Although human resource development (HRD) professionals enjoy the use of personality tests in their practice, the appeal of these tests to some is harshly criticized by others. Personality tests attract through optimistic descriptions and ease of use for individual and team development while often lacking predictive and discriminant validities. Despite those concerns, the personality‐testing market can be characterized as a dynamic industry, with many professionals using assessments in developmental settings such as management training and executive coaching. The aim of this article is to explore how individual meaning‐making and organizational sensemaking theories help to explain the widespread and sustained use of personality tests in developmental contexts among HRD professionals. Using grounded theory and inductive analysis, we distill meaning from semistructured interviews with 18 HRD professionals. Through pattern analysis, we establish six strategies that describe practical approaches in personality testing: 1. Ethical‐protective, 2. Scientific‐selective, 3. Cautious‐avoiding, 4. Cautious‐embracing, 5. User friendly‐pragmatic, and 6. Knowledgeable‐accommodating. We find that HRD professionals deal with cognitive dissonances and paradoxical situations in their professional personality test use practice on a regular basis. Research limitations and implications for practice and future research are discussed.


Highlight Gene duplication has led to the existence of a large HAP gene family. In this study, three HAP genes were identified that regulate flowering in rice in addition to the previously reported Ghd8/OsHAP3H.


Malachite green is an extensively used biocide in the aquaculture industry world-wide. It has been widely used due to lack of a proper alternative. Pyceze, however, is a pharmaceutical alternative to malachite green, with bronopol as its active ingredient. The catfish Heteropneustes fossilis were exposed for four days to 1/5 th of LC50 values of each of malachite green (0.24mg/l) and Pyceze (0.42mg/l). Different hematological parameters were evaluated. After four days total red blood corpuscles (RBC), haemoglobin (Hb), packed cell volume (PCV), mean corpuscles hemoglobin concentration (MCHC) and mean corpuscles hemoglobin (MCH) values exhibited significant decrease whereas total white blood corpuscles (WBC), clotting time (CT) and mean corpuscles volume (MCV) values were increased in fish of both groups when compared with controls. The present study clearly indicates the toxic effects of these chemicals on hematological parameters of fish. However, exposure to malachite green was found to be more toxic than to Pyceze.


The present invention relates to implantable devices for modular system design for measuring the parameters of the brain. It consists of an electronic unit and a sensor unit that is integrated into it. Electronic unit with transmitter basic components, a receiver, a power and control unit is tightly sealed, reusable after sterilization. Sensor unit has at least one single-lumen catheter, and a sensor disposed therein for pressure and / or temperature measurement.


The present study was carried out to investigate the enzymatic synthesis of fragrance ester from brewery industry effluent by lipase of S. acrimycini NGP 1, S. albogriseolus NGP 2 and S. variabilis NGP 3 which was isolated from the marine sediments of South Indian coastal region. The maximum conversion percentage of ester by lipase producing S. variabilis NGP 3 was 48.72 % and also a strong peak at 1745.21 cm-1 was observed by fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy which indicated the presence of ester (C = O). The synthesized esters were imparted on the knitted fabric by exhaustion and microencapsulation method. In the qualitative evaluation of fragrance test for exhausted and microencapsulated knitted fabric, the judges were rated '2' (indicates poor) and '4' (indicates fair) respectively for the sensorial fragrance emitted from the fabric coated by the ester of S. variabilis NGP 3. In the quantitative evaluation, fragrance releasing percentage from exhausted and microencapsulated knitted fabric was found as 31.14 and 39.78 respectively on 48 hrs of treatment. Both qualitative and quantitative evaluation of fragrance test indicated that, the microencapsulated ester of S. variabilis NGP 3 on the knitted fabric emitted better fragrance than by exhausted fabric. KeywordsEster, exhaustion, microencapsulation, knitted fabric.


Aim:To study the protein expressions of Nrf2,Keap1 and NQO1 in lung cancer tissue.Methods:Immunohistochemistry was applied to detect the protein expressions of Keap1,Nrf2 and NQO1 in 67 cases of lung cancer tissue and adjacent normal tissue.Results:The protein expression of Keap1 was significantly higher in human phaseⅠ,Ⅱ and Ⅲ lung squamous cell carcinoma and phase Ⅲ and Ⅳ lung adenocarcinoma than normal tissue(P 0.05).The protein expression of Nrf2 was significantly lower in human phaseⅠlung squamous cell carcinoma and phase Ⅱ,Ⅲ and Ⅳ lung adenocarcinoma than normal tissue(P 0.05).The protein expression of NQO1 was significantly lower in human phaseⅠlung squamous cell carcinoma and was significantly higher in human phase Ⅱ lung adenocarcinoma than normal tissue(P 0.05).The protein expressions of Keap1,NQO1 and Nrf2 were related with clinical classification and distant metastasis(P 0.05).Conclusion:The abnormal expressions of Keap1,Nrf2,and NQO1 in lung cancer indicate that Keap1-Nrf2 /ARE pathway may play an important role in lung cancer initiation and promotion.


A commercial factor VII concentrate, made from ACD plasma by a process involving successive adsorptions of cryoprecipitate supernatant on DEAE Sephadex and of the resulting supernatant on A1(0H)3 was administered to 10 patients with severe factor VII deficiency.5 patients received only one dose for treatment of single bleeding episodes, the remaining 5 were given multiple doses (47) for spontaneous hemorrhages or for the prevention of surgical bleeding. The factor VII recovery in vivo ranged from 43 to 126% (average 88%) of the assayed in vitro activity of the concentrate. A dose of 0.5 factor VII u/Kg b.w. was found to produce a 1% rise of plasma factor VII level. The mean half-life of injected factor VII as assessed in 7 kinetic studies was 205 min (range 168-234). Spontaneous bleeding was easily controlled by the concentrate and major surgical procedures (two tonsillectomies) could be performed without complications. One patient developed HBsAg positive hepatitis, but otherwise no serious side effects were observed. Factor VII concentrate reduces the risk of precipitating circulatory overload associated with the use of plasma and avoids the unnecessary rise of factor II, IX and X which follows prothrombin complex concentrates while still achieving hemostatic factor VII levels.


For semiconductor technologies, achievement of their ultimate potential depends greatly upon the ability to fully harness and exploit their advanced properties, which in turn depends on understanding these properties and their limiters. As such, the detailed characterization and analysis of advanced semiconductor materials and structures is paramount for the elucidation of these fundamental structure-property relationships. With respect to the investigation of microto nano-scale features, which greatly impact the larger scale (i.e. bulkand device-level) properties of most materials systems, electron microscopy is well-known to provide the kind of important, detailed information that no other class of techniques can match. Characterization of this sort is provides vital feedback into ongoing and future materials and device design, synthesis, and test efforts. To this end, the research described herein utilizes an emerging electron microscopy technique, electron channeling contrast imaging (ECCI), for the rapid microstructural characterization epitaxial semiconductor materials as applied toward three novel applications: imaging dislocations (crystalline defects) at a lattice-mismatched interface, visualization of phase separation within an unstable alloy, and investigating embedded (subsurface) epitaxial quantum dots (QD). Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has historically been the go-to method used for the detailed microstructural characterization of nearly all materials systems, including the epitaxial semiconductor materials of interest here, as it has the necessary resolution and sensitivity to accurately study such systems. However, sample preparation for TEM work can be


Objective: The first case reports of infection with penicillin-resistant pneumococci were made in Australia in 1967 and South Africa in 1977. Since this time the increasing emergence of penicillin- resistant strains of Streptococcus pneumoniae have been a serious therapeutic problem. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to determine the penicillin resistance of S. pneumoniae strains isolated in the laboratory. The effect of procaine penicillin treatment against these strains was also investigated.

Methods: Sensitivity testing was done by disc diffusion method using oxacillin discs. Minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) values were determined in tests with penicillin by the use of E-test (AB Biodisc, Solna, Sweden). Patients were treated with 2 × 800 000 U of i.m. procaine penicillin every 12 h for 10 days.

Results: Thirty-seven strains of S. pneumoniae were isolated from the sputa of adult patients who had pneumonia. Moderately resistant (0.12–1.00 μg/mL) and penicillin-sensitive (≤ 0.06 μg/mL) strains were identified in nine (24.3%) and 28 (75.7%) isolates, respectively. There were no high-level penicillin-resistant strains in the study. There was no therapeutic failure.

Conclusion: These results suggest that procaine penicillin may still be useful in the empirical therapy of pneumococcal pneumonia.


The sowing stage in the crop implantation process is directly related to its productivity due to factors such as adequacy of the speed of operation of the seeder-fertilizer and the spacing between lines adopted according to each region of Brazil. Thus, the objective of the study was to evaluate the agronomic characteristics of corn in relation to the spacing between rows and speeds of operation of the seeder-fertilizer in the sowing process in the eastern Amazon region. The experiment was carried out in the experimental area of the Technological Center for Support of Family Farming, located in the municipality of Parauapebas, in the southeastern region of Pará. The experimental design used was in continuous bands (subdivided into five plots) of four treatments, resulting in the factorial arrangement 2 x 2, consisting of two operating speeds (5.5 and 6.5 km h-1) and two spacings between rows of the seeder-fertilizer (0.75 and 0.55 m), totaling 20 experimental plots to evaluate the crop. The evaluations carried out after sowing were: SD (seed depth), TS (total seeds), IP (initial population), PH (plant height), EH (ear height), SD (stem diameter), FP (final population) and SI (survival index). The use of spacing between lines of 0.75 m promoted an increase in stem diameter (2.10 cm), plant height (2.29 cm) and seed depth (4.97 cm). It was found that the increase in operating speed (6.5 km h-1) and the use of 0.55 m line spacing provides an increase in the final plant population (60,000 plants ha-1).


