It is well known that the joint probability density of the eigenvalues of Gaussian ensembles of random matrices may be interpreted as a Coulomb gas. We review these classical results for hermitian and complex random matrices, with special attention devoted to electrostatic analogies. We also discuss the joint probability density of the zeros of polynomials whose coefficients are complex Gaussian variables. This leads to a new two-dimensional solvable gas of interacting particles, with non-trivial interactions between particles.


This report presents results of correlational analyses bearing on the construct validity of the Estimate of Self-Competence (ESC) scale which was designed to measure generalized expectancy of task success. Three groups of university students completed the ESC and a variety of other measures. People with high ESC scores report stronger expectations of performing well in a university course if they apply effort, are more internal in their locus of control, and score higher on measures of self-assurance and self-confidence. They have self-perceptions similar to those of people with high levels of ability even though they may not possess more ability than people with low ESC scores. Although they tend to score somewhat higher on a measure of social desirability, it does not account for these findings. In addition, the ESC is correlated with other scales that seem to measure facets of drive and task-related motivation. Taken together, these results provide evidence for the validity of the ESC as a measure of generalized expectancy of task success.


The role that natural lighting plays in buildings c annot be underestimated. Natural light is integrate d into buildings because of its potential economic benefit and the e ffect on the occupants' psychological and physiolog ical wellbeing. This study concentrates on Ayeduase, a subur b of Kumasi, Ghana, where poor architectural design s could affect the performance of students. Therefore, the primary aim of this study is to help improve the he alth (general well-being) and visual comfort of students living iAyeduase, by creating awareness of the positive e ffects of natural light on humans. Questionnaires and intervi ews, as well as empirical measuring of daylight lev els in the spaces of selected hostels were used. Analysed data revealed that the level of illuminance in the host els is considerably poor and this resulted in students usi ng artificial lighting throughout the day. Neverthe less, the negative effect of this situation can be prevented from occurring in further developments in Ayeduase (and Ghana as a whole), by educating the public on the benefits o f using natural lighting in buildings and by enforc ing laws that will ensure that buildings have maximum openings th at allow enough daylight into the interior spaces. These measures will help reduce utility costs, improve th e well-being of building occupants and increase the performance of students.


The problem of the best approximation with generalized restrictions is considered in this paper.By introducing a new Haar type space,the uniqueness and strong uniqueness of the best approximation on this Haar type space are given.


The study investigated the acute hemodynamic changes induced in patients with angiographically confirmed coronary artery disease by 3 beta-blockers: metoprolol, cardioselective without intrinsic sympathomimetic activity (ISA), group I, 11 patients; bunitrolol, noncardioselective with ISA, group II, 11 patients; oxprenolol, noncardioselective with ISA, group III, 11 patients. Hemodynamic variables were obtained at rest and during exercise, before and 45 min after 10 mg i.v. of the drug. Changes in LVEDP and cardiac indexes were such as LV function was improved in 1 patient of group I, 7 patients of group II and 5 patients of group III; impaired in 4 patients of group I and in 1 patient of group III; unchanged in the others. Contractility indexes were less influenced by bunitrolol and oxprenolol. During exercise there was a significant difference between groups for LVEDP which was lower in group II (P less than 0.01). The data seem to indicate that the choice of the beta-blocker may be of importance when it is desirable that an already compromised cardiac function be not further impaired by pharmacological intervention.


In 1987 the Cypriot Permanent Committee for the Standardization of Geographical Names presented a complete catalogue of the 67,000 place names of Cyprus in their standardized version. The use of etymological, historical and orthographic criteria had as a consequence the replacement of several dialectal features. Although the changes proposed were quantitatively small, there was an immediate reaction to restore the traditionally established spelling. The discrepancy between the limited character of the changes proposed and the reactions provoked is due to the salience (Trudgill, 1986) of the dialectal features displaced. The identity function of such variables seems strong enough to make their replacement difficult, if not impossible.


The purpose of this instructional design project was to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a curated website for adults living in Hawai'i and their attitudes about the benefits of sustainable sunscreen, as well as the impact on Hawai'i's natural environment. Nineteen adults living in Hawai'i were exposed to a curated website created on Wix to help educate them on safe sunscreen in hopes of making environmentally friendly sunscreen choices in the future. Learners completed two surveys on GoogleForms to describe their feelings and knowledge towards content pertaining to the topic before and after viewing the website. Data was collected and presented on TCC to describe their attitudes afterwards.


