OBJECTIVE
Surgeons have postulated on numerous occasions that cancer resection may participate in the dissemination of a malignancy. This randomized trial sought to determine whether a large volume of chemotherapy solution used perioperatively to flood the peritoneal cavity could eliminate microscopic residual disease and thereby improve survival of patients with gastric cancer.

SUMMARY BACKGROUND DATA
Surgical treatment failures in patients with gastric cancer are confined to the abdomen in most patients. Resection site and peritoneal surface spread, along with liver metastases, are the most common areas of recurrence. Survival and quality of life of patients with gastric cancer would be improved if disease progression at these anatomic sites was reduced.

METHODS
In a prospective randomized trial of 248 patients, intraperitoneal mitomycin C on day 1 and intraperitoneal 5-fluorouracil on days 2 through 5 were administered after gastric cancer resection. Patients who were thought to have stage II or stage III disease were randomized after resection to surgery alone versus surgery plus early postoperative intraperitoneal chemotherapy. After final pathologic examinations, there were 39 patients with stage I, 50 with stage II 95 with stage III, and 64 with resected stage IV cancer.

RESULTS
The 5-year survival of the surgery-only group was 29.3%, and the surgery-plus-intraperitoneal chemotherapy group was 38.7% (p = 0.219). In a subset analysis, the patients with stage I, stage II, and stage IV disease showed no statistically significant difference in survival. The 5-year survival rate of patients with stage III disease who underwent surgery only was 18.4% versus a survival rate of 49.1% for patients who underwent surgery plus intraperitoneal chemotherapy (p = 0.011).

CONCLUSIONS
In a subset analysis, patients with stage III gastric cancer have shown a statistically significant improvement in survival when treated with perioperative intraperitoneal chemotherapy. Further studies in patients with gastric cancer with surgically directed chemotherapy are suggested.


Capillary permeability to three exogenous macromolecules (dextran with mol. wt. of 250,000; albumin-I131 with mol. wt. of 69,000, and dextran-C14 with mol. wt. of 16,000) and endogenous serum prote...


The control methods and operation characteristics of D-STATCOM under unbalanced grid voltage are studied in this paper. Through methods of switching function and sequence network, the effects on voltage output of D-STATCOM caused by grid voltage unbalance and its over current are analyzed. The performance of voltage output of D-STATCOM is improved with modified modulation method of switching function. And with negative-sequence feed-forward control strategy for restraining over current, the over current of D-STATCOM under grid voltage unbalance is effectively prevented, and the output performance of D-STATCOM inverter is improved. Simulation result shows the correctness and effectiveness of the conclusion and control strategy proposed in the paper.


Assuming elliptical wavefronts, we reformulate refraction theory for transversely isotropic (TI) media based on the use of the auxiliary angle, α, which is intermediate between the phase angle, θ, and the group angle, φ .W hen considering the application of stretching to transform elliptically anisotropic media into isotropic media, the auxiliary angle is a natural one to use because both θ and φ → α under such stretching. Our present formulation for TI media makes the assumption of elliptical anisotropy, which is valid generally for SH-waves but only as a special case for P-and SV-waves, where, in the SV case, the only possible ellipses are circles. Nevertheless, the theory has useful applications for P-waves over limited ranges of propagation direction (e.g., in the short-spread approximation). Our formulation provides explicit results for all angles of incidence and for what we term an angular unconformity between two TI media, that is, for all orientations of the axes of symmetry for each of the media, and for all orientations of the interface, assuming these two axes and the interface normal to lie in the same vertical plane. Our conclusions have been verified by showing that the phase angles and phase velocities of the incident and refracted waves obey Snell's law across the interface. We also demonstrate, using auxiliary angles, that the description of refraction between elliptically anisotropic media by stretching the media to make them isotropic, then applying isotropic refraction, is also valid for our general angularunconformity case. However, both stretching (1D) and either scaling (2D) or shearing must be applied correctly and separately to the two media. The refraction algorithm developed from this theory and another developed by Byun in terms of phase-velocity theory are currently the only published noniterative algorithms known to us for refraction across an angular unconformity where the axes of anisotropy are parallel neither to each other nor to the interface. Based on this theory, we have developed a demonstration program, AUXDEMOC, that computes the refractedray angles for any combination of parameters by the two equivalent methods: (1) anisotropic refraction and (2) stretching plus isotropic refraction. This program can be downloaded from http://www.crewes.org/ under Free Software.


THEPROBLEMOFTHEFALLENWOMAN, the hapless girl left pregnant by her lover, was one which exercised Victorian consciences, just as it was a familiar theme in the literature of the age. Only very occasionally, however, did it lead to agonized public discussion on the part of the churches. Such a discussion (which brought nationally resonant overtones with it) burst upon the Lake Counties, Cumberland andWestmorland, in the autumn of 1865, and then it did so largely by accident, through the naIvete or innocence of Cumberland's most famous philanthropist, George Moore. Moore, the subject of a Samuel Smiles biography, 1 had been absent from his native county· of Cumberland for much of his business career, and he distinguished himself by returning to his youthful haunts to pursue his Christian and philanthropic leanings. During that absence, which spanned much of the first half of the nineteenth century, he had not,. it would seem, followed the evidence for the development of consistently high and growing illegitimate birth ratios for the two Lake Counties. Accordingly, he was, by the middle sixties, correspondingly shocked and moved to protest at a trend which was familiar to every Lakeland parish priest, clerk, or officer. Moore had, of course, stumbled upon an exceedingly complex and intractable social problem, one which was not likely to respond to increased intensities of stark moralizing. But, always a man for positive action, he very properly proposed the collection of information and views on the subject of widespread Cumbrian illegitimacy. His strategy for eliciting this information unfortunately lacked judgement. Moore had been acting as chairman of a gathering of the Evangelical Union, held at the Queen's Hotel, Keswick, in mid-October 1865, and consisting largely of interested clergy. The chairman urged his audience to preach against bastardy, recommended that cases of it should be dealt. with behind closed doors (to minimize publicity), and advocated that hiring fairs and farm sleeping arrangements should alike be brought under greater moral control. We shall return to these institutions. Above all, he offered ten


We would like to take this opportunity to respond to a recent letter regarding our article titled "A Systematic Review of the Psychometric Properties of Composite LGBT Prejudice and Discrimination Scales." While we welcome critiques of our individual and collective works at all times, we feel as though the concerns raised by Costa, Machado, Bandeira, and Nardi (2019) require a response. First, we would like to acknowledge that there was an error in our article that was not identified until pointed out by Costa et al. (i.e., the authors completed a principal components analysis [PCA] on the standardized residuals, not a simple one). We failed to identify and correct this error prior to publication, for which we sincerely apologize. However, Costa et al. mentioned that our work erroneously identified the Scale of Prejudice Against Sexual and Gender Diversity (PASGD and PASGD–Revised; Costa, Machado, Bandeira, & Nardi, 2016a; Costa et al., 2016b) as not presenting evidence of factorial structure, an assertion with which we strongly and respectfully disagree. As we discussed (pp. 7, 11), the provision of evidence was not considered to be sufficient unless the methods that were used follow the best practices outlined in our article. One concern with using PCA on standardized residuals to test a measure's factor structure relates to what Costa et al. (2019) described as this method's primary focus (i.e., "testing the hypothesis that a single factor is sufficient to explain a data structure"). We are unclear why the hypothesis of unidimensionality was made for this particular instrument as it was designed to measure elements of homonegativity and transnegativity, which are two separate constructs. This distinction is important because cisgender gay men and lesbian women do not possess minority gender identities, and gender minority persons do not necessarily self-identify as non-heterosexual. Presuming that the experiences of these diverse groups are the same is problematic. (Indeed, the inappropriateness of treating sexual and gender minority individuals as a monolithic category is at the heart of our article.) Regarding content validity, Costa et al. (2016a, 2019) mentioned that they conducted systematic reviews and consulted a panel of experts. Such practices are commonplace and important in assuring the content validity of a new instrument. However, as mentioned in our article, content validity requires that "input from stakeholders or representatives from relevant populations be solicited as these persons can provide unique insights about the construct in question" (p. 4). There is no indication that stakeholders or representatives from relevant populations were ever consulted prior to item generation. We feel that the lack of consultation during the development of any new measure greatly diminishes its ability to comprehensively capture a specific construct. Furthermore, during the development of the PASGD-R, Costa et al. (2016a) described how items were incorporated from Herek and McLemore's (2011) Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gays (ATLG) scale. The authors do not acknowledge that such items reflect old-fashioned homonegativity and do not capture instances of modern homonegativity, a separate construct. No details are provided regarding why the authors decided to eschew the more modern prejudices that gay men and lesbian women experience. Finally, while Costa et al. (2016a, 2019) did mention that the new items JOURNAL OF HOMOSEXUALITY 2020, VOL. 67, NO. 6, 737–739 https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2018.1564010