Without any sample pretreatment,oil samples smeared on slide were directly detected by surface desorption atmospheric pressure chemical ionization mass spectrometry(DAPCI-MS),the mass spectra rapidly recorded by DAPCI-MS were subjected to data processing for classification using improved BP(Back Propagation) neural networks.The results showed that DAPCI-MS was a practically convenient tool for edible and hogwash oil detection without much matrix effect.The improved BP neural network can be applied to the simultaneous determination of hogwash-standard oil and different kinds of edible oil samples.The data demonstrated that the DAPCI-MS combined improved BP neural network methods was a promising technique for edible oil rapid identification with expedite convergence pace and superior prediction precision.


Shellfish is one of the Mollusca phyla of the high economical value obtained from the catches of fishermen in marine environments. Environmental resource for the shells is a place where they live, covering surrounding biota and natural factors. One of the diseases that often affects shells is parasitic disease. To anticipate losses due to parasitic attacks on the shells, it is necessary to know prevalence and the type of ectoparasites affecting the blood shells (Anadara granosa). This should be done from the beginning so that the scallops were already carrying the disease agent can have negative consequences and widespread arrests.
The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of ectoparasites in the blood shells (Anadara granosa). The sampling process was done randomly in the Fish Auction Place (TPI) Sidoarjo. This study was a descriptive survey method. Samples of 150 blood shells (Anadara granosa) were obtained randomly from 3 locations of Fish Auction Place (TPI), including TPI Juanda, TPI Banjar Kemuning, TPI Bluru, each consisting 50 blood shells.
Types of ectoparasites found were Balanus improvisus and Octolasmis neptuni. Prevalence rates of ectoparasites that infested blood shells (Anadara granosa) in Fish Auction Place (TPI) Sidoarjo is Balanus improvisus 54 %, and Octolasmis neptuni 6%


PURPOSE: Provided are a polymer electrolyte excellent in leakage resistance and a lithium battery containing the polymer electrolyte, which can obtain the reliability about electrolyte leakage. CONSTITUTION: The polymer electrolyte contains a polymerization product of a polymer electrolyte composition containing a multifunctional acrylate compound, at least one selected from polyalkylene glycol di(meth)acrylate(formula 1) and polyalkylene glycol (meth)acrylate(formula 2), and an electrolyte solution containing a lithium salt and an organic solvent. And the lithium battery comprises a cathode, an anode, and the polymer electrolyte placed between the cathode and the anode. In the formula, R1-R4 are independently H or CH3 and n and m are independently 1-100,000.


. Motivated by recent works aimed at understanding the status of equilibration and the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis in theories with confinement, we return to the ' t Hooft model, the large- N c limit of ( 1 + 1 ) -d quantum chromodynamics. This limit has been studied extensively since its inception in the mid-1970s, with various exact results being known, such as the quark and meson propagators, the quark-antiquark interaction vertex, and the meson decay amplitude. We then argue this model is an ideal laboratory to study non-equilibrium phenomena, since it is manifestly non-integrable, yet one retains a high level of analytic control through large- N c diagrammatics. We first elucidate what are the non-equilibrium manifestations of the phenomenon of large- N c volume independence. We then find that within the confined phase, there is a class of initial states that lead to a violation of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis, i.e. the system never thermalizes. This is due to the existence of heavy mesons with an extensive amount of energy, a phenomenon that has been numerically observed recently in the quantum Ising chain.


The extended finite element method (XFEM) has emerged as a valid alternative to remeshing for crack propagation problems [1,2] and is now employed with success for three dimensional crack propagation analysis of complex structures [5,6].


We first discuss a more nuanced view of the tax compliance game from the evolving perspective of behavioral economics. This discussion is followed by a more traditional analysis of issues related to taxation of the small drawing on recent insights and policy interventions. Our discussion generally blends issues of tax structure with various facets of tax administration and enforcement. In most instances the tax instrument in question is the VAT since it is the dominant revenue source in most developing countries, though we recognize there are compliance problems with all revenue instruments.


I read with interest the article ''Quantitative OCT Angiography of the Retinal Microvasculature and the Choriocapillaris in Myopic Eyes'' by Al-Sheikh et al. In this article, the authors stated that they obtained a 10-lm-thick slab containing the choriocapillaris, thresholded this by the Otsu's method, and then counted the number of areas with no flow signal, which they called flow voids. (These areas have also been called signal voids.) The authors calculated the mean defect was 20 pixels and used that as a cutoff. They then calculated mean values for the flow voids above 20 pixels. In addition, they stated they used the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to evaluate the normal distribution. The results presented did not seem to abide by what has been published before. I took the liberty of analyzing the images they showed in their Figure 1 to gain further insight into possible reasons for any observed differences. The image of the choriocapillaris and the segmentation thickness is shown in Figure 1A. The fovea measured 85 pixels thick, and the distance between the two segmentation lines in the choroid was 13 pixels. Assuming a fovea thickness of 240 lm, the distance between the two segmentation lines would be approximately 37 lm. Using a different estimate of the foveal thickness anywhere near the physiologic range would not produce a separation of the segmentation lines of 10 lm. Perhaps the authors made a mistake in preparing Figure 1 compared with the acquisition of the data in the first place. In addition, the segmentation slab does not fit the curve of the RPE/Bruch's membrane on the far left and right sides of the scan (arrows). It is common to have segmentation errors in high myopes. I then used the choriocapillaris image provided, rescaled it to 304 · 304 pixels, and masked out the overlays shown in the image (Fig. 1B). I used Otsu's method as per the authors. It is important to deselect the box ''white objects on a black background'' in the FIJI program (http://imagej.nih.gov/ij/; provided in the public domain by the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA) so that the signal voids are thresholded. The authors did not mention whether they took this step. The image was analyzed with the count particles command. The resultant data was analyzed in Excel (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA, USA) and IBM-SPSS (version 21; IBM Corporation, New York, NY, USA). The sizes of the flow voids ranged from 1 to more than 50,000 pixels, and a graph of number of flow voids was highly skewed (Fig. 1C). There were 308 signal voids of any size, of which 272 were 20 pixels or smaller. Thus, more than 88% of the signal voids would be excluded by the requirement to use only those greater than 20 pixels, which is an arbitrary cutoff that has no imaging or physiologic justification. Previous studies have shown that there is a power law relationship between the flow void size


Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia, with approximately 0.9% associated with known genetic mutations. Presenilin 1(PSEN1) gene is one of the most common genes associated with early‐onset familial Alzheimer's disease (EOFAD). We reported a case of EOFAD with Y115C mutation of PSEN1 gene which was the first report in China.


In the parochial church of Saint Matthew in Dobrota, there is a preserved painting by Giovanni Bellini and his workshop, The Mother of God with the Infant Christ. In the iconographic sense it is customary: a bust of Mary with the little Christ in her arms, a parapet in the foreground, green drapery and a landscape in the background. The motif of the parapet indicates the separation of the holy figures from the earthly world. However, this border is not strong: the emotional closeness between the Mother and the Child is transferred into the everyday world of mortals. The parapet is also an association with the Holy Altar. It expresses the Eucharistie, sacramental role of Christ and the Mother of God. The idea about the Mother as the tabernacle of God is underscored by the motif of the curtain. The landscape in the background makes the painting especially valuable. The softness and transparency that characterize it point to a possibility that Bellini created this painting at the end of the 15th or the beginning of the 16th century, at the time when he was under the influence of the Arcadian circle from Asolo. The landscape on the painting is passage moralize, because all the elements - the tower, the garden, the spring, goats, swans - are clearly symbols of the Mother of God. This altar painting, purchased by an unknown native of the Boka Kotorska Bay, and brought back to his birthplace, proves that the spirit of the renaissance also touched the southeastern coast of the Adriatic.


Cold atmospheric plasma jet (CAPJ) is widely used in many fields due to the reactive oxygen species (ROS) and low temperature for heat sensitive products. This paper presents inactivation of bacteria via a pulsed plasma jet with He/O2 mixed gas. To evaluate the disinfection performance, Staphylococcus aureus was used as indicator bacteria for experiments. When the plasma jet dealt with agar plates spraying bacteria, it was found that mixed gas has a better performance than pure inert gas, indicated by disinfection area. The increment of oxygen gas addition had benefit to disinfection ability of plasma jet, while the gas had an opposite effect on jet production in length. The experiments showed the efficacy of Staphylococcus aureus disinfection could reach up to 99.47% via helium/oxygen (2%) plasma jet.


here published for the first time. These texts are discussed at length in the introduction to this second volume. Father Sagüés believes that the four Spanish texts antedate the Modus concionandi; that Fray Diego is author of all of them; that each represents a stage in the evolution of his theory of sacred eloquence; that the Modus concionandi embodies his final, fully developed ideas on the subject; and that this same work—with some additions and amplifications—is a Latin translation of the Modo de predicar. The arguments advanced in support of these assertions are well developed and appear to be based on sound scholarsWp. The Modus concionandi itself needs no recommendation. In the past it often served as a seminary textbook and has long since earned for itself a place among the classics of its field. It has sometimes been published together with the Rhetorica Ecclesiastica of Luis de Granada with wWch it is often compared. Padre Estella's little book on preaching is not a profound work. It was written for preachers, by a preacher who knew well the needs of preachers. Its forty short chapters contain no abstract considerations or theoretical digressions. The distinctive virtues of the Modus concionandi are its brevity, correctness and practicality. Father Sagüés makes one regrettable omission in Ws otherwise complete work. He fails to include the Explanatio super Psalmum CXXXVI, which Fray Diego wrote as a companion work to the Modus concionandi. The Explanatio contains a series of sermons which take their theme from the verses of the Psalm, "Super ilumina Babylonis, etc." These sermons were designed to exemplify the homiletic principles laid down in the Modus. Padre Estella intended that these two complementary works be published together in a single volume. The one is incomplete without the other. Another reason why the Explanatio deserves to be reproduced is that it contains the only extant examples of Fray Diego's preaching. Each of Father Sagüés' two volumes is well indexed and the first contains an excellent bibliography of sacred oratory in Spain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.


