecast test shows that the model can describe the hysteretic nonlinear characteristics of strain-MFI curves of MSMA in different stress well. Based on the MSMA model, the magneto-mechanical coupled model of MSMA actuator was developed, and the relationship between input magnetic signal and output displacement was obtained. The nonlinear dynamic characteristics of MSMA actuator were discussed, and phenomena of accuracy aggravation of MSMA actuator in high-frequency magnetic field were explained. Finally the theoretical results were proved by experiment. The new MSMA model has simple form and is easy to be analyzed in theory, which is helpful for the application of MSMA actuator in engineering fields.


The implementation of processors for real world signal applications which are manipulated mathematically tends to be known as Digital Signal Processor (DSP). Taking advantage of architectural optimizations., the modern development of a DSP is possible. The present existing processor uses Von-Neuman and Harvard based architecture for allotting various instructions. The problem statement speaks volume in terms of Speed and Delay with a fewer capability. The proposed methodology built using Kintex Ultrascale board helps to overcome the problems., which includes designing and upgrading the architecture with the implementation BRAM which acts a replacement to conventional ones. This change helps to reduce the timing delay and critical path delay making it much more efficient to use for this modified design of the 16-bit processor which is executed using Xilinx vivado tool.


Abstract Two Parmeliella-like lichen species are described as new: Santessoniella pulchella, known from warm temperate parts of eastern Australia and northern New Zealand, and Siphulastrum squamosum, a relatively common species on stumps ofNothofagus in southern Chile. Both differ from Parmeliella s. str. in the hemiamyloid, finally red-brown hymenial iodine reaction and the apical structures of the asci, as well as in thallus details (anatomy and chemistry). Parmeliella major Darb. is a synonym of P. thysanota (Sirt.) Zahlbr., which thus proves to be a circumpolar species in the Southern Hemisphere, though not yet discovered in South Africa. A new species, Parmeliella lacerate, is described from the Republic of South Africa, and related to Parmeliella chilensis (Hue) P. M. Jørg., comb. nov.


The prevalence of cloud computing has resulted in an increased number of services developed for the Web. Selecting an appropriate cloud service from amongst a lot of commonly featured available services has become very difficult particularly for non-IT users i.e. it is cumbersome for users to select a cloud service that is best suited to their requirements. Quality of service (QOS) is considered as one of the main criterion in the selection process. This paper focuses on cloud service selection method allowing users to specify their perception of quality criteria. Our approach is based on the data mining technique clustering which is an unsupervised learning technique. Developed algorithm classifies the cloud services into different number of groups based on selected quality attributes and ranks them accordingly. The research aims to assist every type of users for choosing a cloud service without engaging into any financial contract. In order to validate our approach of best service selection, we test our system with cloud vendors like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon.


Abstract Since the 1970s, researchers have focused on visual joint attention as a way to observe and operationalize joint attention (JA). I will argue that this methodological choice has neglected other modalities and as a consequence might be missing important elements in the account of the development of JA and the evolutionary history of JA. I argue that by including other modes of interaction, such as touch, we open the possibility of finding that non-human primates and younger human infants engage in basic forms of JA. Moreover, I argue that touch, as a proximal mode of perception, is the ontogenetic precursor of social communication.


This article deals with two topics: bounds on electrostatic interactions and new approaches to the expansion of electron densities in ab initio calculations on large systems. Schwartz inequalities derived from positive definite self-energy integrals are reviewed and new bounds on electrostatic interactions consisting only of kinetic energy and overlap integrals are derived. Several applications are discussed. In the expansion of electron densities occurring in the treatment of large systems, numerous densities that are relatively small in magnitude are expanded whenever possible in terms of large densities already present in the calculation. Rigorous error bounds are used to judge the acceptability of the expansion. Proceeding in this way allows a simplifying reorganization of the information that must be stored for use in many-electron configuration interaction calculations, thereby enabling the application of this method to larger systems. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2002


A collection of photographic portraits was judged with the aid of Osgood's semantic differential. The data were factor analysed, and two dimensions emerged which could be associated with Osgood's "evaluation" and "dynamism" factors.