This paper proposes a loss minimization control including fault tolerance for variable-speed permanent magnet synchronous generators, for which it is required that power flows stays constant and the generated energy processed through a AC/DC/AC power converter. It propose and compare two different 4-wires topologies. In the first topology, the neutral point of the generator is connected to a fourth leg of the inverter, and in second topology, it is connected to the midpoint of the DC bus capacitor bank. The main advantage of both options is that once fault occurs, is not necessary to reconfigure the inverter topology which means no need for additional switches. In addition, there is no need for modifying the control algorithm during fault. Another characteristic of the proposed control algorithm is that it allows limiting the generator losses to its maximum admissible value during operation, even under fault conditions. Simulation results are also presented to validate the proposed control strategies.


................................................................................................................... iii DEDICATION................................................................................................................ vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................... vii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ ix LIST OF TABLES.......................................................................................................... xi THESIS INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................1 CHAPTER I. CHANGING FLORA OF AN OLD-GROWTH MESOPHYTIC FOREST: PREVIOUSLY UNDETECTED TAXA AND FIRST APPEARANCE OF NONNATIVE INVASIVE SPECIES .......................................................................................4 LITERATURE CITED ...................................................................................................11 CHAPTER II. TREE REGENERATION ECOLOGY OF AN OLD GROWTH CENTRAL APPALACHIAN FOREST: DIVERSITY, TEMPORAL DYNAMICS, AND DISTURBANCE RESPONSE .......................................................................................17 LITERATURE CITED ...................................................................................................35 CHAPTER III. SPATIOTEMPORAL DYNAMICS OF α AND β DIVERSITY ACROSS TOPOGRAPHIC GRADIENTS IN THE HERBACEOUS LAYER OF AN OLD-GROWTH DECIDUOUS FOREST .....................................................................48 LITERATURE CITED ...................................................................................................65


It is imperative a model be developed that can assess the difference between the amount of CO2, generated within the human body and the amount of CO2 that is ejected by the body as a function of indoor air parameters. This model would allow the assessment of the amount of the CO2 which is not ejected by the body through exhalation and which have to be neutralized and ejected by the body through other mechanisms or have to be accumulated in the body depots. Currently, there is no experimental data that allows for predicting the amount of CO2, ejected through the blood gas exchange in the lungs as a function of CO2 concentration in the inhaled air. Our study, conducted within the AIRMEN project, aims to research the phenomenology of the human body as a physiological source of the deterioration of both the indoor environment and conditions of comfort and in particular on the indoor air quality. It is based on an experimental investigation of the external result from the human body metabolism and gas exchange in the lungs. The results of this study make it possible to logically define the limits of the permissible CO2 concentration in the indoor air for the different air quality categories indoors.


Sixty-six whole-organ sectioned laryngopharyngectomy specimens removed for cancer during a seven-year period were uniformly examined to determine the accuracy of preoperative high resolution computerized tomography (CT) for detection of cartilaginous involvement. Our results indicate that CT has a high overall specificity (88.2%) but a low sensitivity (47.1 %); we observed a high false-negative rate (26.5%) and a fairly low false-positive rate (5.9%). Massive cartilage destruction was easily assessed by CT, whereas both small macroscopic and microscopic neoplastic foci of cartilaginous invasion were missed on CT scans. Moreover, false-positive cases were mainly due to proximity of the tumor to the cartilage. Clinical implications of these results are discussed.


On behalf of the RCN Ethics Forum, I would like to congratulate the Isle of Man Branch on the success of its recent three-day conference on the value of nursing.


4 days old ducklings were infected with chicken embryo attenuated strain MY of duck hepatitis virus type I.Serum biochemical indexes of MY group,attenuated strain HY group,standard virus group and control group were measured at 6,12,24,48,72,96,144,168,192 h and 14 d after the infection.Compared to the control group,the content of ALB in MY group and HY group decreased distinctly at 24 h after infection,and it was significantly lower at 48 h after infection.The activities of ALT in MY group and HY group increased evidently at 24 h and 144 h after infection,and the activities of ALT in MY group maintained to 192 h.In standard virus group,the concentration of GLU dropped from 24 h to 96 h after infection,while the concentration of TG rose significantly.The content of TP at 72,96 and 144 h after infection,the content of ALB at 24 h and 144 h after infection and the content of GLO from 72 h to 96 h and at 144 h after infection reduced obviously.The activities of ALT from 24 h to 192 h and AST from 24 h to 72 h enhanced significantly.The concentration of uric acid augmented momently at 72 h after infection.The results suggested that the change orderliness of serum biochemical indexes in ducklings infected with chicken embryo attenuated strain MY of duck hepatitis virus type I was similar to the ducklings' infected with attenuated strain HY.