Background: Mixture experiments belong to the response surface design category, involving the combination of multiple components to create a product. These products are commonly encountered in daily life. In some cases, mixture experiments yield qualitative responses, such as taste in a fruit punch. Qualitative variables often deviate from a normal distribution. Methods: To address non-normal responses, a generalized linear model, specifically the logistic model, is employed. This study utilizes logistic models and develops suitable search algorithms to obtain saturated D-optimal designs for mixture experiments. The validation of D-optimality criteria is based on the General Equivalence Theorem. Result: For generating locally D-optimal designs, the logistic model is utilized considering non-normally distributed errors. While the procedure remains the same for other nonlinear models, the assumptions regarding error distribution impact the Fisher information matrix (FIM).


The article is devoted to the new type of instructional materials which we name as Express-Olympiads. The Olympiads are based on the concept of semantic matrix to be used to describe interconnections within themes under consideration. Another basic idea of the Express-Olympiads is the testing method: student must estimate some propositions being generated from the semantic matrix. The Olympiads can have final oral part to give possibility for students to explain their choice. The definition of a semantic matrix has been done by authors, the important generalization and similar structures (to its methodical functions) have been considered, possibilities of a semantic matrix for automatic processing of tasks are analyzed and technical aspects of corresponding software development are described in the article.


Debt crisis in Europe continue to spread,all sectors begin to concern the debt problems of national sovereignty as well as the recent debt problems of Chinese local governments.Although the laws and regulations are more stringent restrictions on the local government' borrowing,but this does not mean that the local government debt scale is reasonable.In fact,local government borrowed a lot of debt by means of either public or covert ways,either directly or indirectly.In some areas,local government debt risk has emerged,and potential risks can not be ignored.After analyzing the scale of Chinese local government debt,this paper proposes the idea of resolving debt.


A brief review is given of recent developments in the observation of the solar wind by the method of interplanetary scintillation. The emphasis is on observations of the velocity structure, the electron density and the effect of propagating disturbances in the interplanetary medium as detected principally by intensity and phase scintillation and by spectral broadening.


Objective To evaluate the clinical effect of Carisolv for chemo-mechanical removal of caries.Methods 100 permanent teeth of dental caries were randomly divided into two groups with 50 each.The experiment group were treated with Carisolv while the control group were treated with slow-speed bur.After caries were removed,working time and degree of pain during the treatment were recorded for both methods.Results The time spent for the removal of caries with Carisolv and with slow-speed bur was(6.17±1.92)min and(2.83±0.93)min,respectively(P0.01).The degree of pain with Carisolv was significantly low(P0.01).Conclusions Carisolv chemo-mechanical caries removal was an alternative method of caries treatment.


In order to investigate the students' conceptions in a Professional Education school, regarding the subsumers necessary for the approaches of the astronomical phenomena, a data collection instrument, a semi-structured pre-test, was first elaborated. Student responses were categorized according to the levels presented in the test from the naive and non-coherent (according to current scientific models) to scientifically accepted answers as correct or close to them. In view of the initial results, a didactic proposal was developed using simulation and computational modeling in classes with psychopedagogical interventions in order to verify evidence of significant learning, according to Ausubel's Significant Learning Theory (TAS), throughout the research process not investigated in this research). Thus, it was verified that, few students had some previous knowledge necessary for the learning of the astronomical phenomena.


Oxidative stress is believed as underlined mechanism of exercise induced muscle damage. This study was aimed to investigate
curcuminoid effect on protein oxidation and lipid peroxidation muscle of exercised induced model. Adult male healthy mice were
used as experiment models, grouped in to curcuminoid treated, placebo (corn oil only treated) and untreated group. Protein
carbonyl level was significantly lower in cu
rcuminoid treated group compared with untre
ated group (p =0.003). In the contrary,
the malond
ialdehyde level was not significantly different between those groups (p = 0.092).


Wang and colleagues present the novel candidate gene lysocardiolipin acyltransferase ( Lycat ) driving the blast colony-forming cell (BL-CFC) toward an endothelial and hematopoietic cell differentiation. Because this cell type is believed to be equivalent to the hemangioblast, this finding implies


An investigation into the seed yam supply chain was carried out to identify the components of commercial seed yam supply systems, which affect the supply of clean seed yams by smallholder farmers in Nigeria. Up to 108 respondents were used to generate data for the analysis. Data were analyzed using simple descriptive statistics. A one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to capture the mean ratings across the supply chain, while the Z – statistic was used to test for factors that influence seed yam traders' marketing strategies and extent of performance of marketing functions in the delivery of clean seed yams to farmers. The results of the analysis identified seed yam producers, collector agents (sometimes called yam traders or yam dealers), wholesalers and retailers as the main actors in seed yam supply within and outside the lowland belt of River Niger in Nigeria. The collector agents act as cartel and occupy a central position in the entire supply chain process. They act as intermediaries between farmers and wholesalers especially where farmer groups do not exist and provide a major distribution network or market linkage for the marketing of the seed yams. The study identified pests attack and disease infestation (24.0%), physical injury on the seed yams (65.1%), poor knowledge of seed multiplication techniques (39.4%) short shelf life of the tubers (33.2%), activities of cartels, deplorable road and poor proximity to market (45.5%) as the factors that affect consumer preference and efficient delivery network in the seed yam supply chain. The research also identified poor business practices including sharp practices, lack of trust and confidence amongst major actors (wholesalers and retailers), insufficient working capital (76.3%), amongst others as the factors militating against efficient seed yam supply chain.

 Key words: Supply chain, seed yam dealers, small holder farmers, profitability, marketing strategies, marketing functions.


This paper presents a fully integrated and battery-free 90 nm interface circuit for ac/dc conversion and step up of low-voltage ac signals generated by electromagnetic (EM) energy harvesters. The circuit is composed of two stages: The rectifier in the first stage utilizes an improved ac/dc doubler structure with active diodes internally powered by a passive ac/dc doubler and custom-designed comparators to minimize the voltage drops. With this, the efficiency is enhanced to 67% while providing 0.61 V to 40 μA load. The second stage is a dc/dc converter utilizing a low-voltage charge pump with an on-chip ring oscillator for further voltage step up. The rectifier stage is functional down to 125 mV input peak voltage, and the full interface circuit can maintain more than 1 V dc at 1 MΩ load for input peak voltages higher than 0.4 V. The circuit delivers 2.48 V to a 4.4 MΩ load, when interfaced to an in-house EM harvester, operating under 10 Hz, 0.5 g vibration.


EMAS Registration (Reg. 761/2001/EC) of Bibione Tourist Resort and of Euganeo Thermal Basin took place to guarantee an efficient management of problems connected to an environmentally critical activity: tourism. Both the initiatives, promoted by the San Michele al Tagliamento Municipality and the Colli Euganei Natural Park Administration, have been carried out with the Centro Studi Qualita Ambiente (Quality and Environmental Studies Centre, University of Padova) technical support and anticipated some novelties introduced by the last revision of the EMAS Regulation (Reg. CE n. 761/2001 EMAS). For the first time problems related to the territorial application of an environmental management system were faced and overcome. The extension to a whole territory, in fact, is the peculiar feature of these two innovative projects: thanks to this solution it became possible to optimise the resources used in area environmental management, still satisfying all the stakeholders' needs (citizens, business, local authorities, tourists). Early engage of diverse stakeholders (institutional and not) proved to be essential to the success of that kind of challenge. In June 2002 the European Commission awarded the Bibione Tourist Resort as a reference of excellent application of the EMAS Regulation in Europe.


The efficacy of cetirizine dihydrochloride, a new H1‐antagonist with minimal sedative or anticholinergic side effects was evaluated in 30 patients with chronic idiopathic urticaria. In the first part of the study, cetirizine 10 mg and placebo were compared in a double‐blind cross‐over trial. In the second part, patients who did not respond adequately in the first part were randomized, still double‐blind, to receive 10 mg cetirizine either once daily or twice daily.


Interleaver description of parity-check matrix is proposed for the design of high-performance low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. Based on the S-random interleaver and the dividable S-random interleaver used in turbo codes, two classes of LDPC codes, the g-random codes and the g-random structured codes, are proposed to improve the performance in the waterfall region and slow down the onset of the error floor.


Background Students' perceptions of curricular experience and study effort were compared for a traditional and a new integrative, interdisciplinary curriculum at a single institution. United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) Step 1 scores were examined for subgroup interactions. Method Medical students from four cohorts completed an educational goals survey and USMLE Step 1. Analysis included subgroup performance based on admissions data. Results Students rated the new curriculum as more helpful in achieving educational goals. USMLE Step 1 was significantly higher for students in the lowest quartile of MCAT scores in the new compared with the previous curriculum. Conclusions To understand the outcomes of a large-scale curricular intervention, interactions of curriculum and aptitude should be examined.


The article deals with the results of two-year application of herbicides on winter wheat crops in Priazov zone of Rostov region. Their biological and economic efficiency has been substantiated. The sensibility of certain plants to the herbicides used has been determined. It is found that herbicides based on Sulphonilurea, being highly effective against most of wintering weeds, practically are not effective against such weed species as white goosefoot, pigeon-weed and sandwort, which is to be taken into account when planning measures of protection and when choosing the preparation. The Prima herbicide showed higher effectiveness against the weed components. The highest yield increase was obtained with the use of Derbi-175 herbicide, this being due to its higher tolerance to the crop under study.