Mass digitization projects that have been carried out by libraries and their commercial partners across the Atlantic, such as Google Books and Europeana, are celebrating their 10th birthdays. This article analyses what legal challenges they pose to the copyright law systems, and how the US and EU jurisdictions have responded to them. In particular, the article identifies certain elements in the US copyright law system that played an important role in encouraging the creation of innovative and value-added services in the library sector. These elements include the transformative use doctrine, the restrictive interpretation of the market harm criterion and the openness towards commercial reuse of works. It is then discussed whether, and how, these elements could be better integrated in the EU copyright law system in order to foster the European library and information technology sector. K E Y W O R D S : Copyright law, copyright exceptions, libraries, Google Books, Europeana, fair use I N T R O D U C T I O N : 1 0 Y E A R S F O R G O O G L E B O O K S A N D E U R O P E A N A With the emergence of new information and communication technologies, libraries, as one of the most important players in the information and knowledge society, also rushed to embrace new technological developments and modernize their services. They (again) followed the dream to create a library comprising worldwide materials. More than that, they expected new technologies would allow them to not only preserve their collections for the future (digital) generations, but also open them for easy access and use via the Internet to an unprecedented number of readers around * Lecturer at Newcastle Law School, University of Newcastle (Australia), University Drive, Callaghan 2308 NSW, Australia; Associated Researcher at Law Institute of Lithuania, 39/1 Ankstoji g, Vilnius, Lithuania. Telephone: þ61 2 4921 6218; Email: firstname.lastname@example.com 1 A similar 'dream' to create a worldwide library can be traced back centuries ago to the Library of Alexandria. For more information, see Lyombe Eko, Anup Kumar and Qingjiang Yao, 'To Google or Not To Google: The Google Digital Books Initiative and the Exceptionalist Intellectual Property Law Regimes of The United States and France' (2012) 15(7) J Int L 12, 13; Giancarlo F Frosio, 'Google Books Rejected: Taking the Orphans to the Digital Public Library of Alexandria' (2011–2012) 28 Santa Clara Computer & High Tech L J 81, 82–83. VC The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: email@example.com. 44 International Journal of Law and Information Technology, 2016, 24, 44–71 doi: 10.1093/ijlit/eav018 Advance Access Publication Date: 9 January 2016 Article by gest on M arch 4, 2016 http://ijlirdjournals.org/ D ow nladed from the world. Libraries across the globe started massively digitizing their collections, either alone or with the active involvement of commercial partners. This article focuses upon two of the most significant mass digitization projects—the Google Books project in the USA and the Europeana project in Europe. In 2004, Google announced partnerships with several libraries and started digitizing books, with the ultimate vision of digitizing and making available the entire human knowledge online. In 2010, 12 million books had been scanned, while in 2012 that number reached approximately 30 million, with digitization activities continuing. However, due to copyright restrictions, user can only access these immense collections of digitized materials to a very limited extent. The Europeana project, as a counterpart to the Google initiative, was implemented by the European Commission in 2005. It intended not only to digitize European cultural heritage, but also to make it accessible online for the worldwide audience to enjoy, study, research, play and otherwise interact with it. Europeana currently has 2500 participating institutions that share their data and knowledge through Europeana. It also includes 33 million objects from hundreds of Europe's best museums and libraries, making it the largest and most significant digital cultural collection in the world. In spite of this, it still only contains 10% of all European heritage. Most digitized works in the Europeana database belong to the public domain (ie works to which copyright has expired), while more recent works that are still protected by copyright ('in-copyright' works), and particularly those that are still available in trade channels ('in-commerce' works) are not available via Europeana at all. Further, Europeana is relatively unknown even among European audiences, and it is facing increasing financial sustainability issues. The goal of this article is to compare how copyright law systems in the USA and the EU have responded to challenges posed by these mass digitization projects, and 2 See <http://www.google.com.au/googlebooks/about/history.html> accessed 5 November 2015. 3 See Naomi Eichenlaub, 'Checking with Google Books, HathiTrust and the DPLA' (2013) Computers Libraries 4–9, 6. 4 One part of the Google Books project is a Google Partner program, where books are licensed from the right holders and users can access certain parts of these books. Access is dependent upon the agreement with the right holder. Another aspect of the project is the Google Books Library Project, where books are digitized without the permission of the right holder and users only have limited access, either to short extracts of books (snippets) or simply to the title of the book. For more, see <https://www.google.com.au/ googlebooks/>. 5 See Communication from the Commission of 30 September 2005 to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions – i2010: digital libraries, COM(2005) 465 final, OJ C49. 6 See 'Europeana Annual Report and Accounts 2013', p 15, 2013 <http://pro.europeana.eu/files/ Europeana_Professional/Publications/Europeana%20Annual%20Report%20and%20Accounts%202013. pdf>; European Commission, Press Release, Brussels/Rome, 2 October 2014; <http://europa.eu/rapid/ press-release_IP-14-1076_en.htm> accessed 6 November 2015 7 Only one-third of that (34%) is currently available online, and barely 3% of digitized material can be used for actual creative reuse (for example in social media, via APIs, for mash-ups, etc). See 'Europeana Strategic Plan 2015-2020', p 9, <http://strategy2020.europeana.eu/> accessed 6 November 2015. 8 For a short introduction of the development of Europeana, see Jon Purday, 'Think culture: Europeana.eu from concept to construction' (2009) 27/6 Electronic Library 919–37. 9 The amount of funds that the European Commission is willing to inject into Europeana is decreasing significantly in the coming decade. See 'Need to encourage?' section. 10 years for Google Books and Europeana 45 by gest on M arch 4, 2016 http://ijlirdjournals.org/ D ow nladed from whether there are lessons that the EU could learn to further facilitate the development of its library and information technology sectors. First, this article provides an overview of the legal developments initiated by these mass digitization projects in the USA and the EU, both at the legislative and judicial levels. Secondly, the article identifies three important features of the US copyright system that deserve special attention from the European lawyers: the transformative use doctrine, the special treatment of market harm and the active role of commercial parties in mass digitization projects. Finally, we discuss whether these elements of the US copyright system could be of use when amending the EU copyright system, in order to facilitate greater collaboration between the library and information technology sectors. L E G A L D E V E L O P M E N T S I N T H E U S A A N D T H E E U The dream of creating a worldwide library has not been easy to realize. Several issues such as technical problems (quality of copies, compatibility of formats and metadata exchange), financial sustainability 11 and legal issues have created significant difficulty. The main legal concern that arises under both EU and US law is the general requirement that the digitization/reproduction of works, and their subsequent accessibility online, requires permission from the right holders. However, identifying the right holders and clearing the rights has proven to be a highly complex and expensive task. This, in turn, has made the realization of projects' goals much slower, if not entirely impossible. The following sections provide an overview of the legal challenges faced on both sides of the Atlantic by Google Books and Europeana, and how they have been addressed. USA: how judges embraced mass digitization In the USA, several mass digitization initiatives have been challenged in court. Court decisions have now created a certain legal framework in which Google and libraries can conduct their mass digitization projects. Legislators have also made attempts to improve the legal framework, but their efforts up to now have proved unsuccessful. Case #1: Authors Guild v HathiTrust Authors Guild v HathiTrust was the first case to be decided in relation to mass digitization projects. Since 2008, a number of non-profit institutions around the USA 10 For more information on rights associated with metadata, see 'Europeana Public Domain Charter (2010)', <http://pro.europeana.eu/c/document_library/get_file?uuid1⁄4d542819d-d169-4240-9247-f 96749113eaa&groupId1⁄410602> accessed 6 November 2015. 11 It is especially problematic for publicly funded initiatives. However, Google has not yet found a sustainable business model to commercialize Google books either. For more, see 'Need to encourage?' section. 12 For a good, yet brief, overview of the challenges faced by libraries in the digital era, see Dame Lynne J Brindley, 'Phoenixes in the Internet Era the Changing Role of Libraries' in Lionel Ben