During meiotic prophase I, double-strand breaks (DSBs) initiate homologous recombination leading to non-crossovers (NCOs) and crossovers (COs). In mouse, 10% of DSBs are designated to become COs, primarily through a pathway dependent on the MLH1-MLH3 heterodimer (MutLγ). Mlh3 contains an endonuclease domain that is critical for resolving COs in yeast. We generated a mouse (Mlh3DN/DN) harboring a mutation within this conserved domain that is predicted to generate a protein that is catalytically inert. Mlh3DN/DN males, like fully null Mlh3-/- males, have no spermatozoa and are infertile, yet spermatocytes have normal DSBs and undergo normal synapsis events in early prophase I. Unlike Mlh3-/- males, mutation of the endonuclease domain within MLH3 permits normal loading and frequency of MutLγ in pachynema. However, key DSB repair factors (RAD51) and mediators of CO pathway choice (BLM helicase) persist into pachynema in Mlh3DN/DN males, indicating a temporal delay in repair events and revealing a mechanism by which alternative DSB repair pathways may be selected. While Mlh3DN/DN spermatocytes retain only 22% of wildtype chiasmata counts, this frequency is greater than observed in Mlh3-/- males (10%), suggesting that the allele may permit partial endonuclease activity, or that other pathways can generate COs from these MutLγ-defined repair intermediates in Mlh3DN/DN males. Double mutant mice homozygous for the Mlh3DN/DN and Mus81-/- mutations show losses in chiasmata that approach levels observed in Mlh3-/- males, indicating that the MUS81-EME1-regulated crossover pathway accounts for some of the increased residual chiasmata observed in Mlh3DN/DN spermatocytes. Our data demonstrate that mouse spermatocytes bearing the MLH1-MLH3DN/DN complex display the proper loading of factors essential for CO resolution (MutSγ, CDK2, HEI10, MutLγ). Despite these functions, mice bearing the Mlh3DN/DN allele show defects in the repair of meiotic recombination intermediates and a loss of most chiasmata. SUMMARY The MLH1-MLH3 complex is essential for crossing over in mammalian meiosis. We generated a mutation in mouse MLH3 that alters its conserved endonuclease domain and show that it disrupts crossing over in a manner distinct from the full null Mlh3 mouse, but also results in male infertility.


ABSTRACT Ever since the Arctic region has opened its mysterious passage to mankind, continuous attempts to take advantage of its fastest route across the region has been made. The Arctic region is still covered by thick ice and thus finding a feasible navigating route is essential for an economical voyage. To find the optimal route, it is necessary to establish an efficient transit model that enables us to simulate every possible route in advance. In this work, an enhanced algorithm to determine the optimal route in the Arctic region is introduced. A transit model based on the simulated sea ice and environmental data numerically modeled in the Arctic is developed. By integrating the simulated data into a transit model, further applications such as route simulation, cost estimation or hindcast can be easily performed. An interactive simulation system that determines the optimal Arctic route using the transit model is developed. The simulation of optimal routes is carried out and the validity of the results is discussed.


The government led by Matteo Renzi has generated, also in 2015, contrasting reactions. On the one hand, it has completed a series of reforms that are deemed crucial for economic recovery – e.g. labor market, bank system, school, public administration, electoral law – and with the Milan Expo the country's image abroad has been revitalized. On the other hand, it has been criticized not only for the contents but also, and especially, for the method used to pass such reforms, in particular the use of diverse majorities depending on the decisions to be taken, the refusal of mediation with the various social categories, and the strong centralization in the Presidency of the Council. We must recognize, however, that the government, despite various types of resistance domestically and a number of external constraints, has managed to impose its agenda, at least at the national level. This was not the case at the international level, where, in crucial issues such as the fight against terrorism, the migration crisis, and fiscal austerity, Italy has often played a marginal role.


Abstract The low-frequency response to changes in external forcing or other parameters for various components of the climate system is a central problem of contemporary climate change science. The fluctuation–dissipation theorem (FDT) is an attractive way to assess climate change by utilizing statistics of the present climate; with systematic approximations, it has been shown recently to have high skill for suitable regimes of an atmospheric general circulation model (GCM). Further applications of FDT to low-frequency climate response require improved approximations for FDT on a reduced subspace of resolved variables. Here, systematic mathematical principles are utilized to develop new FDT approximations on reduced subspaces and to assess the small yet significant departures from Gaussianity in low-frequency variables on the FDT response. Simplified test models mimicking crucial features in GCMs are utilized here to elucidate these issues and various FDT approximations in an unambiguous fashion. Also, the...


This study investigates behavioral explanations for the Chinese firms' outward FDI by focusing on the effects of performance relative to aspiration level and extends the model of decision-making to...


With the increasing availability of AI-based decision support, there is an increasing need for their certification by both AI manufacturers and notified bodies, as well as the pragmatic (real-world) validation of these systems. Therefore, there is the need for meaningful and informative ways to assess the performance of AI systems in clinical practice. Common metrics (like accuracy scores and areas under the ROC curve) have known problems and they do not take into account important information about the preferences of clinicians and the needs of their specialist practice, like the likelihood and impact of errors and the complexity of cases. In this paper, we present a new accuracy measure, the H-accuracy (Ha), which we claim is more informative in the medical domain (and others of similar needs) for the elements it encompasses. We also provide proof that the H-accuracy is a generalization of the balanced accuracy and establish a relation between the H-accuracy and the Net Benefit. Finally, we illustrate an experimentation in two user studies to show the descriptive power of the Ha score and how complementary and differently informative measures can be derived from its formulation (a Python script to compute Ha is also made available).


High resolution satellite systems today become more and more important. The reason is simple as the technology developments of the last ten years changed the situation dramatically. Satellite Constellations for observation with a very high spatial and radiometric resolution are now state of the art technology. Even systems with a spatial resolution of 50 cm are available with a brilliant image contrast and an extreme good signal to noise ratio. In terms of flexibility the high agility of such systems is one of the important parameters. Beyond the instrument and satellite technology, the importance of automatic data processing has increased. Deriving high resolution 3D models is one of the most challenging topics. To optimise such complex systems for certain tasks, the complete system chain has to be considered. This paper shows the status of the work and gives an outlook for the next generation of high-resolution optical satellite technology.


SUMMARY This paper is about the nature of educational technology in the 1980s and 1990s. It discusses four major challenges to the field in the late 1980s: the Theoretical Challenge from cognitive science, the Technological Challenge from information technology, the Political Challenge from the Left, and the Moral Challenge from radical critics. The paper speculates briefly on how educational technologists should respond in the 1990s. Finally, it contains reflections on the Utopian Educational Technologist, as a designer and dreamer.


Abstract : Twenty-two studies which contribute to understanding the role of the vestibular system under water and high pressure are abstracted in this report. Several aspects of vestibular function are included (e.g. decompression sickness, pressure vertigo, diver navigation, etc.). The studies were originally published in German (in one case Russian), but have been translated into English. Copies of the full translations are available on request from the author of this report.


Mobile devices have evolved to be a crucial part of our everyday lives. However, they are subject to different types of user-centered attacks such as shoulder surfing attacks. Previous work focused on notifying the user with a potential shoulder surfer if an extra face is detected. Although it is a successful approach, it eliminated the possibility that the alleged attacker is just standing and not looking at the user's device. In this work, we investigate estimating the gaze of potential attackers in order to verify if they are indeed looking at the user's phone.


Norvin Richards' argues that alleged cases of moral luck do not show that an agent's desert can be partially determined by circumstances over which he has no control. Rather, the differences in desert attributed in 'lucky' (meant descriptively) compared to 'non-lucky' situations reflects the epistemic differences of attributors in the two situations. Real desert, for Richards, is attributed to features of character. More precisely, 'behaviour which enacts a particular trait calls for, or "deserves", protective measures in proportion to the risk of future harms at which it puts other people'.2 The fundamental difficulty with Richards's account is his failure to appreciate that desert would be radically different under his construal. This failure is due to his simply assuming, unjustifiably I argue, that desert as he construes it would have the same shape as desert as presently apportioned in epistemically 'clear' situations (the 'lucky' ones). Without such justification, Richards misses the crucial issue generating the problem of moral luck, namely that there is an imperfect alignment of our ideals for attributing desert and the practices in which those attributions are rooted. At the end, I will briefly mention some reasons for doubting that desert as Richards construes it could remain both rooted in our practices, which he accepts, and identical with desert as attributed in the clear cases. Consider the case of the lorry driver who runs over a child. The problem of luck arises because a large part of our apportioning of desert appears to stem from the child's being killed, rather than solely the recklessness of the driving. However, the child's running out at that moment is not within the driver's control. Since Richards holds that it is solely to the recklessness that the desert attributed is attached, we are 'entitled to treat .. . as he deserves'3 any other equally reckless driver, accident or not. What 'he deserves' is not stated explicitly, but it is implied from what Richards says here and in related cases that he means it to be the desert we attribute to the driver involved in the accident. Now, I grant that epistemically we are usually in a better position to ascribe recklessness where there is an accident than where the driver continues without incident. But Richards has no right to assume that recklessness itself deserves just what is normally attributed to the driver in the event of an accident. For being in an epistemically better position to judge character (or character as enacted in behaviour) is not to be in the best attainable position so to judge character. A record of speeding tickets, for example, is much better evidence than an accident. However, Richards gives us no reason to believe that the desert attributed with the actual accident, even if epistemically a 'clear' case, will be the same as what would be attributed in cases where we attribute recklessness on epistemically better grounds (such as on the basis of the driving record). And, in fact, there is prima facie