A purified protein consisting of an amino acid sequence with more than 90% identity over the full length of the SEQ10 No: 29 and free of all material myelin the central nervous system with which it is naturally associated.


Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) are considered one of the most promising photovoltaic technologies. However,their modest stability remains a major obstacle to their development, especially with regards to ultraviolet (UV) light...


Periodic loading of metallodielectric electromagnetic band gap (MEBG) structures has been rigorously investigated. Miniaturised and broadband MEBG structures have been produced by means of periodically loading a dipole array. A study has been carried out with regards to the loading mechanism, the number of stubs, the topology of the structure and the order of loading. A maximum miniaturisation of 2.5:1 has been achieved and fractional bandwidth enhancement of more than 200%. (5 pages)


We consider two Higgs doublet models with a softly broken U(1) symmetry, for various limiting values of the scalar mixing angles $\alpha$ and $\beta$. These correspond to the Standard Model Higgs particle being the lighter CP-even scalar (alignment) or the heavier CP-even scalar (reverse alignment), and also the limit in which some of the Yukawa couplings of this particle are of the opposite sign from the vector boson couplings (wrong sign). In these limits we impose a criterion for naturalness by demanding that quadratic divergences cancel at one loop. We plot the allowed masses of the remaining physical scalars based on naturalness, stability, perturbative unitarity and constraints coming from the $\rho$ parameter. We also calculate the $h\to \gamma\gamma$ decay rate in the wrong sign limit.


Fiat money contains the seeds of its own destruction. It has no intrinsic value and, yet, it can be exchanged for valuable consumption and production goods. As Hahn (1965) shows, this situation puts fiat money's market value or liquidity premium at the brink of collapse. In this paper I will argue that (1) sticky prices, especially when staggered, provide output backing to fiat money, helping to sustain fiat money's liquidity premium and, thus, lowering the risk of a liquidity meltdown. I call this view the Price Theory of Money; (2) fixed-income assets linked to fiat money, especially if they are perceived to have low counter-party risk (like US Treasury bills, AAA bonds or Asset-Backed Securities) can take advantage of point (1) to become quasi-moneys; (3) this gives incentives to the private sector to create those assets; (4) however, unless protected by a Lender of Last Resort, the new assets' liquidity premium can quickly and massively evaporate in what I call (with a wink to the Bard) a Prospero's Liquidity Trap; (5) the latter lowers the market value of loan collateral and clogs the credit channel, bringing about a credit event or Sudden Stop, with severe output and employment consequences. Hence, this approach shows that the creation of money is the original sin that comes back to haunt us in different, more sophisticated and insidious forms by the hand of the financial sector. These insights are employed to shed new light on, among other things, the perils of floating exchange rates at national and global levels.


Introduction: His Bundle (HB) pacing shows promise in physiological pacing but lead implant at the HB remains a challenge. Anecdotally, patients with large right atria are often challenging. A new delivery catheter is being developed to address this need. The use condition of a delivery catheter is critical toward development of an optimal design. The purpose of this work was to improve delivery catheter design based on quantified anatomy inputs.


The purpose of this research aims at using t the 5th grade of the elementary school's unit "Cuboid and Cube" to design diagnostic system for computerized constructive-response test items. Online computerized diagnostic test, traditionally, most of the test types are true-false question or multiple-choice test, after the students finishing the test, one can only judge if the students' answers are correct or not, but no way to reflect the actual status the students' understanding to the questions. As a result, even when the students don't understand the test, he still has the probability of 50% (true-false question) or 25% (multiple-choice test) to guess the related tests' answers. In contrast, the constructive-response test items which allow students to do them manually, no only truly reflect students' understanding level to the questions, and also avoid students getting the marks by guessing. After finishing the test systematically, in addition to the answers recorded, the process also recorded. By analysing the answering process, can understand the students' really error type. After taking constructive-response items, it'll be a time-consuming hard job on reviewing the test results and scoring. In order to reduce the pressure on scoring for the teachers, this research also designs the automatic diagnostic system. After the students finishing the test, using the automatic diagnostic system, it can score automatically and judge the error types, and it helps the teachers to give remedy teaching on students' mistakes. This research results' abstract is as following: 一、 Comparing the result of the computerized automatic scoring system and expert scoring result, the accuracy rate's average is 95.77%. The result is good. 二、 Comparing the students error type by computerized automatic diagnostic system and expert diagnosis , the accuracy rate's average is 95.73%. The result is good. 三、 The grand accuracy rate's average of Computerized automatic scoring system and the computerized students' error type diagnostic test is95.75%. The result is good. Keywords: Cuboid, Cube, Online diagnostic test, Constructive-Response Items, Error Type.


The fields of industrial applications of the thixoforging applied to steels remain to be set as more conditions as the most suitable materials, the dimensional limits, the limitations associated with tooling, the heating means, etc.To thixoforging in good conditions, the steels must have low melting temperatures and a low temperature slope to achieve complete melting that allows the use of less specific heating means.This article presents the results of thixo-extruded tubes of C05 steel grade, a low carbon steel grade. These experimental tests use flashless forging process on screw press. In this work, a geometrical parts analysis shows a good dimensional performance of thixoforging process. Another feature of thixoforging these tubes is that it pushes the dimensional limits of the thickness of the can wall compared with the case of conventional forging.The fields of industrial applications of the thixoforging applied to steels remain to be set as more conditions as the most suitable materials, the dimensional limits, the limitations associated with tooling, the heating means, etc.To thixoforging in good conditions, the steels must have low melting temperatures and a low temperature slope to achieve complete melting that allows the use of less specific heating means.This article presents the results of thixo-extruded tubes of C05 steel grade, a low carbon steel grade. These experimental tests use flashless forging process on screw press. In this work, a geometrical parts analysis shows a good dimensional performance of thixoforging process. Another feature of thixoforging these tubes is that it pushes the dimensional limits of the thickness of the can wall compared with the case of conventional forging.


FOR more years than one cares to remember centralized slaughtering JL has been held before public health officers as the cure for all the ills connected with the verylarge number of more or less insanitary slaughterhouses scattered throughout the country. It has been estimated that some sixteen thousand private slaughter-houses exist, and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that nothing had been done to secure the affective


An unidentified Latin verse quotation in Mr. Smirke proves to derive from John Barclay's Satyricon (1607).  This discovery resolves what had seemed a textual crux in the standard edition of Mr. Smirke.  It also invites review of how Marvell deploys this material for his present purpose, what confessional considerations arise from the Catholic Barclay's contribution, and whether Barclay's example as a Menippean satirist informs Marvell's successes in this kind.


mon things are commonplace, not because of themselves, but... because of our way of regarding them"; however, because of the larger significance of the subject involved, which is precisely that of the artist's problem of content, it would perhaps be better to let Thomas Hardy speak on this matter himself. And he did, in no equivocal terms: "A story must be exceptional enough to justify its telling. We tale tellers are all Ancient Mariners, and none of us is warranted in stopping Wedding Guests... unless he has something more unusual to relate than the


The Galileo Ultraviolet Spectrometer (UVS) team has detected the Shoemaker-Levy 9 fragment G impact on Jupiter in data recently played back from the spacecraft tape recorder. A 20% brightening of the disc-integrated signal of Jupiter was detected at 292 nm during a swath across Jupiter that lasted 1.6 sec and was centered at 1994-July 18 (day 199)/07:33:31 UT (all times in this paper are corrected to be the time of the event as seen from Earth). The emission brightness, when combined with simultaneous Photopolarimeter Radiometer (PPR) measurements at 945 nm, is consistent with thermal radiation at a temperature of 7800 (+500, −600) K emitted over an area of 40 (+60, −25) km². No excess signal was seen during swaths 5 1/3 sec before and after the detection swath.


SiC particles reinforced Mg-2.51Zn-0.629Zr matrix composites with different contents of SiC particles were prepared by powder metallurgy.The microstructure and phase composition of the matrix alloy and the composites were analyzed by optical microscopy,scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction.The variation relations of damping properties vs.frequency and temperature of the matrix alloy and the composites were investigated by means of LMA-1 low-frequency mechanical relaxation instrument The results show that SiC particles distributed homogenously in the composites when the content of SiC particles was 15vol%.Compared with the matrix alloy,the addition of SiC particles obviously increased the damping properties of the composites.The damping properties of the composite with 9vol%SiC particles were the best,whose internal friction-temperature curves had internal friction peaks at 100-150℃,250-300℃and 350-400℃.


PURPOSE: A domestic water supplying system is provided to easily remove harmful microorganism, inorganic and organic materials, disinfectant, the byproduct of disinfectant and herbicides. CONSTITUTION: The electrolysis tank without film and the hydrogen water storing bath prevent passed water from having water residues, scales, transforms and stores hydrogen water through electrolysis process.The second active carbon filter removes the smell of hydrogen water through the electrolysis tank without film and the hydrogen water storing bath. The filtered hydrogen water is moved to the purified water part. When the hydrogen water in the drinking part of the purified water part is not used for a long time, the hydrogen water is returned to the electrolysis tank without film the hydrogen water storing bath. [Reference numerals] (10) Reverse osmosis or nano-filter; (11) Electrolysis tank and a hydrogen water storing bath; (12) Fourth active carbon filter; (13a) Circulation pump; (15) Third active carbon filter; (2) Screen filter; (3) First active carbon filter; (4) Precise or limitless filter; (5) Electrolysis tank without a film, and the hydrogen water storing bath; (6) Second active carbon filter; (7) Pressure increasing pump; (8) Boiler; (AA) Raw water (tap water, underground water); (BB) Toilet; (CC) Washing machine; (DD) Sink; (EE) Shower; (FF) Cooking; (GG) Drinking; (HH) Heating


A new brake-by-wire system based on direct-drive electro-hydraulic brake unit for flexibly modulating brake force is designed to improve braking performance and ride comfort. The structure of the brake unit and the composition of the system are discussed in detail. The simulation and experiment are completed to verify the brake unit is fast responsible and reliable after studying the unit model. At last, a vehicle model based on Matlab/Simulink and AMESim is established to verify that this new system is of fast response and is able to control brake force on every wheel independently and continuously.