A discussion with guest Dr. Alexiei Dingli about the role of computers in contemporary culture through a discussion of a speech by Steve Jobs.


Disclosed is an accessory plug connector with at least a two data contacts and an ID contact. The data contacts are configured to enable communication between the accessory and host using a communication protocol and the ID contact carries information that identifies the protocol. The plug also has an ID module that holds the protocol information and sends the information over the ID contact. The ID module may also when it receives a request over the ID contact sends the ID information and configuration information about the data contacts over the ID contacts. The accessory may also have a power control module to enable a power path between the accessory and the host. The plug may have 180 degree symmetry, so that it can be inserted in two orientations. The ID module may switch the communication protocol to a different second protocol by sending a message over the ID contact, causing the data contacts to switch from being coupled to communication circuitry within the accessory for the first protocol to circuitry for the second protocol.


APPLICATION OF COMPUTER VISION FOR ROLLER OPERATION MANAGEMENT Mohammad Hadi Niki Rashidi Compaction is the last and possibly the most important phase in construction of asphalt concrete (AC) pavements. Compaction densifies the loose (AC) mat, producing a stable surface with low permeability. The process strongly affects the AC performance properties. Too much compaction may cause aggregate degradation and low air void content facilitating bleeding and rutting. On the other hand too little compaction may result in higher air void content facilitating oxidation and water permeability issues, rutting due to further densification by traffic and reduced fatigue life. Therefore, compaction is a critical issue in AC pavement construction. The common practice for compacting a mat is to establish a roller pattern that determines the number of passes and coverages needed to achieve the desired density. Once the pattern is established, the roller's operator must maintain the roller pattern uniformly over the entire mat. Despite the importance of uniform compaction to achieve the expected durability and performance of AC pavements, having the roller operator as the only mean to manage the operation can involve human errors. With the advancement of technology in recent years, the concept of intelligent compaction (IC) was developed to assist the roller operators and improve the construction quality. Commercial IC packages for construction rollers are available from different manufacturers. They can provide precise mapping of a roller's location and provide the roller operator with feedback during the compaction process. Although, the IC packages are able to track the roller passes with impressive results, there are also major hindrances. The high cost of acquisition and potential negative impact on productivity has inhibited implementation of IC. This study applied computer vision technology to build a versatile and affordable system to count and map roller passes. An infrared camera is mounted on top of the roller to capture the operator view. Then, in a near real-time process, image features were extracted and tracked to estimate the incremental rotation and translation of the roller. Image featured are categorized into near and distant features based on the user defined horizon. The optical flow is estimated for near features located in the region below the horizon. The change in roller's heading is constantly estimated from the distant features located in the sky region. Using the roller's rotation angle, the incremental translation between two frames will be calculated from the optical flow. The roller's incremental rotation and translation will put together to develop a tracking map. During system development, it was noted that in environments with thermal uniformity, the background of the IR images exhibit less featured as compared to images captured with optical cameras which are insensitive to temperature. This issue is more significant overnight, since nature elements are not able to reflect the heat energy from sun. Therefore to improve roller's heading estimation where less features are available in the sky region a unique methodology that allows heading detection based on the asphalt mat edges was developed for this research. The heading measurements based on the slope of the asphalt hot edges will be added to the pool of the headings measured from sky region. The median of all heading measurements will be used as the incremental roller's rotation for the tracking analysis. The record of tracking data is used for QC/QA purposes and verifying the proper implementation of the roller pattern throughout a job constructed under the roller pass specifications. The system developed during this research was successful in mapping roller location for few projects tested. However the system should be independently validated.