Hardly ever can a writer of fiction who observes real life do without utilizing legal motives in his works. The interdependence and connec tion of life and law are obvious. Besides, no author can fail to notice the drama inherent in many legal concepts when confronted with life, such as crime, a judicial trial, situations involving systems of social castes, marriage laws, and so on. Much as the fact of including elements of law into works of fiction is frequent, such inclusion assumes a specific character when used by an author who himself has acquired some legal background, such as two of the most outstanding Polish poets, Adam Mickiewicz and Ju liusz Slowacki. Both lived and wrote in the first half of the nineteenth century. It was the century of political captivity of their native country, as Poland had lost her independence about the end of the eighteenth century, when, after the heroic but unsuccessful uprising led by the hero of the Polish and the American nations, Kosciuszko, she had been divided between Russia, Austria and Prussia. It should be noted that in the same century, the period of her polit ical decline and fall, Poland undertook a gigantic task to make up for whatever contributed to her political weakness. The result was a vast improvement, not just in the political field but also in the cultural domain. And though the political reforms, culminating in the famous constitution of May 3rd, 1791, came too late to prevent the fall of Poland, the cultural development which had started in the eighteenth century survived the loss of political independence and achieved a particularly high level during the nineteenth century when free Poland existed no longer. To demonstrate this, one needs only mention the names of her three greatest poets: Mickiewicz, Slowacki and Krasinski, or, in the field of music, the name of Chopin. Mickiewicz and Slowacki are those writers in whose literary activities a certain knowledge of law played a fairly important role, although the source of that knowledge was with each of them different


In the modern science and technology, especially in the menology, electronic technique, information sciencen communication, telecommunication, measurement techniques and instrumentation, frequency and time measurement and their control techniques have a very important position, and precision frequency sources (crystal oscillators and atomic frequency standards) are also used widely. This paper gives an introduction on overall research state of frequency measurement and control techniques and temperature compensated crystal oscillators, and discusses a series of new methods and techniques accomplished by us in the frequency measurement and conuol area. They include the new frequency and time interval measurement principles, approaches and related equipments, some new practical methods about frequency control and synthesis and test system based on them, new design methods and techniques used in several types of temperature compensated crystal oscilla-tors-the most popular frequency sources. All of the new methods are different from the conventional ones and have been used widely in time and frequency measurements and instrument design. With the new methods, high measuring and control accuracy, low cost can be obtained. technique is a new signal processing method. We used it in the design of analogue memory temperature-compensated crystal oscillator(AMTcxo). It shows a better frequency-temperature stability than that of ordinary TCXO. The power consumption is smallest of the all temperature-compensated crystal oscillators and its short term stability is also the best.


Negative cyclotron resonance absorption due to electron elastic collisions with noble gas atoms, comparing results with kinetic plasma wave theory predictions


AbstractThe effect of temperature variations along hydrostatic levelling lines is to introduce errors which may be of unacceptable magnitude. This paper shows that the variety of circumstances likely to be met in practice can be reduced to a simple, but general, theoretical model. Further, the solution of the physical equations for this model demonstrates that a high degree of accuracy may be possible with the hydrostatic method, in applications other than those for which it has been traditionally used.


In the main article [CQG 38 (2021) 055003], a new "canonical" form for the Lewis metrics of the Weyl class has been obtained, depending only on three parameters — Komar mass and angular momentum per unit length, plus the angle deficit — corresponding to a coordinate system fixed to the"distant stars"and an everywhere timelike Killing vector field. Such form evinces the local but non-global static character of the spacetime, and striking parallelisms with the electromagnetic analogue. We discuss here its generality, main physical features and important limits (the Levi-Civita static cylinder, and spinning cosmic strings). We contrast it on geometric and physical grounds with the Kerr spacetime — as an example of a metric which is locally non-static.


Air pollution monitoring is a concerned issue in urban management. Nowadays, vehicle-based mobile sensing systems are deployed to enhance sensing granularity. However, in these systems, the number of online sensors may change over time and the long-term maintenance is costly. Therefore, an inference algorithm is necessary to maintain the high spatiotemporal granularity of pollution field under both dense and sparse sampling. In this paper, we propose an algorithm based on super-resolution scheme. To address the challenges of complex external factors and spatiotemporal dependencies, three modules are included: a heterogeneous data fusion subnet to extract useful information from external data, a spatiotemporal residual subnet to capture the spatiotemporal dependencies in pollution field, and an upsampling subnet to generate the fine-grained pollution map. Experiments on real-world datasets show that our model outperforms the state-of-the-art baselines.


We present a novel application of ion implantation for obtaining planar films of resist on substrates with deep topography (≥1 μm). The motivation of this work comes from the fabrication of laterally coupled distributed feedback lasers, where lateral gratings need to be patterned adjacent to the sidewalls of a deep ridge waveguide. We demonstrate this process using both boron and phosphorous ion species implanted into polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA, 950 K) resist. The ion energies in our experiments ranged from a few tens of keV to approximately 1 MeV at a typical dose of 1013 cm−2. Experimental results show that the developed depth of the PMMA can be controlled very accurately. Furthermore, post‐implant x‐ray lithographic exposures show no deleterious effects of the implant on the PMMA characteristics. Lateral gratings (Λ=406 nm) were fabricated on 1.1‐μm‐high ridge waveguides in InP/InGaAlAs/InGaAsP by CH4/H2 reactive‐ion etching. This process is equally applicable for other applications where lithography on substrates with significant topography is required.


Along with the development of medical technology in recent years,the confection and application of Total Parenteral Nutrition have been emphasizing widespreadly and using extensively .It has reached satisfactory effectiveness in clinic therapy and has been an indispensable moiety of surgical treatment .Here we will investigate the confection of TPN and summarize the safety issue of infusion and severe complication,in addition, going further to discuss the control principle of TPN in the present study .


One of the goals of economic integration is to open the economy to the outside and attract investors who, through their expenses, stimulate economic growth. An example of such a mechanism is The Association of Southeast Asian Nations - ASEAN. Founded in 1967, the organization now brings together 10 countries. Over 50 years of operation shows the significant impact of closer cooperation on the level of foreign investment. It was particularly significant in this context to implement the ASEAN Investment Agreement - AIA Council and the Free Trade Area ASEAN - AFTA (1992). Integration of a single market helped to create a dynamic process of free movement of goods, services, and free flow of capital and, as a result, attracted more foreign direct investment (FDI). A dozen or so years later, foreign investment is still clearly increasing, contributing to the region's growing importance in the world. The aim of the article is to present the level and dynamics of FDI stock in the years 2007-2017 in five selected ASEAN countries - Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines and Thailand. Investment determinants were also determined, using panel analysis. A set of explanatory variables are economic variables: average wages, consumer spending, government expenditure, unemployment level; social: Human Development Index HDI; infrastructural: dynamics of growth in the value added of industry and access to electricity. Model results show a positive correlation between the size of investment and both types of expenditures, HDI ratio and infrastructure development. On the other hand, the positive relationship between the wage level and the negative one for the unemployment level are surprising.


It is a common demand to solve regional limited problem in Internet of Vehicles (IoV) system with restricted time and storage requirements. In this paper, we present a fast point-in-area algorithm to tackle this problem. In the preprocessing phase, non-uniform grids are constructed by length thresholds and each row of the grids is viewed as a scan-line. The scan-lines scan area from top to bottom to find out whether a cell is inside or outside of the area. The algorithm locates the cells that contains the test point, and then determine the test point is inside or outside the area. Our method is used in an IoV system to supervise whether a truck is out of limited area or drive into restricted area and alarms correspondingly. Experimental results show that our method is faster than other point-in-polygon algorithms with less storage assumption. It is even faster than the method of convex decomposition, which has the linear time complexity 0(N) for point-in-polygon tests.


The general field of the invention is that the anamorphic optical systems. The system according to the invention comprises an anamorphic optical assembly (10) having a thermal astigmatism and an optical doublet (100) having two blades. The first blade has a plane face and a convex cylindrical face. It is made of a first material. The second blade has a plane face and a concave cylindrical face, it is made of a second material having a refractive index equal to that of the first blade to a reference temperature, the variation of the optical index as a function of the temperature being different of the variation in one of the first blade. The first and second bonded blade forming a blade having an optical power zero at the reference temperature and having a second thermal astigmatism at a different temperature, materials and the radius of curvature being selected such that the second heat astigmatism corrects the first thermal astigmatism.


Mainly in more electric aircraft (MEA) electric power capacity is increasing rapidly. And so due to the advent of electric power system (EPS) all pneumatic, hydraulics & bleed engines are removed. Hence the consumption of fuel is reduced. Disturbances caused by various components in electrical system can inject harmonics into the system and thereby Transformer Rectifier Unit (TRU) is used for harmonic mitigation and to improve the power quality of the system. So TRU is used in MEA for the conversion of AC electrical power to DC electrical power. The phase-shifting transformers are designed to obtain the necessary phase displacement. In this paper the analysis of multi-pulse rectifier, their THD comparison on MATLAB and hardware is presented and further, the simulation of TRU with an inverter is also shown for different topologies like 6, 12 and 24 pulses.


A novel species of the genus Chryseobacterium which was isolated from soil, has been studied for resistance to antibiotics, heavy metals (lead, chromium, nickel, zinc, cadmium, copper, cobalt) and its capacities for bioaccumulation of lead and zinc. It exhibited high Minimal Inhibitory Concentration values for metal ions tested ranging from 75ug/ml to 500ug/, and antibiotic resistance to imipenem, cefuroxim, tetracyclin, nalidixic acid, pipemidic acid, fusidic acid, fosfomycin, cefalotin, dibekacin, furans and nitrofurantoin. The strain was able of accumulate more than 90% of lead and zinc during the active growth cycle. Study of pH effect on heavy metal removal indicated that the metal ions accumulation increased with increasing pH. Since, Chryseobacterium solincola could grow in the presence of significant concentration of toxic metals and because of its high metal accumulation capacity in aerobic conditions, may be potentially applicable in situ bioremediation of heavy metals contaminated aqueous or soil systems


A new high P weathering resistance steel cast strip containing 0.15%P was fabricated by using a pilot twin-roll strip caster,whose structure and deep drawability property was investigated by comparison with conventional strip,and the reason for better deep drawability property of cast strip after cold rolling and annealing was discussed by the analysis of center layer texture evolution for both strips.It was found that structures of both cast strip and conventional strip were made up of ferrite and pearlite after cold rolling and annealing through process in the present wok,and that crystal orientation distribution through longitudinal section of cast strip was more homogeneous.γ orientation density in both strips was almost equal,resulting in correspondence of the values of r-,but {111}110 orientation density in cast strip reduced by 50% than that in conventional strip,leading to decreasing of the value of Δr,improving deep drawability property.