Sustainable development education respects differences and encourages different assessment methods to evaluate students. During the epidemic, many colleges' examinations changed from offline to online. How to fully consider students' process learning status and make a reasonable evaluation of students is worthy of research. Based on the process learning data of a course in a university in China, this study establishes a discrete Hopfield neural network model to classify the test samples. In the process of modelling, the grey correlation analysis method is used to optimize the elements affecting students' comprehensive evaluation index, and it solves the problem of failure of the model due to the large gap between the factors in the traditional discrete Hopfield neural network model. %en, the entropy right TOPSIS method is used to rank samples with the same evaluation grade. Teachers can objectively evaluate each student's process learning performance according to the ranking results. Finally, the article compares and analyzes the evaluation results of various different methods. %e analysis results believe that the optimized discrete Hopfield neural network is feasible in the process learning evaluation, and the model evaluation results are more objective and comprehensive.


The invention belongs to the technical field of cosmetics, and particularly relates to mild lifting and repairing eye cream and a preparation method thereof. The eye cream is prepared from retinyl palmitate and palmitoyl oligopeptide, preferably retinyl palmitate, palmitoyl oligopeptide, astragalus membranaceus root extract, rhizoma atractylodis macrocephalae extract and bupleurum falcatum root extract. The composition is prepared on the basis of screening. Researches indicate that the composition has good effects of relieving skin wrinkles and the like, and is added into substrate to prepare eye cream. The eye cream has mild, lifting and repairing effects, and has good stability.


This field study investigated the relationship of work demands experienced by 41 male senior administrators of probation/parole/aftercare services and the well-being of their spouses. Data were collected by questionnaires completed independently by the husbands and their wives. Analysis indicated that wives whose husbands reported greater occupational demands reported greater life demands, less self-worth, and less life satisfaction. Some work demands were associated with greater spouses' satisfaction, however, suggesting that complex frameworks must be developed to understand occupational stress and the work-family interface. Work demands had an influence beyond the workplace and into the lives of spouses.


The grid approximation of an initial-boundary value problem is considered for a singularly perturbed parabolic convection-diffusion equation with a convective flux directed from the lateral boundary inside the domain in the case when the convective flux degenerates inside the domain and the right-hand side has the first kind discontinuity on the degeneration line. The high-order derivative in the equation is multiplied by ε2, where ε is the perturbation parameter, ε ∈ (0, 1]. For small values of ε, an interior layer appears in a neighbourhood of the set where the right-hand side has the discontinuity. A finite difference scheme based on the standard monotone approximation of the differential equation in the case of uniform grids converges only under the condition N−1 = o(ε), N−1 0 = o(1), where N +1 and N0 +1 are the numbers of nodes in the space and time meshes, respectively. A finite difference scheme is constructed on a piecewise-uniform grid condensing in a neighbourhood of the interior layer. The solution of this scheme converges εuniformly at the rate O(N−1 lnN +N−1 0 ). Numerical experiments confirm the theoretical results.


A new wideband balanced power dividing/combining network with high isolation is proposed in this paper. The differential/common mode equivalent circuits of the balanced network can be easily reduced based on the matrix transformation. Two double-sided parallel-strip line (DSPSL) 180 ° phase inverters loaded with four isolation resistors are used to realize high isolation for the power division output ports. A planar wideband balanced network with bandwidth 52.7% of (1.68-2.84 GHz, |Sdd21, Sdd31| > - 4 dB) for the differential mode and high isolation for the differential/common mode is designed and fabricated. The measured results show good agreement with the theoretical expectations.


. 1 Configurators are applied widely to automate the specification processes at companies. The literature describes the industrial application of configurators supporting both sales and engineering processes, where configurators supporting the engineering processes are described more challenging. Moreover, configurators are commonly integrated to various IT systems within companies. The complexity of configurators is an important factor when it comes to performance, development and maintenance of the systems. A direct comparison of the complexity based on the different application and IT integrations is not addressed to a great extent in the literature. Thus, this paper aims to analyse the relationship of the complexity of the configurators, which is based on parameters (rules and attributes), in terms of first different applications of configurators (sales and engineering), and second integrations to other IT systems. The research method adopted in the paper is based on a survey followed with interviews where the unit of analysis is based on operating configurators within a company.


The sustainable development of the cities of Latin America and the Caribbean poses important challenges for the urban territorial policies at their local, s...


Abstract Membrane nanotubes have been identified as a dynamic way for cells to connect and interact over long distances. These long and thin membranous protrusions have been shown to serve as conduits for the transport of proteins, organelles, viral particles, and mRNA. Nanotubes typically appear as thin and cylindrical tubes, but they can also have a beads-on-a-string architecture. Here, we study the role of membrane mechanics in governing the architecture of these tubes and show that the formation of a bead-like structure along the nanotube can result from a local heterogeneity in the membrane due to protein aggregation or due to membrane composition. We present numerical results that predict how membrane properties, protein density, and tension compete to create a phase space that governs the morphology of a nanotube. We also find that the stability of multiple beads is regulated by an energy barrier that prevents two beads from fusing. These results suggest that the membrane-protein interaction, protein aggregation, and membrane tension closely regulate the tube radius, number of beads, and the bead morphology.


A semiconductor device for light emission having a plurality of epitaxial layers with an n-type layer for light emission and a p-type layer for light reflection. The p-type layer has at least one seed layer for an outer layer of a conductive metal. The at least at least one seed layer is a material for providing a buffer for differential thermal expansion of the outer layer and the light reflecting layer.


Wavelet analysis, although used extensively in disciplines such as signal processing, engineering, medical sciences, physics and astronomy, has not yet fully entered the economics discipline. In this discussion paper, wavelet analysis is introduced in an intuitive manner, and the existing economics and finance literature that utilises wavelets is explored. Extensive examples of exploratory wavelet analysis are given, many using Canadian, US and Finnish industrial production data. Finally, potential future applications for wavelet analysis in economics are also discussed and explored.


To provide a comparison with a conventional intraocular lens can be made more stably and easily inserted into the intraocular lens insertion device and the eye of the needle. It can be provided as compared with a conventional intraocular lens can be made more stably and easily inserted into the eye the intraocular lens insertion device and a needle, which is configured by an intraocular lens (x) in the traveling direction of the lens side ( 100) of the support (102) onto the projection portion (21) and bent backward direction, whereby the intraocular lens (100) with the mouth portion (13) released from, it can be formed in a U-shape from bent portion of the support portion (102) is difficult to be discharged from floating, so compared with the conventional intraocular lens 100 can be made stable and more easily inserted into the eye.


Integrated pest management tactics are associated with and can be used simultaneously at various spatial and temporal scales. Integrating pest management tactics requires careful matching of tactics with their most relevant spatial scales, rather than forcing all tactics to be relevant at a single scale, such as an individual field for a single cropping cycle. A case study is provided of the evolution of control tactics from a focus on individual fields with a short time horizon, to improved pest management throughout a region. The case study is of diamondback moth control in the Bajio region of Mexico, a serious enough challenge to force cooperation at regional scales and cause the shift in tactics described. At the largest spatial and temporal scales, control included establishment of a host-free period that requires cooperation and practical changes in production practices throughout the agroecosystem. A time series analysis of diamondback moth population trends in the Bajio, measured by various kinds of data in different locations and over different time periods, was used to document changes in the pattern of pest population densities over time; changes in the pest population were then compared with changes over time in control strategies and in the agroecosystem itself. Although diamondback moth populations have increased and the pattern of population fluctuations has changed between 1988 and 2004, management of individual fields can still minimize pest damage through careful use of available control measures. The greater potential for improving control of diamondback moth, however, appears to be changing the agroecosystem itself at larger spatial and temporal scales, perhaps by production and processing of additional crops in the region.


IN A RECENT article, Kenneth Gergen and Kurt Back set forth the hypothesis that aging individuals become more likely to give "no opinion," "uncertain," or similar neutral responses to questions asked by opinion polls and other attitudinal surveys.' They derived this hypothesis from a more general one formulated by Elaine Cumming and William Henry, which states that transition from middle age to senescence is characterized by progressive disengagement from other members of society.2 Gergen and Back seem to believe that the disengagement hypothesis implies both that aging people become less likely to have opinions on the topics with which poll questions deal and that they become less likely to express to the interviewer any opinions they may have.3 To test their hypothesis, Gergen and Back selected several public opinion polls and analyzed the responses to all the questions which allowed a "no opinion" or similar noncommittal response. When the respondents were divided into three broad age levels, it was found that the oldest persons were most prone to noncommittal responses and the youngest ones were most likely to express opinions. Gergen and Back concede, however, that the lower average level of formal


The long-term stagnation of Serbia's exports is a limiting factor for further economic growth. Therefore, increasing exports is seen as a development necessity. The trend of international networking and multicultural business environment represents a new type of requirement for the management of Serbian companies, both at the national and local level. Their main goal is to contribute to a more efficient integration of the domestic economy into global trade and production flows. In this way, exports become one of the most important determinants of successful and sustainable economic development. Only 30% of companies in the tradable sector of the Serbian economy are active exporters, while the remaining 70% of companies are oriented exclusively to doing business in the country. Although most small and medium-sized companies in the tradable sector are exporters, a relatively small number of micro-enterprises have managed to expand their business abroad, which has had a significant impact on the relatively low share of exporters in the total number of companies in Serbia. In general, exporters are more successful and dynamic, as well as twice as productive, as non-exporting companies. The main goal of this paper is to identify the sector of small, medium enterprises and entrepreneurs (SMEs) with development potentials to increase exports and thus create the conditions for these potentials to be used to a greater extent than before. In this way, SMEs can be helped to increase their competitiveness in the international market. This will enable SMEs to make and make a greater contribution to the development of the domestic economy, as well as to broader economic and social priorities. In addition, this paper should indicate which sectors have obvious market potential but at the same time difficulties in achieving their goals and fully realizing that potential. The results of this research should help to design various actions whose implementation would provide adequate support to the identified sectors while minimizing the constraints faced by these sectors.