This is a literature review and retrospective case series of acute idiopathic blind spot enlargement of 2 Caucasian females and 1 Hispanic male.  Hallmark findings include unilateral photopsia, an enlarged blind spot, loss of the ellipsoid and interdigitation zones on OCT, and an abnormal multifocal electroretinography.  This condition is an outer retinal disease that shares common traits with the AZOOR complex, which can confound the diagnosis.  Autofluorescent imaging may aid in differentiating the conditions.  Disseminating more case reports detailing different presentations of this rare outer retinal disorder help advance the clinical understanding of these conditions.


Multiple right-hand sides occur in radar scattering calculations in the computation of the simulated radar return from a body at a large number of angles. Each desired angle requires a right-hand side vector to be computed and the solution generated. These right-hand sides are naturally smooth functions of the angle parameters and this property is utilized in a novel way to compute solutions an order of magnitude faster than LINPACK The modeling technique addressed is the Method of Moments (MOM), i.e. a boundary element method for time harmonic Maxwell`s equations. Discretization by this method produces general complex dense systems of rank 100`s to 100,000`s. The usual way to produce the required multiple solutions is via LU factorization and solution routines such as found in LINPACK. Our method uses the block GMRES iterative method to directly iterate a subset of the desired solutions to convergence.


Tirso de Molina's biblical drama La mujer que manda en casa (1635) depicts the persecution of the Old Testament prophet Elijah (Elías) by Queen Jezabel, a pagan tyrant. In Baroque Spain, the moral character of the cuervo (a crow or raven) was ambiguous, and Tirso uses this ambiguity to transform the primarily deceitful black bird of myth and folklore into allusions to Yahweh and Christian scripture. Although the pagan monarchs in Tirso's drama see the cuervos as thieves and pranksters, the audience knows the birds can also represent divine Providence, the common people, and a Christianized Apollo.


Anaesthesia machines are supplied through a central medical gas pipeline system (MGPS) or cylinders. Type E cylinders are used as backup when the pipeline system fails.[1,2] Ensuring a filled type E oxygen cylinder attached to the anaesthesia machine is an element of the pre-use daily equipment checklist in the operating rooms (ORs).[3] Various safety features ensure that correct gas is delivered to the patient through the cylinders, namely colour coding and label, pin index system, etc. Pin index is unique to each gas and prevents connection of wrong cylinder to the anaesthesia machine.[4]


The nutrient and anti nutrient composition of some standardized sweet potato dishes in Kwara state was determined using official methods of analysis. The indigenous sweet potato dishes analysed included pounded sweet potato/yam; sweet potato leaf soup; boiled sweet potato; fried sweet potatoes and sweet potato/ beans pottage. There were significant differences (p < 0.05) for moisture content which in the proximate, minerals and antinutrient contents of sweet potato dishes. The moisture contents varied between 35.15% in sweet potato and pounded yam to 70.54% in sweet potato leaf soup. The highest protein content of 12.21% was found in sweet potato leaf soup and least value of 1.42% in sweet potato and pounded yam. The fat content of the samples ranged from 0.30% in sweet potato boiled to 3.88% in sweet potato leaf soup. Sweet potato boiled sample had the highest carbohydrate content of 70.54% while sweet potato leaf soup sample had the least value of 25.74%. The ash contents varied from 1.13% in sweet potato boiled to 8.83% in sweet potato leaf soup. The sweet potato leaf sample had the highest content of iron 8.82 ± 0.05 mg/100g while boiled sweet potato sample was highest in zinc (0.26 ± 0.01mg/100g) among all the dishes. Phytate contents ranged from 0.57 to 1.07 mg/100g, oxalate contents ranged from 126.93 to 178.27mg/100g and tannin ranged from 0.22 to 0.86 mg/100g for sweet potato dishes. The contributions of these varied nutrient contents to reducing the nutritional problems in the society were discussed.


Non-pharmacological and non-surgical transcranial stimulation of the nerve function may provide new opportunities in evaluation and treatment of cranial nerve diseases. Stimulation can additionally help to uncover the mechanism of various brain processes by temporarily altering the normal function of healthy brains. Transcranial ultrasound stimulation(TUS) is in the early stages of human applications, theoretically it could offer enhanced spatial resolution and targeting relative to other noninvasive techniques, given the highly focused energy source that is delivered. Ultrasound transducer and amplifier are the essential devices to complete the TUS experiment, the devices designed by ourselves has the advantages of high flexibility and easy adjustment of the acoustic field parameters.