One of the great advantages of LED based lighting fittings is their efficiency. Efficient cooling solutions are needed even for this type of fittings because of the high power density. This paper presents a comparison between passive cooling, with a heat sink, and active cooling using a fan. This paper discusses how fans can be used to cool high power COBs(chip on board) without significantly increasing the size and complexity of the fitting and without significantly increasing consumption. Although the use of fans to cool LEDs is not new, in this paper, a comparison is made between the two methods in terms of temperature, forward voltage, total energy consumption as well as from the point of view of illuminance.


To the Editor:— We have followed with considerable interest the articles and correspondence on garlic breath odors that have appeared inThe Journalin recent months (Haggard, H. W., and Greenberg, L. A.: Breath Odors from Alliaceous Substances: Cause and Remedy,The Journal, June 15, 1935, p. 2160. Blankenhorn, M. A., and Richards, C. E.: Garlic Breath Odor, Aug. 8, 1936, p. 409. Haggard, H. W.: Eliminating Odor of Garlic, Sept. 12, 1936, p. 895. Blankenhorn, M. A.: Garlic Odor to Breath, Oct. 17, 1936, p. 1321). No one can seriously doubt that a considerable part of "garlic breath" may be due to retention in the mouth of tiny particles of garlictainted foods. Furthermore, as a result of experiments to be mentioned, we can confirm Haggard and Greenberg's experience that chloramine will deodorize these mouth particles. It seems to us that the crucial question to be answered is "When garlic


A prescribed-time output-feedback stabilizing controller is designed for a class of uncertain nonlinear strict-feedback-like systems with unknown time delays. The control design is based on a novel adaptation of the dual dynamic high-gain scaling based observer and controller design methodology wherein a Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional is first used to show existence of closed-loop solutions over the prescribed time interval. Thereafter, dynamics of an adaptation state variable and high-gain scaling parameter are used to show that unknown parameters are dominated within a sub-interval of the prescribed time after which a formulation of a Lyapunov function dynamics as a scalar delay differential equation is introduced to establish exponential convergence within the remaining sub-interval of the prescribed time.


An improvement over the Beadle-Djuric (see ibid., vol.4, p.259-61, 1997) method to simulate the parameters of stable invertible autoregressive moving average (ARMA) (p,q) processes is presented. It is computationally efficient and is especially suitable for simulation of high-order models.


The high speed and faithfulness of state-of-the-art virtual machines (VMs) make them the ideal front-end for a system simulation framework. However, VMs only emulate the functional behavior and just provide the minimal timing for the system to run correctly. In a simulation framework supporting the exploration of different configurations, a timing backend is still necessary to accurately determine the performance of the simulated target. As it has been extensively researched, sampling is an excellent approach for fast timing simulation. However, existing sampling mechanisms require capturing information for every instruction and memory access. Hence, coupling a standard sampling technique to a VM implies disabling most of the "tricks" used by a VM to accelerate execution, such as the caching and linking of dynamically compiled code. Without code caching, the performance of a VM is severely impacted. In this paper we present a novel dynamic sampling mechanism that overcomes this problem and enables the use of VMs for timing simulation. By making use of the internal information collected by the VM during functional simulation, we can quickly assess important characteristics of the simulated applications (such as phase changes), and activate or deactivate the timing simulation accordingly. This allows us to run unmodified OS and applications over emulated hardware at near-native speed, yet providing a way to insert timing measurements that yield a final accuracy similar to state-of-the-art sampling methods


In order to friendly connect the new agricultural alternating current and direct current load ˈeffectively improve the photovoltaic accommodation ability, this paper establishes the greenhouse AC/DC hybrid power supply structure, and based on this, establishes a mathematical model with the goal of power supply cost. The model is solved by a genetic algorithm based on matrix real number hybrid coding, then economic comparison and optimization are carried out, finally an AC/DC hybrid power supply scheme including a variety of new agricultural loads that can be applied to greenhouses is formed. In order to verify the correctness of the model and the algorithm, this paper takes a greenhouse in the west as an example for analysis. It can be verified that this method not only effectively reduces energy waste but also promotes the development of agricultural power supply technology.


We present an algorithm for solving a class of nonlinear complementarity problems called the almost linear complementarity problem (ALCP), which can be used to simulate free boundary problems. The algorithm makes use of a procedure for identifying an active index subset of an ALCP by bounding its solution with an interval vector. It is shown that an acceptable solution of the given ALCP can be obtained by solving at most n systems of equations. Numerical results are reported to illustrate the efficiency of the algorithm for large-scale problems.