North Korea remains a place of obscurity, mystery and even of imminent threat in popular imagination of East Asia and America. In this article, we explore existing representations of and discourses around North Korea and argue for a different framework to consider how North Korea is a critical participant in the contemporary world. Drawing on our respective fieldwork in Dandong, China, throughout 2006 to 2014, the article suggests a new way of thinking about issues surrounding North Korea.


EDRS Price MF -$025 HC -$0.35 Descriptors-Grade 3, *Predictive Ability (Testing), Rea.Iding Diagnosis, Reading Difficulty, *Reading Readiness. Reading Research, *Retarded Readers, *Visual Discrimination, Visual Stimuli The relationship between reading ability and recognition of four kinds of perceptual stimuli for purposes of reading .disability diagnosis was investigated. The sample consisted of 84 male grade-3 pupils Who were matched on intellectual ability but who differed in reading proficiency. Three groups, based on a 6-month discrepancy either above or below grade _placement between reading aehievement and potential as determined by the Bond-Tinker formula, were formed. Recognition tasks were presented by tachistoscope. The four perceptual categories were (1) geometric or abstract configuration, (2) pictorial design, (3) alphabetic symboL and (4) word unit. Geometric forms, alphabetic symbols:and word units were found to significantly differentiate (.01) between able and disabled readers. Alphabetic symbols appeared to be a slightly higher predictor than the other two forms. Implications were that present readiness materials stressing discrimination of pictorial and abstract forms are less effective in predicting reading proficiency than are forms actually involved in the reading act. namely letters and word units. (t4B)


Agent Orange was a powerful herbicide mixture used by U.S. military forces during the Vietnam War to eliminate forest cover protecting enemy
troops. Much of Agent Orange contained a dangerous chemical contaminant called dioxin. An important dioxin-mediated effect on humans is
causing endothelial dysfunction. If endothelium is dysfunctional and not producing normal amounts of nitric oxide, premature atherosclerosis can
occur and progress. The Veterans Administration has acknowledged that Agent Orange is a risk factor for coronary artery disease. When seeing
patients, it is important to determine if they served in Vietnam during the period of Agent Orange spraying. It is recommended these Veterans have
aggressive coronary risk factor modification with long-term followup.


Key management protocol is a key problem for Ad hoc network security. In this paper, we introduced a user contributed key generation strategy (UCKG) based on the identity based cryptography (IBC). Compared to IBC key generation strategy, UCKG has no PGC-cheating problem and no requirement of secure channel for key distribution. We also proposed a distributed key management protocol for UCKG and simulated it with NS-2. The simulation results show that while the network has the good connectivity, the distributed key management protocol has good performance.


Formerly power ultrasound was not considered economically viable for water treatment on an industrial scale. This was based on calculations involving direct scale-up of power consumption in small-scale laboratory experiments. Attitudes have changed with the installation of ultrasonic devices in operational water or sewage treatment plants. This work investigates the effect of the following disinfection treatments and provides greater knowledge of the fundamentals of disinfection through the production of hypochlorite in situ from saline solution via electrolysis (electrode materials: carbon (felt and graphite), copper & stainless steel rods) • 40kHz ultrasound • UV radiation (254nm) • UV radiation in conjunction with 40kHz ultrasound • Electrolysis (150mA) • Electrolysis (100mA) in conjunction with 40kHz power ultrasound. Results indicate sonication amplifies the effect of UV radiation or electrolysis. Combined treatments were significantly better than UV radiation or electrolysis alone. Results support a promising future for the application of sonochemistry in water treatment.


Social commerce resources are abundant, providing rich information and guiding purchases, making it easier for consumers to obtain goods and gradually getting used to this consumption and purchase mode. This study takes Facebook and Instagram social fan groups as examples to explore the impact of social characteristics and social participation on guided purchase behavior. This study classifies and statistically analyzes fans in Facebook and Instagram communities. A total of 212 valid samples were collected for statistical analysis. Use ANOVA and Scheffe's to verify. The results show that there are differences in social characteristics (uniqueness, similarity, informativeness) and social participation and behaviors (social participation, Parasocial Interaction (PSI)) among members of the guidance/purchase subgroup. The Influence of social characteristics and social participation on guided purchase behavior.


Sustainable development is a human beings' general desire. There are many approaches to progress a sustainable development society and one of these approaches is community based environmental management method proven effectively in many different countries over the world. This paper aims to both present general review of CBEM (Community Based Environmental Management) approach and review some performed pilot projects in Vietnam as well as giving several solutions to apply more CBEM approach to solving environmental challenges in many different communities in Vietnam.


The purpose of this study is to develop an effective cultural education teaching method that uses an animated movie. This study enables learners to build self-awareness through discovering and understanding certain cultural aspects. A pre-test and post-test were conducted to determine the cultural learning achievement of each learner. Post-test results were higher than pre-test results. An open-ended questionnaire was conducted to analyze learners' perceptions toward cultural classes. Results show that learners were satisfied with the cultural awareness class (82.4%), and the top stated reasons for their satisfaction were systematic class procedures, efficient cultural learning, a fun environment, and engaging participation activities. Overall, results show that learners were very satisfied with the use of animation for cultural education (81.4%). The top stated reasons for this result were learning efficiency, interesting approach, covering empathy topics, etc.


In order to achieve integrated condition in the girth welding of high pressure natural gas transmission pipelines, the weld zones and its surrounding area should have good mechanical properties. Residual stresses are an important defect especially in the girth welding of the pipeline. In this study, two API X70 steel pipes (with spiral seam weld) of 56 inches outside diameter and 0.780 inch wall thickness were girth welded first. The hole drilling tests were conducted for residual stress measurement on the surfaces of the pipes. The hoop tensile residual stress on the external surface of the pipe with the maximum value equal to 318-MPa was measured on the weld centerline. Hoop residual stress distributions in the internal and external surfaces of the pipe were approximately similar. The maximum axial residual stress was observed in the heat affected zone (a distance of approximately 30 mm from the weld centerline). The maximum axial residual stress on the external surface of the pipe was tensile, equal to 137 MPa, and on the internal surface of the pipe was compressive, equal to 135-MPa. Axial residual stress magnitudes in the weld centerline on the internal and external surfaces of the pipe were close together. Away from the weld centerline, axial residual stresses on the internal and external surfaces showed the opposite behavior. Therefore, in the girth welding of natural gas transmission pipelines, the peripheral direction on the internal surface of the pipe is the critical zone and have the highest tensile residual stresses.


The aim of collaborative clustering is to reveal the common structure of data distributed on different sites. In this paper, we present a formalism of topological collaborative clustering using prototype-based clustering techniques; in particular we formulate our approach using Kohonen's Self-Organizing Maps. Maps representing different sites could collaborate without recourse to the original data, preserving their privacy. We present two different approaches of collaborative clustering: horizontal and vertical. The strength of collaboration (confidence exchange) between each pair of datasets is determined by a parameter, we call coefficient of collaboration, to be estimated iteratively during the collaboration phase using a gradient-based optimization, for both the approaches. The proposed approaches have been validated on several datasets and experimental results have shown very promising performance.


Condensate gas reservoirs with low-permeability are characterized by a tiny size of pore throats,poor permeability,high content of clay minerals and severe heterogeneity.Therefore,this type of reservoirs is susceptible to the damage of water sensitivity,water blocking,etc.caused by invasion fluids,and frequently to the damage of specific retrograde condensation.We analyzed mechanisms of formation damage systematically based on reservoir characteristics of the Baka condensate gas reservoir with low-permeability,the results showed that water blocking was the major damage to this reservoir and the damage ratio induced by water blocking ranged from 65.23% to 91.01%.On the basis of the sulphonic polymer drilling fluid previously used in this area,surfactants capable of effectively reducing the interfacial tension of oil/water contact were optimized,a new protection method characteristic of "synergetic effectiveness" by combining film forming with ideal packing was adopted,and consequently a drilling fluid with low damage was developed.The protection effect of this fluid on reservoirs was verified in compatibility tests and dynamic damage tests.The results showed that this fluid was of excellent rheological performance and compatibility,being capable of increasing the returned value of core permeability from 63.2% to 84.7% and of distinct protection of reservoirs.