The poster session is an informal and highly interactive session that gives OOPSLA attendees the opportunity to engage one another in discussions about relevant, ongoing work and critical issues in key areas, and also to learn about work in areas with which they wish to become familiar. Researchers and practitioners describe their work in progress or to elaborate on work presented in other conference forums, while all OOPSLA participants can obtain rapid, low-cost introductions to interesting work and technologies in object-oriented software engineering and provide input and feedback directly to the authors. Posters are displayed throughout the conference, so they also provide attendees with the opportunity to learn about interesting work at their leisure, and they enable interactions to occur throughout the conference. Posters cover the same interest areas as the Technical Papers and Practitioner Reports.


Abstract The present paper is a relevant synthesis of collecting original data on the occurrence, quantitative representation and autecological data of three species of the genus Brachinus: B. crepitans Linnaeus, 1758, B. psophia Audinet-Serville, 1828 and B. explodens Duftschmid, 1812 from seven agricultural crops during 19 growing seasons 1977-2010 (wheat, sugar beet, apple orchards, sunflower, maize, potatoes, vineyards). The beetles were pitfall-trapped using predominantly 12 Barber pitfalls in each site, protected against precipitation. 945 specimens of Brachinus crepitans, 431 specimens of B. psophia and 175 specimens of B. explodens were collected.


Under long day conditions, the grain number, plant height, and heading date7 ( Ghd7 ) is a key regulatory gene in the rice specific flowering pathway, with significant pleotropic effects on yield related traits such as the number of spikelets per panicle, and heading date. The Ghd7 codes for a CO, COLIKE and TIMING OF CAB1 (CCT) domain, which is unique from the other CCT family proteins. In the current study, the evolutionary relationships of putative orthologs of Ghd7 within the genus Oryza is assessed via computational approaches. The relationships were deduced based on the nucleotide diversity, gene tree and synteny of Ghd7 orthologs of nine Oryza species using genomic, coding, and polypeptide sequences of the putative Ghd7 orthologs and adjacent genes retrieved from the Gramene database. The coding sequences (CDS) were found to be highly conserved (> 95 %) across the Oryza species, including the CCT domain. The length and the composition of the exons were not conserved between species. The exonintron boundaries depicted an intron phase where codons in exons were not interrupted by introns. The reconstructed gene tree revealed earlier divergence of Oryza brachyantha (diploid F genome) and Oryza punctata (diploid B genome) from the diploid species carrying an A genome. The A genome carriers were grouped into two strongly supported monophyletic clades, with clear separation of the Asian-origin species from the African-origin species. The movement of the syntenic blocks comprising putative orthologs of Ghd7 and its adjacent genes in 0.5 Mbp region revealed complex relationships, especially in ancestral species and species with African descent as the 1:1 putative orthologs were found in non-predictor chromosomes . Hence, the evolutionary pathway of Ghd7 was found to be complex and was governed by geographic origins, and gene movement across syntenic and non-syntenic regions.


assessment, integration, and innovation. Their effort at integration is impressive. My assessment of that effort, while critical, is nevertheless appreciative. Integration of strain, control, and social-learning theories is extremely complex, considerably more so than Elliott et al. suggest. They approach the task at the individual level of explanation, inquiring how and why individuals do or do not become involved in &dquo;sustained patterns of delinquent behavior,&dquo; though the meaning of this variable remains largely undefined. Assessment of the success of their effort, therefore, is properly directed at this level, rather than at the microor macrosociological levels which are addressed by traditional strain and control theories. However, it is important to note that both Durkheim (1897/1938) and Merton (1957) focused their theories on the social conditions (e.g., rapid social change, disjunction between cultural goals and socially structured means) which are associated with different rates of behavior, including criminal and delinquent behavior. Similarly, control theory has its macrosociological roots in social disorganization, as Kornhauser ( 1978) has brilliantly demonstrated. The integration proposed by Elliott et al. thus leaves unanswered traditional sociological questions concerning the properties of social systems and cultures which lead to different rates and types of delinquency-questions such as those addressed by Finestone (1976a, 1976b) concerning the social forces shaping


This contribution discusses the concept of usability of climate information as a practice, and presents a new conceptual framework for its exploration. Decades of research have made evident that availability of climate information does not necessarily lead to climate sensitive policies or planning processes. While well documented technical, contextual, cognitive and structural factors have been discussed as enablers or barriers to usability; still, to date no explanatory model accounts for how usability actually takes place. This research contends that in order to progress in our understanding of the use of climate information, usability must be explored as a practice. The conceptual framework here proposed is constructed based on empirical observations from three city administrations. The framework is rooted on Site Ontologies, where usability results from interactions between people and climate information in a mutually constitutive process that unfolds through professional practices sustained by norms and shaped by experiential knowledge. The site is conceptualised as the coordination of work that articulates the use of climate information. The framework characterises the use of climate information through five typologies. Typologies vary according to policy arenas and are mediated by an interplay with two sets of cross-cutting practices: legitimation and data management practices. The research informs that climate information is used providing it fits working practices, concluding that a deep understanding of how working practices mediate the use of climate information is central to foster comprehension regarding the challenges presented by usability. Hence, it proposes that further research should engage in exploring science-policy interactions as mediated by working practices.