Could fractional reductions in the carbon footprint of a growing organization lead to a corresponding real reduction in atmospheric CO2 emissions in the next ten years? Curtis M. Oldenburg, Editor‐in‐Chief, considers his own organization's carbon footprint and answers this critical question?. © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd


Method to implement AGC in power plant to cooperate with the dispatching center was introduced, including the traditional connection scheme and the communication scheme in network control system. The advantage and disadvantage of the method was also described. The method in the future to implement AGC in NCS is predicted.


We propose a new algorithm for mathematical programs with linear complementarity constraints,for which initial value w 0 can be chosen arbitrarily.Numerical experiment shows that the new algorithm is effective.


Cloud computing facilitates an economic data storage, expertise software, and scalable computing resources through infrastructure, platform, and software (as a service). However, due to the non-transparent and openness of cloud computing, security is the pressing issue that may hamper the adoption and growth of cloud services. Moreover, conventional authentication management solutions are inadequate and cannot be directly adopted in cloud computing environments. Existing schemes have addressed the above issue, and a comprehensive study of the literature helped in formulating the current research. This research intends to develop an effective mutual authentication scheme for reliable cloud service provisioning. The performance is analysed in terms of computational overhead, communication cost, and resistance to various security characteristics.


objects, broadly defined. There is a history of a road that 'transported colonialism and brought people into new, not always welcome relationships' (134). There are essays on minute books of the Māori land court, on diaries, photographs, carvings, a printing press, stamps, embroidery, slippers, toys, a memorial tree, a cottage, a piano, a medicine chest, a cannon and billies (used for making tea and cooking over fires, with recipes included). The essays trace the global flow of people, objects, technologies, print cultures, and medical and scientific knowledge. They trace colonial networks and links toChina, India, andSouth Africa.Many of the objects exhibit themingling of cultures as people shared and incorporated new materials and techniques. The slippers of celebrated Māori leader Te Keepa Te Rangihiwinui are a symbol of how he blended Māori and European worlds in his own life. For the history of women, material culture history is a rich resource. Their lives emerge through objects, sometimes in unexpected places. Spinks Cottage, Wellington sheds light on the Spinks sisters and female entrepreneurship in the mid-nineteenth century. Tragedies of colonial life are illustrated in the 1869 photograph of Rachel Stewart and her baby son. He died shortly after the portrait was taken. There is a Victorian feeding bottle in the photograph, that author Alison Clarke surmises may have contributed to the death of the infant. Altogether this is an entrancing and remarkable book. It should attract a wider audience than might normally read about colonial history, and provide those who do with new lenses with which to view, refine, enrich and expand understanding and analysis.


In this paper, a new multi-dimensional facial recognition system is proposed. A new technique for data reduction for multidimensional biometric facial analysis to improve face recognition performance in real environments is implemented. For this the tensorial methods are adopted, the sample of the face must be reshaped by natural tensor representations into vectors of very large dimensions. This remodeling breaks the natural structure of the correlations existing in the original tensor data, involving high costs and the need to evaluate a large number of parameters. Firstly, we give an overview and generalities on facial recognition systems, and then we present some techniques to n Dimensional Face Recognition System (nDFRS). The Tensor Local Preserving Projection (TLPP) is proposed as a new method of reducing and implemented to obtain our Nearest Neighbor classification. TLPP is used to reduce features vectors obtained by local descriptors LBP, LPQ and BSI. Many experiments on ORL, YALE and FERET Databases show that our methods are not only more effective but also more robust.


The definition of the 'third generation' Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) is currently in progress. The UMTS will consist of both terrestrial and space components. The satellite component is expected to operate alongside that of the terrestrial component and provide a complementary rather than a competitive service. First, the role of the satellite component of the UMTS is established, from which potential different satellite-UMTS user groups are identified. The number of users for each user group is then derived, taking into account the gross potential market, the penetration rate of the identified services and the profitability of providing such services via satellite.


M-H loops with a vanishing coercive field H c and loss E have been obtained for an amorphous Co 70.3 Fe 4.7 Si 15 B 10 ribbon carrying an ac current of appropriate amplitude, frequency, and phase. The actual shape of the ac-current pulse is immaterial as long as the phase and amplitude remain the same. The phenomenon is explained within the framework of the recent model for the magnetization of a ferromagnetic ribbon carrying a dc current. The general condition for the occurrence of H c =0 is derived and some applications of the phenomenon are discussed


Does the chance of having a healthy baby after PGT-M differ according to the known risk of inherited genetic pathology: autosomal recessive or dominant mode?

 Live birth after PGT-M is not impacted by the inherited mode of genetic transmission. Age and ovarian reserve markers are predictive factors.