NEWCOMB, ELIZABETH ANNE. Apparel Product Development Considerations for US Hispanic Women: A Study of Evaluative Criteria and Fit Preferences of 18-25 Year-Old Females. (Under the direction of Dr. Cynthia L. Istook). This research is meant to provide information to apparel companies that might help them focus their product development strategies toward Mexican-American females" needs and preferences. Trade magazines and news media continually report "preferences" that may better be described as stereotypes, and much of the published research related to Hispanic market preferences is often conflicting. Targeted product development processes are not benefiting from much of this information and the industry desperately lacks comprehensive information about the market"s preferences for intrinsic and extrinsic attributes and the importance they play in actual apparel purchase decisions. This research particularly explored these evaluative criteria preferences through a combination of exploratory and descriptive research. Framed by four research objectives (RO), this research first focused on identifying and modeling the full range of factors that might influence preferences for apparel evaluative criteria. Using the model created as part of RO1, RO2 obtained a clear understanding of the use and importance of 20 intrinsic and extrinsic attributes in the purchase of casual pants, tops, skirts, and dresses. Given the importance of the Fit / sizing criteria in the overall aesthetic and functional performance of garments, RO3 delved further into preferences related to this attribute, to obtain an understanding of the market"s fit preferences across a range of casual garments. The effect of physical body, ethnic, and demographic factors in shaping these preferences was also evaluated. Thus, RO1 – RO3 focused on obtaining a better understanding of the apparel evaluative criteria preferences, and specifically the fit preferences, of Mexican-American women in their apparel purchases. Research Objective 4 explored the practical application of the information gathered from RO1 – RO3 to targeted product development processes for this market. An original survey instrument was designed to respond to RO2 – RO4, and was distributed online via SurveyGizmo. The sample was restricted to Mexican-American females, 18-25 years old, from the Southwestern US to confront well-documented variability in the Hispanic market and isolate the effects of the variables of interest in this study. Results from RO1 clearly demonstrated the consumer-oriented factors and external situation-oriented factors that influence consumer preferences for apparel evaluative criteria. The model developed as part of this objective was significant due to its inclusion of apparelspecific considerations that can be used to guide research into apparel evaluative criteria preferences. Research Objective 2 showed that Mexican-American females undergo complex purchase decisions when shopping for apparel, considering that the majority of intrinsic and extrinsic attributes studied were important, if not critical, in apparel purchases. Overall, intrinsic attributes inherent to the product were considered more important and determinant than extrinsic attributes. Minor differences in importance were also observed depending on garment category. However, the concentration of ratings toward the high end of the scale used to assess importance reduced the effect of the physical body, ethnic, and demographic variables on these preferences. Using an original fit preference assessment scale developed for this research, results also indicated that Mexican-American females preferred semi-fitted garments. This preference for a mid-range fit level contradicts some of the stereotypes that exist for the market. Statistical analysis demonstrated the possible effect of physical body characteristics of body shape and size, particularly on respondents" preferences for fitted and loose garments. Respondents of a larger size were more likely to prefer loosely fitted garments, while respondents of a smaller size and narrower waists were more likely to prefer closely fitted garments. Findings from RO1 – RO3 have direct application in targeted product development processes, specifically in line planning, concept and pattern development, marketing, and sourcing and production. A consideration of the evaluative criteria the market considers important and their associated fit preferences optimizes product development efforts and enables the development of products well-matched to customer needs. Findings of this research also reveal a wide array of future research opportunities, such as further clarification of specific evaluative criteria and fit preferences, application of the research methodology developed for this study to analyze additional target markets, and the modification of sampling strategies and the survey instrument to confront limitations involved in the current research. Apparel Product Development Considerations for US Hispanic Women: A Study of Evaluative Criteria and Fit Preferences of 18-25 Year-Old Females by Elizabeth Anne Newcomb A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Textile Technology and Management


Compared with HIV, hepatitis C virus (HCV) is more easily transmitted by blood and is thus more prevalent in drug-using communities. Unfortunately, the harm-reduction measures that appear to have reduced the incidence of HIV infection have had less effect on the HCV epidemic. A recent analysis supports these observations.

Researchers compared the prevalence and incidence of HIV and HCV infection among four cohorts of active injection-drug users in Baltimore: 246 enrolled in …


The actual trends of significant reduction in feature size and increases in complexity of semiconductor devices need advances in materials, processes and equipment. In terms of material advances, positive photoresists have formed increating usage for the majority of the resists used in devices manufacture. The processes equipment permitted to develop temperature control - both developer liquid and atomizing nitrogen and fluid dispensing. Automated spray development of positive photoresists is a feasible processing operation. The change in application variables, flow rates , temperature and spray time have different degrees of influences on critical dimensions. Adjustment of spray time provide an element of flexibility, useful in optimisation of positive process.


Foreign aid is a concept that has taken centre stage since the past decades in world affairs. There have also been arguments whether or not foreign aids serve a useful purpose in poverty reduction/eradication in the developing nations. However, this paper believed that such facility should be utilized by the developing countries to improve upon the lives of their citizens. This paper, therefore, discusses the impact of foreign aid on poverty reduction, and or eradication programmes in Lagos State, Nigeria. It examined literature on foreign aids and poverty as well as the nature of foreign aid and its strategy for poverty reduction in Lagos State. It also investigated and analysed, how foreign aid has impacted poverty eradication/ reduction programmes in Lagos State. The methodology for the study is exploratory that made use of both primary and secondary sources of data collection. The primary sources of data were collected through interview and government document; while the secondary data were collected from textbooks, library search, scholarly peer-reviewed journal articles and internet. The data collected were content analysed. The paper found out that there are serious challenges militating against the effective use of foreign aid on poverty alleviation programmes, amongst which are; misappropriation of funds, and lack of statistics on who should benefit from the programme. The paper recommended that the government should strengthen the institutional framework to ensure adequate monitoring and deployment of training centres to accommodate more people who are willing, to effectively monitor the sessions, among others.


Abstract : The goal of this research was to determine the validity of the hypothesis that a general purpose relational data base management tool could be used to implement a computer aided design system, and, if found valid, to provide the design of such a data base. Computers have been used to aid in the design of a great number of things, the most widely recognized being VLSI chips. The design of VLSI chips is related to the purpose of the work supported here. Its purpose is to incorporate some previously defined function into VLSI technology. This system, the Computer System Design Environment, instead of defining a new chip uses existing microprocessor technology to devise a specific controller for a given design problem. For instance, suppose one needs a microwave oven controller. Given the performance parameters, this system can design the software, hardware and interconnections of a microprocessor system to perform this control. In other words, this computer-aided design system is used to map a functional specification to a microprocessor and its associated software and peripherals.


A hybrid type of grand-canonical Monte Carlo simulation is carried out to investigate the accommodation of guest particle, i.e., neon, inside ice I c and its influence to the ice structure. The simulation is extended from low pressure and temperature where the pure ice I c structure is stable. As the compression proceeds, ice I c structure become unstable due to the high pressure, and then at higher pressure it is shown that a large amount of neon can be kept inside the ice giving a stable neon hydrate of ice I c structure with the neon-to-water molar ratio close to unity. The key factor in stabilizing ice structure by guest particle is clarified by carrying out simulation with different magnitudes of Lennard-Jones (LJ) parameter e wg which mainly determine the depth of LJ potential well of interaction between guest and host particles.


Tauari (Couratari guianensis, C multiflora, C oblongifolia, C. stellata, C macrosperma) is a tropical timber very commonly harvested in South America, mainly in different regions of Brazil. It is widely commercialised and exported to European countries to be used for industrial joinery. Important variations of physical and mechanical properties are observed on sawn timber, leading to bitter technological problems for wood manufacturers. These variations could be linked to several factors : nature of the concerned botanical species inside Couratari genus, origin of the trees, variations inside trees. Fourteen series of tests have been carried out on Tauari timber from two origins (French Guiana and Brazil). Four Couratari species have been tested (the four first ones previously mentioned). The main physical and mechanical properties commonly used to characterise any tropical species have been determined according to the CIRAD-Foret's standard sampling procedure. The variations of some of these properties (specific gravity, shrinkage, compression strength, bending strength, Young's modulus) have been analysed. The results of this analyse underline the respective effect of each studied considered variability factor. In particular, they show that variations inside trees are not negligible as often considered for timber from natural forest by comparison with plantations species. Moreover, species effect reveals that Tauari effectively gathers different quality of wood. (Resume d'auteur)


Based on the current research on WLAN intrusion detection technology,the paper puts forward the overall design of WLAN intrusion detection system model. The paper also has a detailed discussion about the implementation of this system,which can collect wireless MAC frame data to detect the wireless LAN - specific fake AP and STA and detect the DOS attack as well. Thus it has great significance for application.


In this paper, a merged convolution neural network (CNN) framework is proposed to automatically avoid obstacles. Although there are many methods for avoiding obstacles, previous methods mostly contain high energy-consuming and high cost. This paper aims to realize an image-based method with a monocular webcam. The experimental results illustrate that the proposed method can effectively avoid obstacles in mobile robot navigation.


in temporal logic [24, 25] or in the logic developed for Unity [10]. External interactions are also modeled as joint actions, without committing to specific communication events between the system and its environment. This means that a joint action system is a closed system containing also a model of its environment. This has an effect on modularity, as will be seen below. For the design process joint action systems provide a framework for stepwise derivation. The initial action system with which this process starts should be simple. Fortunately, the natural ways of structuring action systems support a layered introduction of properties. Bias towards machine architecture or communication primitives does not belong to the initial system, even if the eventual answers to such questions were known from the beginning. No harm is caused at this level by wasteful computations allowed by nondeterminism. Furthermore, the granularity of atomic actions can be coarser than would be feasible in a distributed implementation. Together with independence of communication mechanisms this helps in the avoidance of subtle timing errors. The initial action system is the first baseline for the design process. Being amenable to both formal analysis and experimentation (by simulation and animation), it can be subjected to extensive verification and validation. From this stage the design proceeds by transformations that • refine the atomicity of actions,


OF THESIS EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF PCD COMPACT CORE DRILL PERFORMANCE ON BASALT SIMULATING SUSTAINABLE DRY DRILLING ON MARS Missions to Mars aim to characterize rock and subsurface soil samples and possibly bring some back to Earth for more thorough and sophisticated examination. The Martian surface is covered with basalt which has high compressive strength (>130 MPa), and is more difficult to drill than the much softer sedimentary formations that are presently being drilled using diamond core drills. The main objective of this thesis work is to provide the requisite groundwork towards the development of improved and sustainable drills for subsurface drilling applications on Mars, when their goals are obtaining samples. Since progressive drill-wear is substantial in sustained drilling, the experiments were designed and conducted to study the tool-wear mechanisms and understand the associated effects on drilling performance in subsurface drilling of basalt. Core drilling experiments are conducted with different drill geometries and cutting conditions in a Martian simulant, basaltic rock; monitoring thrust force, torque and measuring tool-wear for a series of successive depth-increments. Based on the experimental results an optimization model has been developed for maximizing drilling depth with minimum tool-wear. This preliminary work will help the development of smart and sustainable drills for dry drilling applications for future NASA missions to Mars.