ABSTRACT This study reviews the scope of scientific literature to convey extensive multi-factor studies for recognizing various government and behavioral interventions in controlling the COVID-19 globally to determine the extent and nature of these interventions. We provide a novel theory and formula for contingency action based on the COVID-19 Sine Wave points to control the pandemic. Rather than telling policy-makers what to do, the theory tells them what to do at any given time. It emphasizes the importance of time in managing a contagious disease like COVID-19, which is the novelty and difference between this article and others. In this regard, the novel Sine Wave Contingency-Point Interventions (SWCPI) Model is presented. We propose a model that predicts the path of epidemics and evaluates the impact of various strategies to curb the spread of infection. This model includes government interventions [(GI: quarantine, large traffic restrictions, Law enforcement, (LES: logistic, economic and security supports)] and Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs: washing hands, use of face mask, social distancing, local traffic restriction, and suitable air condition) and urban health interventions (4T: Timing, Testing, Tracing and Treatment). If these contingency interventions are implemented seriously and regularly, it could control the COVID-19 and flatten the subsequent waves.


We performed a longitudinal analysis of bone quality in Sca‐1–null mice. A tight temporal, site‐specific association between Sca‐1–deficient BMD deficiency and reduced mesenchymal progenitor frequency was observed. Defects in trabecular microarchitecture and mineralization were, at least partially, responsible for the age‐related reduction in toughness of Sca‐1−/− bones.


Our goal is to develop technique for assessing bathymetry maps, which show the topography of the floors of water-bodies, using satellite or aerial imagery. The advent of deep neural networks has enabled the use of new techniques in analysing and creating depth maps from high resolution satellite images. In this paper we report a pilot study in exploring the potential use of a deep learning architecture by framing bathymetry problem as a pixel-wise classification task. We took the Sentinel-2 bands as the satellite image and independent depth measurements from Humminbird™data. The data for the supervised training was carefully prepared and processed to facilitate the use of a powerful deep learning segmentation models. The efficiency of the model was quantified by the average F1-score (Dice score) on the held out dataset on quantized depth bands.


China is a agricultural country faced with frequent droughts.Studying on the meteorological drought offers some scientific basis for the prevention of the risk of agricultural drought.Based on the daily precipitation data of 585 meteorological stations during 1951-2011,seasonal precipitation anomaly percentages were calculated which determine the seasonal meteorological drought level.Accordingly the spatial distributions of occurence frequencies of all drought levels in different seasons were mapped.The results show:(1) China's meteorological drought bore a conspicuous character of uneven temporal and spacial distribution.The north and the west regions were faced with higher frequency of drought compared to the south and the east regions,and spring and autumn were the high-frequency periods for occurrence of the drought.(2) Middle-drought during the autumn in North and Northeast China,middle-drought during the winter in South China,Southwest China and the mid and lower reaches of the Yangtze River had higher frequencies of drought occurrence,which needs to be paid more attention.


Poly(N-methylaniline) (PNMA) is a polyaniline derivative with a methyl substituent on the nitrogen atom. PNMA is of interest owing to its higher solubility in organic solvents when compared to the unsubstituted polyaniline. However, the electrical conductivity of polyaniline derivatives suffers from chemical substitution. PNMA was synthesized via emulsion polymerization using three different anionic surfactants, namely sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS), sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate (SDBS), and dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate (AOT). The effects of surfactant structures and concentrations on electrical conductivity, doping level, crystallinity, morphology, and thermal stability were investigated. The re-doping step using perchloric acid (HClO4) as a dopant was sequentially proceeded to enhance electrical conductivity. PNMA synthesized in SDBS at five times its critical micelle concentration (CMC) demonstrated the highest electrical conductivity, doping level, and thermal stability among all surfactants at identical concentrations. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images revealed that the PNMA particle shapes and sizes critically depended on the surfactant types and concentrations, and the doping mole ratios in the re-doping step. The highest electrical conductivity of 109.84 ± 20.44 S cm−1 and a doping level of 52.45% were attained at the doping mole ratio of 50:1.


Objective:To explore the correlation between serum antisperm antibody expression and heat shock protein(HSP) expression in endometrium of patients with infertility. Methods:55 endometrium samples from 55 patients with primary infertility underwent conventional pathological section in order to determine the histological types,ELISA was used to detect serum antisperm antibody,immunohistochemical SP method was used to label the expression of HSP70 in endometrium samples. Results:Among 55 patients with primary infertility,36 patients were found with positive HSP70,accounting for 65.5%,compared with histological types of endometrium,there was significant difference(P0.05);there was significant difference between the patients with positive serum antisperm antibody and the patients with negative serum antisperm antibody(P0.01). Conclusion:The high expression of HSP70 in endometrium of patients with primary infertility may be a kind of autoimmune reactions;HSP inhibitor can suppress its synthesis,then inhibit the expression of HSP gene,which provides a new method for the treatment of primary infertility.