Available data shows an increase in international migration departing from Costa Rica, mainly to the United States. Based on the data obtained from two surveys conducted with potential emigrants and families with members living abroad, this paper is aimed at understanding their reasons for emigrating. In addition, some socio-economic impacts in four suburbs with high rates of emigration are identified. From a political economy approach, the most appropriate framework to better understand these emigration cases is discussed.  Moreover, the transformation of the employment and productive matrix followed by Costa Rica during the last three decades, as well as the country's form of insertion into the international economy are two structural factors strongly linked to the emigration of the subjects studied in this paper.


KLeOS is a Knowledge and Learning Organisation System which reflects the hierarchical organisation of learning into activities, episodes and projects (Tough, 1971; Vavoula & Sharples, 2002), and allows the user to organize and manage their learning experiences and resources as a visual timeline, while at the same time visualising their episodic learning memories. The prototype demonstrates functionality at three different levels, allowing the user to (a) manage their learning projects; (b) monitor the learning episodes they complete and associate them with projects where applicable; and (c) perform learning activities within episodes. In addition, it incorporates a knowledge map, which the user updates as they progress through their learning experiences and which reflects their semantic learning memories. The learning episodes (episodic learning memories) are interlinked with the relevant knowledge nodes in the map (semantic learning memories) allowing for browsing of past learning experiences and knowledge. KLeOS has been evaluated to assess its (a) usability and desirability, and (b) its effectiveness as a knowledge retrieval tool, against R-KLeOS, a reduced version of the software which does not support the interlinking between episodic and semantic learning memories. Although the users identified some shortcomings in the interface design of KLeOS, overall it was rated as a usable and useful tool that they would be willing to adopt. No significant difference was found between the effectiveness of KLeOS and R-KLeOS as knowledge retrieval tools, however there was some evidence that more prolonged use with real-world meaningful learning tasks might favour KLeOS.


On October 16, 1901, I opened the corpse of a student of the Kazan Veterinary Institute, V.A., 22 years old, who died in the therapeutic department of the faculty clinic. Clinical diagnosis was: Morbus maculosus Werlhofii.


According to the organization art,the simple aesthetic of indoor decorative elements,the invisible cultural connotation,the treatment of indoor space and the analysis of the ecological design of the folk residence space in He'nan,the paper explores the folk residence decoration on the modern indoor design and its application of the modern indoor design.


The means that the Swedish State has to legitimize and standardize different perspectives of women and their sexuality is significant. Persecution of gender and sexuality is today something that ca ...


The influence of post-sintering annealing on the dielectric relaxation behavior was studied in (Sr1−1.5xLax)TiO3 in the temperature range of 1.5–300 K. The results show that the dielectric permittivity peaks with frequency dispersion can be gradually and absolutely eliminated by annealing in an oxidizing atmosphere, and recovered by annealing in a reducing atmosphere; this implies that these anomalies are closely related to oxygen vacancies.


We studied the effect of steroid hormone (prednisolone), and mitomycin C on the growth of the B lymphocyte colonies.Also we described an in vitro method for normal human peripheral B cell colony formation. After one day preincubation with 3)μg of PHA-P, irradiated T lymphocytes and a non-T cell population, these lymphocytes were cultured in methylcellulose gel with 30μg of PHA-P. Colonies more than 50 cells were counted under a dissecting microscope. A clear relationship between the number of seeded cells and the growth of colonies was seen in methylcellulose gel. 570±333 colonies per 5.0×105 seeded cells were detected at 4 days of culture. Cells in colonies had surface immunoglobulin as detected using FITClabeled anti-human F (ab)2 rabbit serum by fluorescent microscope, and Giemsa staining revealed differentiation to plasma cells and lymphocytes but no E rosette-forming ability. Then the effect of steroid hormone (prednisolone), and mitomycin C on the growth of B lymphocyte colonies was studied. When these drugs were added for 60 min. before the suspention culture, the inhibition effect of the colony growth was observed by prednisolone but no mitomycin C. When these drugs were added in the semi-solid culture, the inhibition effect of the colony growth was observed with dose dependence.These results suggest that the human B lymphocyte colony forming cells may be noncycling but sensitive to prednisolone.


In this paper, a coplanar waveguide (CPW) fed continuous transverse stub (CTS) antenna array with beam steering capability is proposed and validated for cognitive radio applications. A novel reconfigurable negative reflect index (NRI) phase shifter is integrated with the CTS element to provide continuous phase states. The proposed phase shifter is based on CPW transmission line and consists of a series capacitor and two groups of shunt inductors. The continuous switching mechanism is achieved by adopting two groups of pin diodes and one varactor. A three-stage reconfigurable NRI phase shifters are integrated with the CPW-CTS antenna array, and a beam steering range of 81°-107° is achieved with stable gain.


This study aims to see the level of SAK ETAP implementation in oil palm plantation cooperatives in West Sumatra and Jambi. The oil palm plantation cooperative was chosen, because the existence of this cooperative contributed greatly to the national palm oil exports, more than 20 million Indonesians rely on this sector, but very few studies have made palm oil cooperatives the object of research. The results show that the level of SAK ETAP implementation in oil palm plantation cooperatives is generally very good, in other words has implemented a large part of SAK ETAP. The results also show that all respondents agree about the implementation and benefits received by the cooperative with the application of SAK ETAP. The average difference test results indicate that there is no difference in the application of ETAP SAK to the manager and supervisor of oil palm plantation cooperatives in West Sumatera and Jambi. The result of difference test of average perception shows the difference of perception to SAK ETAP on the manager and supervisor of oil palm plantation cooperative in West Sumatera and Jambi.


s 1 Reviews in Antiviral Therapy & Infectious Diseases 2020_1 10th International Workshop on HIV & Women 6 7 March 2020, Boston, MA, USA


Holidays are a time for reunion and celebration, for making new memories and honoring old ones. And while they're often a chance to relax and take it easy, holidays can also be busy and stressful — sometimes they're the perfect excuse to cut a few corners and take a break from healthy habits. Luckily, there are some easy ways to make good health and well-being part of your holiday tradition.


The aim of this paper is to study the asymptotic properties and oscillation of the n-th order delay differential equation


In the 20th century, fossil fuels (coal, gas, oil) were a key force in the growth of our societies.
In the 21st century, the use of the biomass for energy and chemical purposes is considered to be a realistic economic perspective whose sustainability conditions must be studied with due consideration for its interactions with the food sector. INRA has chosen to meet the challenge of an integrated approach for agrofuels, agromaterials and new molecules, aware that the development of plant chemistry means taking the complexity of the plant in its entirety into consideration.


Abstract: We have designed a chat application that involves multiple clients, utilizing a socket module to establish client-server connections. These sockets serve as internal terminals for data transmission and reception. Two sockets are present on every solitary network. TCP sockets are used in the implementation of this application . The socket has been attached to a localhost or a machine port. When a client is involved, a socket connection will be established with the server. The connection will be on the same port as the server-side code. The application is built to allow multiple clients to connect to a central server and exchange messages with each other in real-time. The implementation of the application includes the use of multi-threading, socket programming, and JavaFX for the user interface. The paper discusses the design and implementation of the chat application and provides an evaluation of its performance.


This paper presents the method of estimating of congestions in a partial mesh communication network comprises of many nodes such as the internet. The objectives are to characterize and model the non-stationary packet arrival process and to apply the model in adaptive routing algorithms. To achieve this, Bayesian estimation algorithms are implemented and used to determine the congestion of packet-queues in a prescribed interval time. The model is implemented in a state-space formation for estimating the arrival rate and occupancy at a network node. Bayesian method is used to predict the optimal size of the state vector in the proposed model with the aim to eliminate congestion through application of suitable adaptive routing algorithm.


I attempt in this thesis to study, how the better model of pre-disposition inquiry for juvenile delinquent should be, according to article 24 - 27 of...


In most black tea producing countries, the recommended plucking standard is tender shoots of two leaves and a bud, but occasionally some producers are knownto have used less tender shoots of more than two leaves. The argument for the use of coarse plucking is the extra biomass obtained in a plucking round. However, a coarse plucking standard reduces the plucking frequency as extra time must be allowed for the production of more shoots. Over an extended period, there may not be significant advantage in the biomass production gained by coarse plucking, as fine plucking leads to more frequent pluckings. This study was undertaken to quantify the variations in chemical composition, if any, arising from different plucking standards, and to relate such changes to the quality of black tea. The teas used in this study were obtained from clone 6/8 at the Tea Research Foundation of Kenya. The plucked shoots were withered for 16 to 18 hours to lose 28 to 30% of their original weight. The teas were manufactured by the miniature "Crush, Tear and Curl (CTC)" method in duplicate. Theaflavins (TF),1 ' 2) thearubigins (TR)1 )2) and caffeine2) are necessary for high-quality teas. Although the exact contribution of TR is elusive, positive relationships between TF contents and prices or taster's evaluations have been obtained.2) Ash, total water-soluble solids and crude fiber contents of tea are also important for tea quality.3)


Novel liquid crystals(LCs)photoalignment system, which exhibits outstanding photosensitivity and excellent thermal stability, has been developed based on new soluble polyimide. Homogeneous alignment of liquid crystals(LCs)was induced by soluble polyimide(CMPI)having chloromethyl side groups upon irradiation of linearly polarized UV light(LPUVL)with short irradiation time. The photoaligned film was thermally stable without destroying LC alignment when LC cell was stored at 85°C for 14 days. The pretilt angle of LC decreased with irradiation time, which is contributed by the increased polar surface energy of CMPI film after irradiation of LPUVL. FT-IR spectra confirmed that the photosensitivity of polyimide was improved greatly by introducing chloromethyl group and the alignment of LC was contribute by the photo-decomposition of polyimide main chain upon irradiation.