Brazil is the world's largest coffee producer and the second largest consumer. In 2016, the coffee crop was one of the largest in the country's history. One of the main residues of the coffee industry is coffee grounds. They are a daily waste in almost all residences, shops, bars and restaurants. The high production ends up generating an accumulation of waste due to the low processing capacity of this material. Thus, this work had the objective of finding alternative uses for this waste, to add value through the production of solid biofuel and activated biochar to remove contaminants. These bioproducts, as well as being good alternatives to minimize production waste, reduce the use of petroleum and consequently emissions of greenhouse gases. Biochar was obtained by slow pyrolysis of coffee grounds. In order to evaluate the the fuel capacity, characterization was carried out through physical-chemical analyses to measure moisture, ash, volatile material and fixed carbon contents, and elemental analysis to determine theoretical calorific value. The activated biochar was also tested as an adsorbent of organic dyes.


Objectives
 Summarize the present research to identify Vitamin D3 supplement dosage needed to prevent and manage COVID-19.

 Methods
 A literature search was performed using the PubMed database from 2020 and 2021 and works cited from eligible results were used to identify studies related to vitamin D3 and COVID-19. The MeSH terms ("Vitamin D" AND "Supplementation" AND "Dose" AND "COVID-19") yielded 35 results that were all open, full-text papers screened by multiple reviewers for inclusion in this study. Only primary research papers including the use of vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) for COVID-19 management at any stage (prevention, during, or after), were considered. Papers that did not explicitly study vitamin D3, used other vitamin D sources such as dietary interventions and light therapy, or studied populations outside the scope of this review were not considered.

 Results
 Six studies met the eligibility criteria. Four studies observed an increase in serum vitamin D3 levels and improved COVID symptoms at doses of 10,000 IU, 40,000 IU 60,000 IU, and 80,000 IU. The two other studies found that single high dose supplementation had no significant benefit for COVID-19 outcomes at 80,000 IU and 200,000 IU. Throughout the studies, doses were given at various durations that lasted from once a day, once a week, or once every two to three months. No adverse events were associated with the administration of vitamin D3. Given that vitamin D3 is often one of multiple interventions for most patients, determining what the main causative agent may be is unlikely due to confounders.

 Conclusions
 Overall, there is no consensus on an optimal vitamin D3 dose. This preliminary research suggests that while vitamin D3 may be helpful in improving COVID symptoms, outcomes cannot depend on it as the single therapeutic agent. A functional nutrition approach should also be considered to ensure that the dose given has high bioavailability and is able to function properly once in the body. Future research may consider personalizing vitamin D3 recommendations based on various confounders such as dietary factors, genetics, environment, comorbidities, and contraindications to vitamin D3 supplementation.

 Funding Sources
 This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.


We report on the preliminary design of W.M. Keck Observatory's (WMKO's) next-generation adaptive optics (NGAO) facility. This facility is designed to address key science questions including understanding the formation and evolution of today's galaxies, measuring dark matter in our galaxy and beyond, testing the theory of general relativity in the Galactic Center, understanding the formation of planetary systems around nearby stars, and exploring the origins of our own solar system. The requirements derived from these science questions have resulted in NGAO being designed to have near diffraction-limited performance in the near-IR (K-Strehl ~ 80%) over narrow fields (< 30" diameter) with modest correction down to ~ 700 nm, high sky coverage, improved sensitivity and contrast and improved photometric and astrometric accuracy. The resultant key design features include multi-laser tomography to measure the wavefront and correct for the cone effect, open loop AO-corrected near-IR tip-tilt sensors with MEMS deformable mirrors (DMs) for high sky coverage, a high order MEMS DM for the correction of atmospheric and telescope static errors to support high Strehls and high contrast companion sensitivity, point spread function (PSF) calibration to benefit quantitative astronomy, a cooled science path to reduce thermal background, and a high-efficiency science instrument providing imaging and integral field spectroscopy.


The Berlin wall has fallen and European Union has formed. Yet there are many on going civil wars within national boundaries and a few inter-nation wars continue. The world financial crisis is getting worse. Natural disasters are challenging human capabilities. In this paper I will remind you the crisis we are facing and the road ahead which is full of threats. In the essay "We should turn the slogan from "YES we can" to "YES we did", I will discuss main geopolitical issues that we faced and facing. Many businesses are aware of the controversial environment, that they are conducting operations. But every one of them is not brave enough or capable enough to make a change. There are 25,000 people who die every day due to hunger or hunger-related causes and poverty continues to increase. However arms business continues to makes a fortune. I will also discuss the Sri Lankan civil war disaster which I have experienced from my childhood and its negative impacts on country's economy. The motivation created by the President Obama with his campaign "YES we can" is hopefully be a starting point. But the time has come to join hands with every business whether it is multinational or domestic, private or public to say "YES we did."


The present study was aimed to examine the arterial normohemodynamic state for particularly blood velocity in common carotid artery (CCA) which influenced by the multiple factors of gender and aging. Evaluation of CCA blood velocity waveforms was performed in 202 healthy volunteers. Multivariate analysis was used to determine the relationship between the fixed factor and the outcome hemodynamic variables after adjustment for the related factors. As a result, we showed normal velocity and its index after adjustment for related effects. There was a general age-related decreased in flow velocities, i.e. peak systolic (S1) and peak diastolic velocities (D), where as increased in second systolic velocity (S2). The resistive (RI) and vascular elasticity indices (VEI) decreased, and velocity reflection index (VRI) increased with advancing age. The age-associated decrease in the velocity and its indices was improved by regular exercise training, with no differential effects between the designed age groups. There was a gender difference in velocity and its indices, except for peak systolic blood velocity (S1). In conclusion, the normohemodynamic in blood velocity parameters in CCA are determined from a total of 202 healthy subjects between 20 and 69 years old after taken account for gender difference and exercise training effect. Findings may contribute to understand both normotension and normodynamic state with improved means of clinical implications and healthcare monitor.


In-storage processing technology allows applications to run on embedded processors and accelerators inside solid-state drives (SSDs) for efficient computing distribution. Especially, in pattern matching applications, in-storage computing can be processed quickly due to low data access latency, and the number of I/Os can be reduced by returning only a small amount of results to the host system after processing. Previously proposed in-storage processing is separated into three phases: command decoding, data access, and data processing. In this case, data processing is strictly isolated from data access, and the isolation constraints the utilization of storage. Merging data access and data processing among the phases can enhance the utilization of storage. To efficiently merge them, we propose two-stage in-storage processing and scheduling, especially for the pattern matching application. The first stage processing during data access reduces the second stage processing latency. Also, leveraging the pattern matching results of the first stage processing, our scheduler prioritizes key requests that should return the results to the host system so that they are completed earlier than non-key requests. The proposed scheduling reduces the response time of in-storage processing requests by 52.6 % on average.


The political unity of Europe is something that most people today see as purely hypothetical, or at the very least, remote: the future appearance on the world stage of a Europe unified politically as well as economically; a Europe that will at last have become a unitary political entity. Many (but not the author) exclude it from the ambit of current political possibility. For some, it is desirable; for others, frightening. This paper considers the "when", and the "if", of European unification – questions to which the eventual coming into force of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, the text of which was agreed toon 18 June 2004, does not provide an answer.


A method of increasing the printing system includes a drum structure, for example, from which the delivery LED from one or more curable ink printhead of a print carriage and means for curing the ink delivery or a plurality of LED light sources. Some embodiments may preferably further comprise one or more LED pining station, in order to control, slow or stop the diffusion of the ink droplet. Moreover, some printers may comprise any of the other embodiments of the oxygen-depleted gas is an inert gas such as nitrogen or at least in part, such as one between the delivery mechanism and the substrate LED energy. Compared with the prior art systems, herein disclosed structures generally provide higher LED print quality and / or lower costs for the wide variety of printed output, for example, but not limited to super-wide (SWF) output , wide (WF) output, packaging, marking or point of sale displays or signs.


Variable-temperature kinetics studies of the reversible β-methyl elimination reaction of Cp2Hf(CH2CMe3)(μ-Me)B(C6F5)3 (I) to give Cp2Hf(Me)(μ-Me)B(C6F5)3 and CH2CMe2 are reported. Activation enthalpies of 21.3(0.5) and 17.0(0.3) kcal/mol in toluene and chlorobenzene, respectively, are shown to represent the energy barrier for β-methyl migration accompanied by concomitant, solvent-assisted dissociation of [BMe(C6F5)3]- anion from the metal.