iv NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation • Develop reference structural analysis models that captured the intended behavior of each of the two towers using the generated databases. These reference models were used to establish the baseline performance of the towers and also served as a reference for more detailed models for aircraft impact damage analysis and thermal-structural response and collapse initiation analysis. The models included: (1) two global models (one for each tower) of the major structural components and systems of the towers, and (2) floor models of a typical truss-framed floor and a typical beam-framed floor. • Develop estimates of design gravity (dead and live loads) and wind loads on each of the two towers for implementation into the reference structural models. The following three loading cases were considered: − Original WTC design loads case. Loads included dead and live loads as in original WTC design, in conjunction with original WTC design wind loads. − State-of-the-practice case. Loads included dead loads; current New York City Building Code (NYCBC 2001) live loads; and wind loads from the RWDI wind tunnel study, scaled in accordance with NYCBC 2001 wind speed. − Refined NIST estimate case. Loads included dead loads; live loads from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) 7-02 Standard (a national standard); and refined wind loads developed by NIST. • Perform structural analyses to establish the baseline performance of each of the two towers under design gravity and wind loads. For the second task related to aircraft impact, the aircraft impact damage to the exterior of the WTC towers could be visibly identified from the video and photographic records. However, no visible information could be obtained for the extent of damage to the interior of the towers, including the structural system (floors and core columns), partition walls, and interior building contents. Such information was needed for the subsequent fire dynamics simulations and post-impact structural analyses. In addition, for the fire dynamics modeling, the dispersion of the jet fuel and the location of combustible aircraft debris were required. The estimate of the extent of damage to the fireproofing on the structural steel in the towers due to impact was essential for the thermal and structural analyses. The aircraft impact damage analyses were the primary tool by which most of the information on the tower damage could be estimated. The focus of the analysis was to analyze the aircraft impacts into each of the WTC towers to provide the following: (1) estimates of probable damage to structural systems, including exterior walls, floor systems, and interior core columns; (2) estimates of the aircraft fuel dispersion during the impact; and (3) estimates of debris damage to the building nonstructural contents, including partitions and workstations. The results were to be used to estimate the damage to fireproofing based on the predicted path of the debris field inside the towers. This analysis thus estimated the condition of the two WTC towers immediately following the aircraft impacts and established the initial conditions for the fire dynamics modeling and the thermal-structural response and collapse initiation analysis. The impact analyses were conducted at various levels of complexity including: (1) the component level, (2) the subassembly level, and (3) the global level to estimate the probable damage to the towers due to aircraft impact.


Column Watch guest authors describe methods to predict optimal stationary phases, which enable more rapid and improved gas chromatography column development. By calculating optimal stationary-phase composition and physical parameters, column developers can construct columns that provide the exact separation requirements desired by analysis or current methods.


The thesis aims at what influences gun control policy in America. After collecting and analyzing the information , the author explains these factors concerned.

The second chapter describes the federal and local gun control laws . After 1968, sometimes the federal regulations becomes stricter , sometimes not .On the other hand , gun control laws in local level vary from one area to another. However, the effects are also different , some become better ,others becomes worse.

The third chapter explains what influences gun control policy. The media are anti-gun biased, but there are lots of action movies released. It goes without saying that the parties and officers are not only affected by the civil organizations, but also have their own opinions. Nevertheless , there are too many guns in America to control them, let alone the political assassinations in 1970s. By the way, the interpretation of the second amendment also contributes to the legitimacy of all these regulations. Some people even hold lawsuits against guns as their ultimate weapon .

 The fourth chapter discusses some issues concerning gun policies. So many people died from shooting that makes so many researchers emphasize on gun crime. The criminal steal or via brokers get these firearms and turn into disasters. A large portion are even collateral damages, or resulted from friends or relatives. But some scholar states that guns are most effective devices against crime, while some hold different perspectives. These arise from opposite values. Some gun holders are so reckless that they hurt themselves accidentally. To shoot is the most popular way to end one`s life. In addition, young men carry their firearms to school and hook around make things worse , gun fights in inner cities and slaughters in school are not so unusual . African Americans suffer from the bad situations most.

The fifth chapter is the conclusion. Different methodology leads to different ends .
The effectiveness of the policies are so ambiguous to identify. People want to have guns partly because the government cannot protect them from crime. The relationship between guns and crime is not so clear . We should bear in mind that the Researches are limited by their experimental design. The gun control debates are not only political problems, but also have to do with social structure and faiths.


The present invention relates to a video compression method, and more particularly is in the video frame having a hierarchical structure, using the method and a method of efficiently predicting a frame corresponding to a frame of the lower layer does not exist, the video coding device . Video encoding method according to the invention, the method and the reference frame and the lower, which performs motion estimation to a first frame of the two lower layer frames in the closest distance to the asynchronous frame and the time of the current layer as a reference frame creating a virtual base layer frame at the same temporal location as the asynchronous frame by using the method to obtain a residual frame between the second frame of the layer frame, the motion estimation result determined to be the motion vector, the reference frame, and the residual frame and the steps of the difference between the generated virtual base layer frame from the asynchronous frames, and a step for encoding the difference. Motion estimation, motion vectors, a base layer, an enhancement layer, scalability


Noncatalytic solid-gas reactions are of considerable industrial importance and therefore many examples are readily found in chemical and metallurgical industries, such as the roasting and smelting of ores. In this paper we shall describe some work on a reaction of the above type, the oxidation of zinc sulfide, which is of technical importance in zinc production. It proceeds in accordance with the equation


A thermosensitive grafted polymeric system which can be triggered to release the loaded drug with an increase in temperature, induced by a magnetic thermal heating event was developed. The desirable carrier will have minimal release at 37 °C so that the system can be localized (e.g., to cancer cells) prior to activation of the delivery of medication. The grafted hydrogel system is shown to exhibit a desirable positive thermal response with an increased drug diffusion coefficient for temperatures higher than physiological temperature.