 The effectiveness of PGT-M, is conditioned by the number of healthy embryos obtained and therefore by a sufficient number of collected oocytes. Depending on the mode of genetic transmission, the probability of having a healthy embryo after cells biopsy varies from 25% (recessive transmission mode) to 50% (dominant transmission mode). It was commonly assumed that CLBR is directly impacted by female age but there are no published study related how the inherited transmission mode of the disease requiring PGT-M affects the chance to have a healthy baby.

 The present study is a monocentric retrospective observational study carried out from January 2006 through January 2020 in a French PGT center. Four hundred and seventy-four couples undergoing molecular PGT-M were classified into two groups based on risk of disease transmission (25% risk, P25 group or 50% risk, P50 group).

 Among the included patients, 267 patients were classified as "½ risk of transmission" and 207 patients were classified as "1/4 risk of transmission." We compared the chances of having a healthy baby for these two groups and studied the predictive factors for obtaining a live birth.

 Women's characteristics at the time of first ovarian stimulation were not significantly different between P25 group and P50 group. While the mean number of embryos biopsied per couple was not significantly different between groups (9.6±8.6 vs. 8.5±7.3, p = 0.3), the mean number of healthy embryos obtained after PGT-M was significantly higher for the P25 group compared to the P50 group (5.0±4.1 vs. 3.9±3.6, p = 0.001). However, the chances of having at least one heathly child after PGT-M were not significantly different according to the P25 or P50 group (41.5% vs. 35.9% respectively, p = 0.2). We found that women's age, AMH and CFA were predictive factors ofhaving a healthy baby. Patients aged 31 years and younger had a 45% higher chance of having a live birth than women aged 32 to 35 years (p = 0.04). Patients with AMH≥4.5ng/ml or CFA ≥22 follicles were significantly more likely to have a live birth than women with AMH ≤2.27 ng/ml or CFA < 15 (OR = 1.58 (1.19-2.09) p = 0.001 and OR = 1.33 (1.01-1.75), p = 0.03 respectively).

 This study is retrospective. Despite the large sample size, the findings are confined by limited coufounder adjustment and the lack of specific PGT-M comparators.

 Age, AMH, and AFC are associated as good prognosis factors to have a live birth. The genetic mode of transmission ½ or ¼ was not found to be a predictive factor. This allows couples to make the best choice between PGT and other reproductive options (gamete donation, adoption).

 not applicable


In order to analyze and dispose shallow view images and simple background image preferably and improve image quality and effect,on the basis of Itti attention algorithm,the test method was proposed based on visual attention.Through the analysis of image pixels,this method extracted the interested part of the image,enhanced the image using the deviation degree between pixels and the average of image,and made image more accord with visual requirements using perception study principle.Experimental results showed that the proposed method complies with biological visual attention mechanism,which is also effective to reduce over-segmentation in auto-detecting ROI(region of interesting) and performs well for large objects.


This article reports the degree to which economies of farm size exist for commercial Illinois cash grain agriculture, both on a before- and after-tax basis. Receipt, expense, and investment data are from the Illinois Farm Business Farm Management Association records, 1975–79. Analysis of covariance techniques were used in the examination of the five-year time series of cross-sectional data. Results indicate statistically significant evidence of economies of size, both on a before- and after-tax basis. There was no significant evidence of diseconomies of size for this sample.


Ewens's sampling formula exemplifies the harmony of mathematical theory, statistical application, and scientific discovery. The formula not only contributes to the foundations of evolutionary molecular genetics, the neutral theory of biodiversity, Bayesian nonparametrics, combinatorial stochastic processes, and inductive inference but also emerges from fundamental concepts in probability theory, algebra, and number theory. With an emphasis on its far-reaching influence throughout statistics and probability, we highlight these and many other consequences of Ewens's seminal discovery.


Buchnania lanzan (Chironji) Chironji is a life support and medicinally important tropical tree species and a significant source of livelihood for local tribal, it holds good proportions of antioxidants, essential nutrients and bioactive molecules. In present study, genetic variability of wild collection of Chironji (Buchnania lanzan) was evaluated using RAPDs. Total 18 wild genotypes were collected from all the three agrocliamtic zones of Chhattisgarh. Genomic DNA, extracted from leaf material using a modified CTAB method, was subjected to PCR with designed 20 decamer. Fifty-five polymorphic loci were identified, with mean of 9.16 ± 3.31 bands per primer and 100% polymorphism. The data was analyzed with GGT 2.0 software for diversity analysis. Among all eighteen genotypes Bastar Genotype (Km) showed 90.0% variability compared to other genotypes. The Chironji genotypes were found to have considerable genetic divergence. This is the very first report on genetic diversity analysis of Chironji using RAPD markers.