Abstract The ferromagnetic transition temperature and the oxygen isotope effect in the doped manganites are evaluated using a model based on the dynamic Jahn-Teller effect on the bridging oxygen ion (the ion between Mn3+ and Mn4+). The diabatic representation is used to estimate the hopping time of the extra electron in the double exchange model. The transition temperature depends strongly on the Franck-Condon factor and, therefore, on the oxygen mass.


The scale of e-commerce data on Internet has expanded day by day since consumers do business through websites more and more. Vendors on the Internet desire to find out the competitors and their information in order to adjust the business strategy. This paper proposes an approach to detect the vendors with competitive relationship by taking advantage of the semantic and structured characteristics of RDF triples. Several mining tasks are designed to assist finding this kind of information, and an unsupervised cluster analysis model is generated to automatically meet this mining need. The experiment dataset is built by web pages crawled from an e-commerce website TaoBao. Our model is proved to be efficient and effective on this corpus. In the course of mining tasks, MapReduce was used as a tool to deal with the scalability.


We introduce a new sparse recovery paradigm, called NORMED PURSUITS, where efficient algorithms from combinatorial and convex optimization interface for interpretable and model-based solutions. Synthetic and real data experiments illustrate that NORMED PURSUITS can significantly enhance the performance of both hard thresholding methods and convex solvers in sparse recovery.


In this research,six kinds of special fertilizer for tobacco which were selected from the common market were adopted to study their effects on the botanical character,the yield as well as the content of N,P and K in the tobacco under the same amount of fertilizer and the same management.The results were as follows: special fertilizer for tobacco could benefit its agricultural properties and improve its yield and quality,but the difference among each fertilizer treatments was not significant and application of special fertilizer decreased the amount of N while increased the amount of P and K in the tobacco.


In celebrating the history of the black nursing experience, the author (a RN and EdD) relates the role model-worthy biographies of three Nursing Hall of Fame women: Mary Eliza Mahoney, Martha Minerva Franklin, and Adah Belle Samuels Thoms. Includes substantial appendices on the National Association


CeO 2 and Eu 2 O 3 were dopped in LiNbO 3 ,for the purpose to grow Ce:LiNbO 3 and Ce:Eu:LiNbO 3 monocrystals.The crystals were polarized and then underwent an oxidization -reduction treatment.The x-ray diffraction spectra of the crystals were taken and the lattice constants were calculated.The absorption spectra,exponential gain coefficient and response time of the crystals were measured.It can be se en from the experimental results that the lattice constants of Ce:Eu:LiNbO 3 was smaller than those of Ce:LiNbO 3 and the red shift level of absorption edge of Ce:Eu:LiNbO 3 was greater than that of Ce:LiNbO 3 .The exponential gain coefficient of Ce:Eu:LiNbO 3 crystal was larger than that of Ce:LiNbO 3 and the response time of Ce:Eu:LiNbO 3 was shorter than that of Ce:LiNbO 3 .Thus,Ce:Eu:LiNbO 3 crystal is an excellent photorefractive crystalline material.


TPS8587 Background: Concurrent chemoradiotherapy with etoposide and platinum (carboplatin/cisplatin) plus the anti‒PD-1 antibody pembrolizumab (pembro) has shown antitumor activity and acceptable safety in patients with limited-stage small-cell lung cancer (LS-SCLC). The poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibitor, olaparib, has shown clinical activity in combination with checkpoint inhibitors in patients with SCLC. KEYLYNK-013 (NCT04624204) is a randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind phase 3 trial of pembro plus concurrent chemoradiation therapy followed by pembro with or without olaparib in patients with newly diagnosed LS-SCLC. Methods: Eligible patients are those aged ≥18 years with previously untreated LS-SCLC, ECOG PS 0/1, and adequate pulmonary function. Patients are randomized 1:1:1 to receive pembro 200 mg Q3W (groups A and B) or pembro placebo (saline) Q3W (group C) during the chemoradiation phase. All patients also receive 4 cycles of chemotherapy (etoposide 100 mg/m2 on days 1, 2, and 3 of each cycle and investigator's choice of carboplatin AUC 5 mg/mL/min or cisplatin 75 mg/m2 on day 1 of each cycle) with definitive thoracic radiotherapy (total dose of 45 Gy in 30 fractions twice daily over 3 weeks or 66 Gy in 33 fractions once daily over 6.5 weeks starting on day 1 of cycle 2). After chemoradiation, prophylactic cranial irradiation is strongly recommended for patients with CR/PR or at investigator's discretion for patients with SD. Postchemoradiation patients receive pembro 400 mg Q6W plus olaparib placebo (group A), or pembro 400 mg Q6W plus olaparib 300 mg BID (group B), or pembro placebo plus olaparib placebo (group C) for 9 cycles/12 months. Randomization is stratified by ECOG PS (0 vs 1), SCLC stage (I/II vs III), radiation fractionation (twice vs once daily), and region (east Asia vs North America/western Europe/UK/Australia vs rest of world). Tumor imaging occurs at baseline, within 12 weeks of cycle 1 day 1, followed by Q9W to the end of year 2, Q12W in year 3, Q16W in year 4, every 6 months in year 5, and annually thereafter. Imaging is assessed per RECIST v1.1 by blinded independent central review. AEs are monitored from randomization to 30 days after cessation of study treatment (90 days for serious AEs) and graded per NCI-CTCAE v5.0. Health-related quality of life is assessed using EORTC-QLQ-C30 and QLQ-LC13. Primary endpoints are OS and PFS per RECIST v1.1 by blinded independent central review. OS and PFS are estimated by the Kaplan-Meier method. Between-group differences will be evaluated with stratified log-rank tests and Cox proportional hazard models with Efron's method of tie handling. Secondary endpoints include ORR, duration of response, safety, and patient-reported outcomes. The study began enrollment in December 2020. Clinical trial information: NCT04624204.


The paper describes design and practical realization of software for laboratory purposes to control FPGA-based photonic and electronic equipment. There is presented a universal solution for all relevant devices with FPGA chips and gigabit optical links. The paper describes architecture of the software layers and program solutions of hardware communication based on Internal Interface (II) technology. Such a solution was used for superconducting Cavity Controller and Simulator (SIMCON) for the TESLA experiment in DESY (Hamburg). A number of practical examples of the software solutions for the SIMCON system were given in this paper.


In this work an approach is used to obtain a planing boat's water pressure distribution in order to calculate the dynamic lift ratio in planing condition. The water pressure distribution and the dynamic lift ratio are applicable to the initial design phase of a planing boat having vee- or wave- shaped bottom with chine. A boat gets larger dynamic lift when speed increases in planing condition. The lift causes hull to rise and have smaller water surface area. The longitudinal dynamic lift distribution is determined by the momentum change theory considering wetted wedge's spread. The numerical results are in a good agreement with model test data and actual craft records.


Electronic speckle pattern interferometry pioneered 30 years ago, represents one of the most powerful tools for industrial nondestructive testing and metrology. Main advantages include speed of data acquisition and processing, relative simplicity and possibility to work outside the laboratory. Steady progress in optoelectronics, fiber technology, and informatics facilitates the development of compact and robust systems for new tasks in engineering analysis.


Introduction: Covid 19 pandemic continues to be a major health problem worldwide. Despite being more than one year into pandemic, the treatment remains controversial and systemic steroids have shown some benefit. On the flip side rampant use of glucocorticoids has potentially resulted in secondary bacterial and fungal infection. In the early part of pandemic less than 1 % cases were fungal. In 2nd wave of pandemic it has been increasing as an opportunistic infection in covid 19 recovered patients. Mucormycosis infection typically effects immunocompromised individuals, uncontrolled diabetics mellitus, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, malignancy. Here i report association of covid19, diabetes mellitus, steroid risk in mucormycosis. Material and methods: A retrospective observational study conducted at tertiary centre, involving all patients with mucormycosis during may 2021 to july 2021.Twenty patients diagnosed with mucormycosis were included in this study. The demographic features, predisposing conditions, clinical features, radiological manifestation and patients outcome were collected from medical records. Results: Predisposing factors were identified in 20 patients5 patients are female, 15 patient are male with diabetics in 17 patients with history of covid in 14 patients, 3 patients non covid. History of covid in 17 patients, 3 non covid patients. Steroids usage was seen in 15 patients of which 14 patients are diabetic and 1 non-diabetic, 11 patients had uncontrolled diabetics.1 patient had ckd. All patients tissue samples collected and submitted for histopathological examination showed fungal hyphae. All our patients MRI was done and extent of involvement of sinuses involvement in 12 patients, rhino orbital in 6 patients, rhino orbital cerebral in 2 patients.18 patients were recovered and 2 patients were expired. Discussion: Diabetes mellitus directly contributes to mucormycosis risk by hyperglycation of iron sequestering upregulation of cell receptors, defects in phagocytic function and expression of receptors that mediate host cell invasion. Covid 19 has been shown to affect the beta cells of pancreas, causing metabolic derangement leading to diabetes mellitus. Overuse, misuse and rampant use of steroids in covid 19 patients have a increased chance of mucormycosis. Diabetes mellitus when combined with SARS cov 2 virus and steroid therapy, appears to be a vicious cycle of hyperglycemia and immunosuppression, which leads to mucormycosis Conclusion: The second wave of covid 19 in India has led to more deaths than first wave and in just few weeks.b.1.617.2 delta variant became dominant strain, more infectious and somehow promoting entry of mucorales in to patients. It was declared as epidemic on 21 st may 2021 as there were huge rise in cases. Strict glycemic control, proper sanitization and covid preventive measures should be strictly followed to prevent this deadly fungal infection.