The purpose of study is to evaluate appropriateness of using low-e glazing for each frame to resist condensation on window. Also, it is to show a methodology to figure out how serious the condensation is going to be made through algorithm by weater data in apartment houses with condensation occurrence. Recently, many units in apartment try to extend the area of their own unit by extending their balcony in unit. Because the area of extended balcony has reasonably low mean radiant temperature due to lack of insulation, it causes one of the serious problem which is condensation. In our study, normal double glazing and Low-E coating double glazing has been applied to three kinds of frames, and the temperature has been measured by numerical method of simulation and experiment. To check the degree of efficiency of condensation, Seoul weather data has been used to count the hour that occurred condensation and then made the ratio of condensation for all windows. Consequently, frame with Low-e coating glazing has good performance to resist condensation a lot more than frame with the normal double glazing has.


The important purpose of mineral oil in transformer is to be insulant and it is role of being a coolant. Petroleum based oil is commonly used because it has a good dielectric strength and cooling performance. However, the application of mineral oil brings negative impact to the environment such as oil spills, leakage, explosion and soon petroleum based oil will be running out for future generation used. Thus, vegetable oil is chosen as an alternative to replace mineral oil for transformer insulation liquid. Formerly, most of Malaysian researches were focusing on the properties of the vegetable oils rather than investigate the effect on the transformer performances after the vegetable oils are applied. Hence, this paper focuses on the performance of the transformer before and after vegetable oils are applied. For this paper, refined palm oil is used as insulation liquid for a single-phase step down transformer which use the 220 V supply and 50 Hz frequency. Transformer is connected to 110V induction motor as load and has been test in two conditions, dry and after palm oil is applied. Comparison is made from both results and clearly shown a good improvement when palm oil is used as insulation oil.


Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) electrolyte values have for years been related to levels of central nervous system arousal. Behavioral effects in animals have been shown and theoretically it appears that a variety of drugs, which alter enzyme systems active in the choroid plexus, play a significant part in regulating production of fluid, as well as electrolyte balance in the CSF and ultimately in the extracellular space. The finding of reduced CSF flow and slight reduction of potassium has been confirmed with acetazolamide in children with indwelling intraventricular cannulae Twenty-three hyperactive children in a state school for the retarded were used as subjects to test out the hypothesis that acetazolamide would reduce hyperactive behavior. For comparison, amphetamine, a commonly used drug in this indication, placebo, and no treatment were used. Activity was measured using a room equipped with monitored toys and sonic sensors as well as global and ward behavior rating scales. Measures of serum and red cell electrolytes were performed. Acetazolamide was found to reduce serum and red cell potassium. No other electrolyte effects were found with any drug. Of the four treatment conditions, acetazolamide and placebo improved hyperactivity; acetazolamide was statistically superior The theoretical significance of this finding is not clear, as this drug is known to have many pharmacological actions. Large amounts of the drug enter the CSF and may directly affect neurons; CSF production is reduced and potassium levels are altered; carbonic anhydrase inhibition occurs. Any one of these actions might be relevant, or for that matter, combinations of these effects may account for the undisputable reduction in hyperactivity noted in this short trial


RESPONDING TO A CALL-TO-arms from the leadership of the National Academies spawned by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the National Research Council's Board on Chemical Sciences & Technology (BCST) is proposing or initiating several projects that will help the U.S. respond to terrorism threats. BCST has an established track record of studies relating to such threats. In a Sept. 20 letter to President George W. Bush, the presidents of the academies suggested the "involvement of the U.S. scientific and technology community in assessing threats, developing countermeasures, and designing responses to terrorist incidents." And at its Oct. 5 meeting, BCST explored ways the chemical sciences community could offer its expertise to meet the immediate and longer term needs of a government challenged by the expanding dimensions of terrorism. At that meeting, BCST decided to expand the scope of its study "Challenges for the Chemical Sciences in the 21st Century" by adding a sixth workshop on national ...


Two pesticides commonly used in spinach were subjected to a field residue trial to ensure safety of terminal residues in the harvest. The residual patterns of two pesticides, which were Azoxystrobin and chlorpyrifos were examined after applying with the recommended dose and their were calculated. Also degradation patterns of pesticides at storage were compared to those at , and removal rates of pesticides by washing spinach with water were measured. Biological half-lives of azoxystrobin and chlorpyrifos were 3.2~3.8 and 3.8~4.7 days, respectively. During the storage period, the degradation patterns were appeared more obviously at than . Removal rates of azoxystrobin and chlorpyrifos were 9.6~90.0% and 17.7~85.8% by various washing methods.