At least since Augustine's Confessions, the theological task and the theologian's self-articulation can be seen as somehow intertwined. The fact that academic theological discourse often obscures this link is no argument against it. All writing presupposes an "I," and theological writing is no different. Indeed, theology, as I shall define it below, demands an "I-Thou" relationship precisely because it is a dialogue that extends through time and space. The following essay, then, aims to navigate the fraught waters of a theologian's self-conception and the public discourse of theology. Different modes of argumentationpersonal reflection and propositional discourse, in particular-will be required, and this blending is itself part of the argument.After eleven years in academic theology, four in post-doctoral positions, I have changed course. I left a job at the University of Cambridge and began attending the Iowa Writers' Workshop to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing. I use the metaphor of "changing course," but that is not quite right. Perhaps a better one would be that of perspective. Then it would be clear that I aim to address the same issues, but from a different angle. The following argument is my attempt, as a Christian theologian, to make sense of this shift, whether of course or of perspective. It would certainly be perfectly acceptable to write fiction simply as a hobby, and even then to see it as somehow a means of engaging with broadly theological issues, but as a theologian who remains committed to the theological task, I think I can go further and argue that the act of fiction writing can itself be, from the start, a properly theological endeavor. In fact, if the following articulation of the theological task is in any way correct, a shift from the theological academy to creative writing might well allow me to have a greater theological impact than remaining only within the guild of academic theologians.I would suggest the following as a preliminary, basic definition of the academic discipline of theology: To teach Christian doctrine is to introduce ones students into an historical and ongoing conversation about who God is. Because I speak here of "Christian" theology, the term "God" refers particularly to the God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth. In addition, the term "conversation" presupposes a group of people. Historically speaking, those engaged in this conversation-that is, in reflection on who the Christian God is-are part of the group of people who worship the God being discussed, that is, "the church." But to be clear: the academic discipline of theology is not to be confused with the liturgical practice of the worshiping body of believers. It is instead a reflection on that practice, one step removed from the actions that arise from belief in this God. For that reason, it is possible to engage in the reflective conversation without believing any of the premises on which it is based, but because the worship of the church gives rise to certain questions, and because the discipline of theology reflects on these questions, theology and the life of the church are ultimately intertwined and inseparable. At this stage, it seems helpful to appeal to Karl Barths language: theology is the church's "self-test."1To speak of the "church" in such a monolithic way poses an immediate problem: if our eyes are to be believed, such a unified entity does not exist. In this context, it must suffice to make a theological claim that will be accepted by many-but certainly not alldenominations. Even the Roman Catholic Church can say about other churches that "in some real way they are joined with us in the Holy Spirit."2 One might formulate it in the following manner: there is a reality, "the church," that comprises a multitude of "churches" precisely because they all worship the same God.In its worship and liturgy, this church seeks to grow in understanding of the God who raised Jesus from the dead. This attempt is possible because God has made himself known, and in so doing, has initiated a relationship with his creation. …


Halide perovskite materials are emerging as a new promising semiconductor display material owing to their excellent optical and electrical properties. Highly efficient blue perovskite light‐emitting diodes (PeLEDs) are the basis for full‐color displays and solid‐state lighting applications, but their efficiency and stability still lag far behind the red and green analogs. This review focuses on the key effect factors and novel strategies for blue emission PeLEDs. In detail, first effective strategies to obtain blue emission perovskite are discussed, and then the recent progress and strategies in blue emission PeLEDs, including the physical properties and significant improvements based on different structural perovskite materials are systematically elucidated. Finally, the main challenges relating to efficiency, stability, lead toxicity, and fabrication techniques in blue emission PeLEDs are summarized, and the promising research avenues in the future are discussed.


The study was conducted to assess the effects of creatine pyruvate (Cr-Pyr) on lipid and protein metabolism in male rats. Healthy adult male Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats (40) were randomly assigned to control group (CG) and 3 experiment groups (EG) administrated with 750 (EG 1 ), 1500 (EG 1 ), or 3000 (EG 3 ) mg/kg Cr-Pyr daily for 42 d. The fat mass in male rats of EGs was lower and relative muscle weight was significantly higher in EG 2 and EG 3 than CG. The content of serum HDL-C and hepatic TC was significantly lower in EG 2 , and male rats of EG 3 had significantly lower hepatic TG as compared to those in CG. Supplementation of male rats with 3000 mg/kg Cr-Pyr significantly decreased the serum leptin concentration but increased insulin. Serum IGF-1 was thought statistically not significantly difference but its level elevated in EGs compared to CG. The expressions of HSL in fat and peroxisome proliferators-activated receptor α mRNA in liver were enhanced in EG 2 and EG 3 than CG. Supplementation of Cr-Pyr resulted in a significant increase in muscle protein content in EGs. Hepatic GPT was increased in EGs, but no effect on hepatic GOT activity. Supplementation of Cr-Pyr resulted in significant increase in muscle myogenin mRNA expression, while muscle mRNA abundance of myostatin (MSTN) was unaffected. The results described herein demonstrated that supplementation of Cr-Pyr was accompanied by significant elevated levels of lipolysis and increased muscle protein synthesis through the regulation of various metabolic parameters in male rats.


The electrode kinetics at 25°C of the reduction of manganese(III) on an oxidised platinum surface confirms an unusually low transfer coefficient of 0.26. Interpretation involving a comparison with a correlation of hydrolytic constants of similar trivalent cations and their several redox potentials points to a hydroxo-or oxo-bridged transition state. The MnIII/MnII conditional standard electrode potential was observed to be 1.535 V at ionic strength 3.31 mol dm–3 against H2|HClO4(3 mol dm–3), NaClO4(0.31 mol dm–3).


In this paper, structural safety has been verify by performing vibration tests of the equipment. Equipments mounted on the vehicle are exposed to various vibration environment during a lifecycle. The vibration raises the structural safety issue about the equipment. Most of equipment on vehicle are important to verify reliability about vibration environment. For this purpose, equipment on vehicle are developed compliance to MIL-STD-810G and verified reliability.


One βglucosidase gene in Arabidopsis thaliana (AT5g44640) was expressed using Pichia pastoris expression system and the active target protein was obtained. The factors affecting the expression of Pichia were also analyzed. The results showed that copy number of insertion of the expression cassette, strains of P.pastoris, different methanol concentrations, time of induction and beginning concentration of induction all had influence on the yield of βglucosidase.


Water and 50% ethanol extracts from 9 kinds of botanical materials were screened for their antibacterial activity with conidial germination experiment.Results indicated that the 50% ethanol extracts of all materials and the water extracts of Litsea Cubeba and Cayenne Pepper had inhibitory effect to the germination of wheat powdery mildew pathogen spores.Therefore,these plant materials might be used as a source of botanical fungicide in wheat powdery mildew control.Further study showed that the inhibitory effect of different botanical extracts was related to the component and concentration.The 11.00 times diluents of 50% ethanol extracts of Garlic,Fructus Ligustri Lucidi(oven dry),Cayenne Pepper and Tobacco Stalk Epidermis,and the 2.25 times diluents of water extracts of Cayenne Pepper even inhibited the germination of wheat powdery mildew pathogen spores significantly.As for its antifungal components of different extracts,it is very necessary for us to further make an inquiry.


In order to improve the sensitivity of the pure MoO3 sensor to ammonia and reduce its operating temperature, MoO3/MoS2/rGO was prepared in this work, and the gas-sensitive performance of MoO3/MoS2/rGO was studied. The results of the static gas sensitivity test show that, compared with pure MoO3, MoO3/MoS2/rGO greatly improves the response of the sensor to ammonia at low temperature. Moreover, this article discusses the multigas detection methods by waveform-matched dynamic temperature modulation based on low-temperature gas sensor composites of rose-like MoO3/MoS2/rGO, which is used to solve the shortcoming of poor selectivity of metal–oxide–semiconductor gas sensor. Multigas (including acetone, methanol, ethanol, benzene, toluene, and ammonia) detection methods by waveform-matched dynamic temperature modulation are investigated, in which the experimental results show that the dynamic response curves of the sensor have obvious differences to each gas under different temperature waveform modulations. Temperature modulation waveforms with different periods and variations are investigated, including rectangular wave, triangular wave, and sine wave. This provides a feasible way to improve the selectivity of the sensor. In order to establish and verify the accuracy of the multigas detection model, 100 sets of response curves are selected for each waveform. Finally, the gas-sensing mechanism of gas-sensitive materials to ammonia is analyzed. Preparation of highly sensitive materials, dynamic testing, and gas identification methods can provide the technical basis for the application of gas sensors.


As mobile Internet, cloud computing, big data, the Internet of Things and other technologies arise and develop, everything can be digital and the means of data collection, analysis and processing become diversified and more effective. The value of data has transformed from process input and output into directly driving enterprise operation and management. Enterprises can not only collect and store massive data but also drive management upgrade by data. For healthcare industry, with the application of digitalization technology, the number of data in this industry continues a rapid growth, and data has become an engine propelling healthcare enterprises to improve management continually. This paper took data reform as a starting point to discuss the enterprise management upgrade schemes in healthcare industry.


The invention discloses an electric connector with a built-in multi-contact-point annular elastic contact component. The electric connector comprises a conductive jack body and the multi-contact-point annular elastic contact component; the inner wall of the conductive jack body is provided with an accommodating groove, and the outer wall of the multi-contact-point annular elastic contact component is in multi-contact-point electric connection with the inner wall of the accommodating groove; multiple linear conducting pieces are braided in a crossed manner to form a multi-contact-point elastic contact component, the multi-contact-point elastic contact component forms the multi-contact-point annular elastic contact component along an annular track; each linear conducting piece is corrugated; and wave peaks of the linear conducting pieces form an external enveloping surface of the multi-contact-point annular elastic contact component, and wave valleys form an internal enveloping surface. The electric connector is stable in structural manner, and ensures electric connection with reliable contact, low temperature rise and higher requirement for service life.