The influence of substrate dislocations on passivation behavior of a pure iron in pH 8.4 borate buffer solution was investigated. Cold rolling was employed to induce dislocation in the annealed substrate. The dislocation density on the cold rolled substrate depended on the reduction ratio ( Red ) and was maximum at Red = 60%. The electric charge consumed in the passivation and the passivity-maintaining current increased with increase in the dislocation density. EIS revealed that the dislocation exposed to the iron surface increased donor density in the passive film and reduced charge transfer resistance for the film aging. It was also demonstrated by rf-GDOES that a thick passive film formed on the cold rolled iron compared with that on annealed iron. These results suggest that substrate dislocations enhance the reactions at the substrate/film interface, resulting in the formation of the highly defective passive film.


The framework of database repairs provides a principled approach to managing inconsistencies in databases. Informally, a repair of an inconsistence database is a consistent database that differs from the inconsistent one in a "minimal way." A fundamental problem in this framework is the repair-checking problem: given two instances, is the second a repair of the first? Here, all repairs are taken into account, and they are treated on a par with each other. There are situations, however, in which it is natural and desired to prefer one repair over another; for example, one data source is regarded to be more reliable than another, or timestamp information implies that a more recent fact should be preferred over an earlier one. Motivated by these considerations, Staworko, Chomicki and Marcinkowski introduced the framework of preferred repairs. The main characteristic of this framework is that it uses a priority relation between conflicting facts of an inconsistent database to define notions of preferred repairs. In this paper we focus on the globally-optimal repairs, in the case where the constraints are functional dependencies. Intuitively, a globally-optimal repair is a repair that cannot be improved by exchanging facts with preferred facts. In this setting, it is known that there is a fixed schema (i.e., signature and functional dependencies) where globally-optimal repair-checking is coNP-complete. Our main result is a dichotomy in complexity: for each fixed relational signature and each fixed set of functional dependencies, the globally-optimal repair-checking problem either is solvable in polynomial time or is coNP-complete. Specifically, the problem is solvable in polynomial time if for each relation symbol in the signature, the functional dependencies are equivalent to either a single functional dependency or to a set of two key constraints; in all other cases, the globally-optimal repair-checking problem is coNP-complete. We also show that there is a polynomial-time algorithm for distinguishing between the tractable and the intractable cases. The setup of preferred repairs assumes that preferences are only between conflicting facts. In the last part of the paper, we investigate the effect of this assumption on the complexity of globally-optimal repair checking. With this assumption relaxed, we give another dichotomy theorem and another polynomial-time distinguishing algorithm. Interestingly, the two dichotomies turn out to have quite different conditions for distinguishing tractability from intractability.


Following standard methods we explore the construction of the discrete Poincar´e group, the semidirect product of discrete translations and integral Lorentz transformations, using the Wigner-Mackey construction restricted to the momentum and position space on the lattice. The orbit condition, irreducibility and assimptotic limit are discussed.


A study was conducted to evaluate the effects of drip-irrigation application amounts on watermelon [Citrollus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum and Nakai] fruit yield and quality. 'Crimson Sweet', 'Jack of Hearts', 'Mickylee', 'Royal Jubilee', and 'Sangria' watermelon varieties were evaluated under three drip-irrigation rates in a randomized block design during the 1992, 1993, and 1994 spring production seasons at the University of Florida Gulf Coast Research and Education Center, Bradenton. The irrigation amount and subsequent duration for the base irrigation schedule were based on fractions (irrigation ratio) of grass-based Penman reference evapotranspiration (ETo) calculated from local weather data. The base schedule (1X treatment) used irrigation ratios that ranged from 0.10 early in the season to 0.30 at peak growth and development. Application amounts were applied daily in a single irrigation cycle. A second (2X) or third (3X) irrigation cycle, each of equal duration, was added to the daily schedule to apply two or three times the 1X amount, respectively.


In economically advanced societies, the death of minor child is a rare and unexpected event, presumably highly stressful and traumatic. Does it affect the stability of parental relationship? The sparse existing evidence on this matter is inconclusive, mainly because of methodological limitations associated with sampling and difficulties in tracking couples. Furthermore, one must account for the possibility that losing a child may also affect subsequent fertility, since parents of reproductive age may be inclined to give birth to a new child.


This paper presents an approach to emulate at a reduced scale, an electric vehicle drivetrain by two electric machines easily exploitable. Two control laws associated to the electric machines are established in order to reproduce at a real scale the dynamic behavior of the electric vehicle drivetrain on an equivalent electric system. The control laws are established from the dynamic behavior of the vehicle drivetrain where the driver and the control unit of the electric vehicle are taken into account. Also a scale factor is sized according to the power of the electric vehicle and the test bench of two electric machines. A validation is carried out using ARTEMIS mission profiles where energy recovery is also quantified from the highway to the jam. Therefore the proposed approach is very useful to calibrate industrial automotive test benches in order to optimize time and cost of development. Also, it's a fast way to validate and to optimize the designed control loops or other functions to implement in the control unit of the electric vehicle drivetrain.


An iterative optimization procedure to derive reliable sub-ward templates from training speech material is described. At each step sub-ward occurrences are located and new templates computed in such a way that the overall distance of speech material from the language model approaches an absolute minimum. Different options are discussed and experimental results presented.


The careful study of Foster et al. (1) reminds us of the difficulty of assessing amniotic fluid bilirubin absorbance in specimens contaminated by blood. However, it is not correct, as Foster et al. conclude, that bilirubin absorbance cannot be appropriately assessed in specimens contaminated in this manner.

To eliminate interference from nonbilirubin pigments, my colleagues and I (2) exploited the fact that bilirubin is highly photolabile whereas interfering chromagens such as hemoglobin and methemoglobin are remarkably photostable. A few minutes of exposure to an intense light source (such as that from an ordinary slide projector) eliminates most of the bilirubin absorbance and allows the absorbance present before irradiation to be determined as described in the next paragraph. Slide projectors of a type similar to the one used here continue to be manufactured, e.g., the Kodak Carousel 4600 (Eastman Kodak Company) or the Vivitar 5000 AF (Vivitar USA). These and similar projectors …


Editor—Plavinski et al found that in two cohorts in St Petersburg mortality increased over the past decades in men without a university education but remained unchanged in those with one.1 In a subanalysis, mortality increased substantially over time in consumer groups with both high and low alcohol consumption while differences in mortality between the groups were much smaller. Therefore, the authors conclude, alcohol accounts only partly for the recent rise in Russian mortality.

I doubt that the study design is appropriate to detect differences in alcohol related mortality. Alcohol consumption was asked for only on recruitment, 1975-7 and 1986-8, respectively. This is of special importance for the later cohort since its recruitment coincided with Michail Gorbachev's anti-alcohol campaign, which caused a considerable decline in alcohol consumption in Russia.2 This decline, however, was shortlived, and alcohol consumption rose again quickly after the campaign's end. Therefore, many people classified as consumers of low quantities of alcohol on recruitment might have consumed considerably higher amounts during follow up and consequently been misclassified.

Alcohol consumption, in contrast to, for example, smoking or hypercholesterolaemia, seems to be, at least for cardiovascular diseases, a risk factor with a close temporal relation to the event.3 Therefore it is of special importance to assess it continuously in prospective studies.

An additional limitation of the study is that it did not account for drinking patterns, which might be crucial to the effects of alcohol on cardiovascular mortality.3


OBJECTIVE To discuss the clinical pharmacist 's role on pharmaceutical care in endocrinology department.METHODS The clinical pharmacist's effect on pharmaceutical care to a patient with hypertension and hyperuricemia was analyzed and summarized. RESULTS The clinical pharmacist cooperated with the clinical physicians actively through drug interactions and adverse drug reactions and patient education,to optimize the drug treatment and increase patient compliance and enhance the safety of drug application. CONCLUSION Clinical pharmacist can improve the safety and efficacy of patient's medication by participating climical therapeutic practice.


Since June 1987 until November 2009, we performed aretrospective study of 384 tuberculosis and HIV coinfected patients, followed in the department of Infectious Diseases in CHU Ibn Rochd of Casablanca. The average age at death was 34, 8 years. Two hundred forty seven patients (64, 3%) were male. The average number of TCD4 lymphocytes was 122 cells / ml. Tuberculosis was inaugural of HIV in 164 cases (42.7%). 196 patients (51%) had isolated pulmonary localization, 89 (23%) had an extra pulmonary localization and 99 (26%) had pulmonary and extra pulmonary localisation. The main extra pulmonary reaches were the ganglia in 88 cases (44%). Chest x- ray showed lunginfiltrates in 82 cases (28%), miliary in 52 cases (18%). The diagnosis of tuberculosis was confirmed in 214 patients (56%) by sputum smear microscopy and culture positive and by histology in 60 cases (16%). The patients were treated with a combination of 3 (RHZ) or 4 (RHZE) anti-TB drugs during six to 18 months. They also received a combination of 2 NRTI plus 1 NNRTI. We report death in 84 cases. The leading cause of death was tuberculosis in 40 cases. A tuberculosis relapse was noticed in 25 cases. In Morocco, Tuberculosis/HIV coinfection is frequent. Tuberculosis is still the leading cause of death among HIV infected patients in the era of antiretroviral therapy.