Though the number of hospitals in both government and private sector is increasing in India, they are still not enough to meet the healthcare needs of the ever growing population. One example is the inadequacy of life sustaining devices in healthcare systems and the substitution of human beings for mechanical ventilators. In a …


Intermittent preventive treatment remains a core strategy for malaria prevention in pregnancy. Sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine is recommended for all pregnant women in malaria prone zones. It is scheduled monthly at each antenatal care visit up to 36 weeks. Here, we sought to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices on intermittent preventive treatment in pregnant women with malaria in Webuye hospital. Prior to the enrollment, ethical approval and permissions were sought from relevant institutions, as well as consents obtained from 140 participants aged between 18-49 years with gestation about 16 weeks. Malaria test was conducted via either microscopy or rapid test and participants were split into malaria positive and negative cohorts. Closed and open-ended questionnaire were administered to the participants and two focus group discussions were organized to collect their views. The results were expressed in percentage and Chi-square of association at a p-value equal or less than 0.05 (95%). Qualitative data were analyzed by the means of MAXQDA software. Our analysis revealed that there was a significant difference between the proportion of negative and positive groups among mothers knowledgeable on the side effects (p-value = 0.001), different doses (p-value = 0.012). Those who were informed about intermittent preventive treatment before administration (p-value = 0.003). The proportion of mothers knowledgeable about side effects and different doses were higher among the malaria positive group as compare to the negative with 52.9% versus 25.7% and 20.0% versus 5.7% respectively. Moreover, 76.3% of respondents reported that intermittent preventive treatment prevents malaria, 30.9% had the opinion that it causes abortion. Expectant women who were aware of the benefits of this strategy had this to say, 'This medicine helps to reduce the effects of malaria and prevents mother to contract malaria'. However, those unaware had this to say; 'I have never been told about something like that but it prevents diseases'. Those who knew about the schedule and side effects said 'It is given three doses during each antenatal visit'. Therefore, good knowledge, attitude and practices of intermittent preventive treatment are key for control and prevention of malaria in endemic prone areas.


This paper describes the high-speed data acquisition based on the ADC of TMS320LF240xDSP chip, and processes the sampling results with FFT transformation. The result indicates that realization of FFT with DSP own antitone indirect addressing is very easy, and the real-time behaviour is also good.


Most yeasts contain at least 2 non-specific phosphatases. Several investigators 1-5 have shown that the acid phosphatase (EC 22.214.171.124 ) of baker's yeast with a pH optimum between 3 and 4 is localized in the cell ~ all. The alkaline yeast phosphatase (EC 22.214.171.124) with a pH optimum between 9 and IO is situated in the cytoplasm 1-3. In order to understand how these non-specific phosphatases, with optimal enzymatic activity at entirely different pH values, exert their catalytic action, we have embarked upon a comparative investigation of their mechanism of action at the molecular level. For this purpose both enzymes first have to be isolated and purified. The isolation and purification of the acid phosphatase has now been achieved and forms the subject of this report. To obtain a good starting material commercial baker's yeast ("Koningsgist") is cultivated (21 h, 27 °) in a medium 5 poor in phosphate, as first described by SUOMALAINEN, LINKO AND OURA 3. In this way an approximately 4o-fold enrichment in acid phosphatase can be achieved. From this phosphatase-enriched yeast the enzyme is isolated by shaking for 2 min with glass beads (No. I2), keeping the temperature below I 8 ° , i n aMERKENSCHLAGER apparatus e. After centrifugation of the yeast homogenate at 15 ooo × g for I h the inactive sediment is discarded, and the supernatant is stored at --15 ° overnight ~. A considerable amount of inactive cell material precipitates and can be removed by sedimentation, leaving all the activity in the clear yellow cell-free extract. From this extract the enzyme is concentrated by precipitation with 50% (v/v) aqueous ethanol at --2 °. An ethanol fractionation follows, in which an inactive precipitate is removed at 25 % ethanol, while the acid phosphatase is again precipitated from the supernatant at 50% ethanol (bright yellow preparation: "ethanol precipitate"). This preparation is filtered through Sephadex G-75 gel, producing several discrete peaks. Fractions of the first peak, containing all the activity, are pooled and concentrated by means of precipitation at 5o% ethanol. The colorless preparation