And when they asked us where we were from we exchanged glances and smiled with the shyness of child brides. They said, Africa? We nodded yes. What part of Africa? We smiled. Is it that part where vultures wait for famished children to die? We smiled. Where Angelina Jolie got that poor baby girl? We smiled. Where the life expectancy is thirty five years? We smiled. Is it there, where dissidents shove AK47s between women's legs? We smiled. Where people run about naked? We smiled. That part where they massacred each other? We smiled. Is it where the old president rigged the election and people were tortured and killed and a whole bunch of them put in prison and all, there, where they are dying of cholera—oh my god, you're from Zimbabwe? It's been on the news. And when Zimbabwe tumbled from their lips like crushed bricks, we exchanged glances again and the water in our eyes broke. Our smiles melted like dying shadows and we wept; wept for our blessed, wretched country. We wept and wept and they pitied us and said, it's okay—it's okay, you are in America now, and still we wept and wept and wept and they gave us soft little thingies and said, here is some Kleenex, here, and we took the soft thingies and put them in our pockets to look at later and we wept still, wept like widows, wept like orphans.


Abstract The study of peroxovanadium compounds has received renewed attention since the discovery of their insulin mimetic properties and of the vanadium bromoperoxidase enzyme which catalyzes the oxidation of halides by hydrogen peroxide. This work presents the synthesis and characterization of three novel oxodiperoxovanadium complexes, K n [VO(O2)2AA] 2H2O, where AA = L-asparagine(l), L-phenylglycine(2), D, L-homocystine(3). The products were synthesized by the reaction of V2O5, with the amino acid and H2O2 at room temperature. The compounds obtained are yellow, soluble in water and insoluble in organic solvents. They show remarkable hygroscopic character and are light and temperature sensitive. IR and UV-VIS spectra of the compounds show the typical oxo and diperoxo bands (νv = o = 970 cm−1, νvo-o = 870cm−1, νv-O2 = 630, 525 cm−1, ⋋ ≅320nm). The ligand bonding properties were determined on the basis of electric conductivity and spectroscopic data (IR, 1H NMR) as well as elemental analysis.


We review the present status of the Baikal Deep Underwater Neutrino Experiment. The con-struction and performance of the large deep underwater Cherenkov detector for muons and neutrinos, NT-200 (Neutrino Telescope with 200 phototubes), which is currently under con-struction in Lake Baikal are described. Some results obtained with the intermediate detectors NT-36 (1993-95), NT-72 (1995-96) and NT-96 (1996-97) are presented, including the first clear neutrino candidates selected with 1994 and 1996 data.


The present invention relates to a pyrrole derivative substituted in the following Formula 1, Is the 3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl-coenzyme A (HMG-CoA) reductase inhibitor may be used as, may act compound of the present invention to provide a cholesterol-lowering agent, the treatment of cholesterol-related diseases and related symptoms can be used in, the present invention discloses and provides a pharmaceutical composition, the treatment of related symptoms and cholesterol related disease method containing a compound for initiating as well as the process for preparing a compound, pharmaceutically acceptable salt, pharmaceutically acceptable solvates, metabolites, polymorphs, tautomers, racemates, pure enantiomers, diastereoisomers or N- oxides characterized in that it provides the (formula 2): Formula 2


Background
Epidemiologic data on the combined influence of several lifestyle factors on diabetes risk are rare, particularly among older adults.


Advance directives force anticipation of the vulnerability of death, and open discussion of a situation, to create a climate of trust between patients, physicians, and health care providers, without setting family members aside. They are a precious tool, and the expression of deep wishes and promises, but also of spiritual commitment. They give health care providers an opportunity to forge an alliance, and to give ethical direction to their efforts to accompany the patient. The spiritual focus of these directives is linked to their encouragement of everything that can help guide the patient's path towards the inner light regained from the night.


Giant velocity features on the solar surface are seen in line-of-sight velocity data from the Mount Wilson magnetograph. Velocity amplitudes around 40 m/s are seen in features with dimensions about 15 deg in latitude and 30-60 deg in longitude. These features are associated with solar activity. The largest such feature accompanied the largest complex of activity in this interval, lived for about 16 rotations, and predated the first magnetic fields in the area by about two rotations. A general pattern of upward motion at the equator is seen, and motions away from the earth at higher latitudes could represent a meridional flow toward the poles of the order of 20 m/s.


Calls have previously been made for research to examine marginalised youth from rural areas and their career development processes. In this paper we examine the tensions between local youth identities and the changing labour market structures and educational opportunities in rural areas. Young people form their identities locally where current labour and education policies call youth to be mobile and 'placeless' (Farrugia et. al. 2014). Young people who live in rural or disadvantaged metropolitan areas have a very different starting point to build their careers than peers from socially and locally more advanced backgrounds (Tomaszewski & Cebulla 2014). Labour policies expect young people to be socially adaptive and ready to leave their local environments. In this article we examine the tension between young people's locally and relationally shaped identities and their future and career orientations. The study is a comparison of two different cultural and geographical contexts in rural Finland and metropolitan South Africa. In both of these contexts, the youth interviewed are considered to be in the margins of society because of their experiences of high drop-out and unemployment rates. Our research task is to examine how social and geographical localities, the conditions of educational opportunities as well as the labour market demands are represented in the life narratives of South-African and Finnish young adults. Data collection consisted of ethnographic field notes, interviews and follow-up interviews. We had a Finnish sample of 18 to 24-year-old young people (n=17), who do not have secondary education or work, who were in attendance of the Open Vocational College (OVC). In the South African sample, data was collected from Kayamandi Township high school learners, between the ages of 17 and 20 years old (n=17). Braun and Clarke's (2006) content analysis was used to group themes according to two theoretical approaches: namely the relational approach to youth agency as well as the theoretical concept of belonging. Significant findings emerged that showed that there are two types of reconciliation and tensions. The first is that of subjective and familial or community expectations before mobility is undertaken. The second reconciliation is the reconciliation of localities (i.e. old versus new experiences). When these two reconciliatory processes were completed young were prepared to embrace mobility for career development. The implications for further research and practice aimed at facilitating the career development of marginalised youth worldwide are discussed.


As microelectronic devices become smaller and smaller (a few nanometers), atom probe tomography (APT) becomes one of the few techniques able to provide 3D chemical information at this scale [1]. The complexity of these devices makes acceptable analysis yield a challenge because of the intimacy of disparate materials with disparate evaporation fields [2]. This study focuses on the use of test structures to avoid yield issues and provide unique analysis information about 3D dopant distributions within these simplified device structures.


The principal objective of the project was to test and evaluate the BNL collectors in a space heating system. When the BNL collectors delaminated under stagnation conditions, they were replaced with the Chamberlain collectors which were previously used on solar house III, and tests were continued to evaluate performance of a drain-back system. Results leading to the following conclusions are discussed. (1) The Chamberlain collectors have deteriorated in performance compared to previous seasons. Where daily efficiency of 41% were attained in 1978 to 1979 and 1979 to 1980, efficiency was 37%. System efficiency of 29% compares to 30% in prior years. (2) Solar contribution to DHW heating is low, and is probably the result of the artificially imposed load profile and the low recovery rate of the double-wall heat exchanger. (3) System efficiency can be improved by reducing thermal losses from storage.


"Optimal Sequential Inspection Policies," Noam Goldberg, Jonathan Word, Endre Boros and Paul Kantor, 2008-07. "Anomaly Detection by Reasoning from Evidence in Mobile Wireless Networks," Nikita I. Lytkin, William M. Pottenger and Ilya B. Muchnik, 2008-08. "Minimal and local minimal games and game forms," Endre Boros, Vladimir Gurvich and Kazuhisa Makino, 2008-09. "Acyclic or totally tight, two-person game forms; characterization and main properties," Endre Boros, Vladimir Gurvich, Kazuhisa Makino and David Papp, 2008-10. "Criteria or solvability of bimatrix games based on excluding certain 2*2 subgames," Endre Boros, Vladimir Gurvich, Kazuhisa Makino, Khaled Elbassioni and Vladimir Oudalov, 2008-11.


AIM: To investigate the significance of extracellular signal - regulated kinasel/2(MAPKERK1/2) pathway in spontaneous over- expression of IL-6 and anti - dsDNA antibody in the periphery blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from patients with lupus nephritis (LN). METHODS: PBMC were obtained and cultured from 26 LN patients and 21 healthy persons. Semi -quantity immunoblot, rectrotranscriptase polymerase chain reaction, and EL1SA were used to determine the activation slate of MAPKERK1/2 pathway, IL - 6 and anti - dsDNA antibody expression in PBMC. RESULTS: MAPKERK1/2 activation, IL - 6 and anti - dsDNA antibody expression in PBMC of LN patients significantly increased compared with that of normal persons. When the MAPKERK1/2 pathway was blocked by a specific antagonist PD98059, spontaneous expression of IL - 6 and anti - dsDNA antibody in LN PBMC were significantly inhibited. CONCLUSION: Abnormal activation of MAPKERK1/2 pathway mediates the over- expression of IL- 6 and anti - dsDNA antibody in PBMC of patients with LN, suggesting that MAPKERK1/2 pathway may play an important role in the pathogenesis of LN.