Pedogenesis was studied on clayey sandstones, calcareous sandstones, sandy marlstones and silty marlstones in the Bohemian Cretaceous Basin. These rocks were evaluated by petrography and X-ray diffractometry. The soils were characterized on the basis of a variety of analyses of organic and anorganic components. Soil formation proceeded predominantly under neutral and basic conditions. Calcaric Leptosols are of smaller thickness and less prominent pedogenesis than Cambic Leptosols. The main pedogenetic process in all soils is humification. A rapid reduction of the amount of organic matter in soil profiles is typical for soils on clayey sandstone and sandy marlstone. The content of organic matter decreases gradually down the soil profiles on calcareous sandstone and silty marlstone. The intensity of modern pedogenesis is higher in Cambic Leptosols developed on calcareous sandstone and silty marlstone compared to Calcaric Leptosols on sandy marlstone and clayey sandstone. This is due to the more balanced quartz/calcite ratio in the parent material (1.06 for calcareous sandstone, 1.51 for silty marlstone). It appears that the most important factor in Leptosol development is the parent material and that the development towards Cambisols can be hardly expected on silicate– carbonate rocks with a high proportion of quartz. ARTICLE INFO


Corresponding author: Eun-Jung Kim Department of Physical Therapy, College of Health and Welfare, Dongshin University, 185 Geonjae-ro, Naju 520-714, Republic of Korea Tel: 82-61-330-3390 Fax: 82-61-330-3394 E-mail: email@example.com This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licens es/by-nc/3.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Copyright © 2014 Korean Academy of Physical Therapy Rehabilitation Science http://dx.doi.org/10.14474/ptrs.2014.3.1.33 Phys Ther Rehabil Sci pISSN 2287-7576 2014, 3 (1), 33-37 eISSN 2287-7584 www.jptrs.org


Shear strengthening of RC beam with adhesively bonded carbon fiber reinforced-polymer (CFRP) laminates is becoming both environmentally and economically more preferable than replacement. However, the early separation of these plated stripes was the most critical failure which leads to prevent reaching the full capacity required from the strengthening. This study aims to present a new method to prevent debonding failure of CFRP laminates adhesively glued to concrete surface using embedded connectors to enhance the interfacial bond strength. Therefore, steel bar and adhesive connectors were fabricated and used at the interface of the bonded CFRP laminates. Five beam specimens including one control beam were tested to investigate the effects of the connectors to prevent or delay the premature debonding of the EB CFRP laminates. The experimental results showed that both steel and adhesive connectors completely prevented premature debonding failure of CFRP shear strip and allowed the beams to fail by flexure with full ductility and strength. Steel and adhesive connectors would enhance 33% and 38% failure loads respectively as compared to strengthened beam without connectors.


In this paper, we study the controllability properties and the Lie algebra structure of networks of particles with spin immersed in an electro-magnetic field. We relate the Lie algebra structure to the properties of a graph whose nodes represent the particles and an edge connects two nodes if and only if the interaction between the two corresponding particles is active. For networks with different gyromagnetic ratios, we provide a necessary and sufficient condition of controllability in terms of the properties of the above mentioned graph and describe the Lie algebra structure in every case. For these systems all the controllability notions, including the possibility of driving the evolution operator and/or the state, are equivalent. For general networks (with possibly equal gyromagnetic ratios), we give a sufficient condition of controllability. A general form of interaction among the particles is assumed which includes both Ising and Heisenberg models as special cases.
Assuming Heisenberg interaction we provide an analysis of low dimensional cases (number of particles less then or equal to three) which include necessary and sufficient controllability conditions as well as a study of their Lie algebra structure. This also, provides an example of quantum mechanical systems where controllability of the state is verified while controllability of the evolution operator is not.


Healthcare simulations are hands-on learning experiences aimed at allowing students to practice essential skills that they may need when working with real patients in clinical workplaces. Some clinical classrooms are equipped with patient manikins that can respond to actions or that can be programmed to deteriorate over time. Students can perform assessments and interventions, and enhance their critical thinking and communication skills. There is an opportunity to exploit the students' digital traces that these manikins can pervasively capture to make key aspects of the learning process visible. The setting can be augmented with sensors to capture traces of group interaction. These multimodal data can be used to generate visualisations or feedback for students or teachers. This paper reports on an authentic classroom study using analytics to integrate multimodal data of students' interactions with the manikins and their peers in simulation scenarios. We report on the challenges encountered in deploying such analytics 'in the wild', using an analysis framework that considers the social, epistemic and physical dimensions of collocated group activity.


HISTORICAL AND ETIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES. The Depressed Adolescent: An Overview. Family Models of Adolescent Depression. Individual Models of Adolescent Depression. ASSESSMENT. Family Interview. Clinical Tools for Conducting Family Evaluations. Assessing the Depressed Adolescent. ADOLESCENT SUICIDE. Understanding Suicidal Behaviors in Adolescents. Assessment of Suicidal Adolescents. Strategies for Dealing with the Suicidal Crisis. THERAPEUTIC INTERVENTIONS AND TREATMENT SETTINGS. Outpatient Strategies. Brief Psychiatric Hospitalization. Residential Treatment Centers. Future Directions. References. Author Index. Subject Index.


ABSTRACT: A prefabricated vertical drain (PVD)-improved ground under embankment surcharge loading at the Second Bangkok International Airport was modelled using a three-dimensional finite differenc...


Analysis of phosphate and nitrate data recorded in the winter surface layer of the Baltic Sea from 1958 to 1989 indicate positive overall trends, although the rate of accumulation has decreased since 1978. The long term accumulation of these algal nutrients in the oxic deep water below the halocline has also decreased since 1977. Under anoxic conditions, however, the trend shown by the phosphate concentration is distinctly positive in recent times owing to phosphate remobilization from the sediment.

The salinity has decreased in the surface water and even more rapidly below the halocline in the central Baltic basins during the period marked by the absence of major salt water inflows since 1977. The oxygen conditions have also deteriorated in the near-bottom water layer during this time as shown by the considerable rise in the hydrogen sulphide concentrations. These changes, including the recent phosphate accumulation under anoxic conditions, can thus be considered natural rather than anthropogenic.

The impact of long-term variations in nutrients and hydrographic parameters is discussed with respect to the development of Baltic fish stocks.


Today universities are important actors of the innovation process as entrepreneur and, at the same time, they have a big contribution in the development of the entrepreneurship behavior. Universities are still focus on their traditional academic role of social reproduction and extension of certified knowledge (through the education, training and academic research activities), but placed them in a broader context as part of its new role in promoting innovation and entrepreneurship. This article describes important aspects of the knowledge transfer processes develop by universities in order to promote and develop entrepreneurship values, behavior and so, to increase their implication and contributions to local/regional economic development. In this context, there are presented some considerations about the new roles of universities in the knowledge based society and how knowledge transfer activities are developed by the university in order to support new entrepreneurs. In addition, a study focused on the entrepreneurship education as part of the non-business disciplines is shown, in particular within a technical and scientific university/faculty. In the final part of the article, are presented the research conclusions (as obstacles and success factors for the entrepreneurship education) and the knowledge map for describing the business competencies for the graduate students in the case of the Politehnica University of Timisoara, Faculty of Production and Transportation Management.


In photon-limited imaging, the pixel intensities are affected by photon count noise. Many applications require an accurate estimation of the covariance of the underlying 2-D clean images. For example, in X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) single molecule imaging, the covariance matrix of 2-D diffraction images is used to reconstruct the 3-D molecular structure. Accurate estimation of the covariance from low-photon-count images must take into account that pixel intensities are Poisson distributed, hence the classical sample covariance estimator is highly biased. Moreover, in single molecule imaging, including in-plane rotated copies of all images could further improve the accuracy of covariance estimation. In this paper we introduce an efficient and accurate algorithm for covariance matrix estimation of count noise 2-D images, including their uniform planar rotations and possibly reflections. Our procedure, <italic>steerable</italic> <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$e$ </tex-math></inline-formula> <italic>PCA</italic>, combines in a novel way two recently introduced innovations. The first is a methodology for principal component analysis (PCA) for Poisson distributions, and more generally, exponential family distributions, called <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$e$ </tex-math></inline-formula>PCA. The second is steerable PCA, a fast and accurate procedure for including all planar rotations when performing PCA. The resulting principal components are invariant to the rotation and reflection of the input images. We demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of steerable <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$e$ </tex-math></inline-formula>PCA in numerical experiments involving simulated XFEL datasets and rotated face images from Yale Face Database B.


The electronic commerce for Small and Medium Enterprises on the part of Business-to-Business trade is experiencing difficulties due to the nature of the processes involved. SMEs fail to penetrate the B2B market due to lack of understanding, lack of finances and lack of IT experts that can create customized applications for standardized B2B ecommerce, such as ebXML. COTS software costs a lot, and this paper proposes a solution based on the ebXML framework and Web Services as a middleware that will do most of the job for these companies.


The Population Council in collaboration with the BRAC Institute of Educational Development developed this study as part of a broader needs assessment to inform several urban adolescent programs aimed at improving educational outcomes, providing better access to sexual and reproductive health information, and providing counseling and mental health support. The findings have implications for existing and future program strategies to promote adolescent well-being.


A novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak began in Wuhan, Hubei Province, in December 2019. It has spread rapidly from China to worldwide. The COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 posed a historic challenge to health care systems around the world, healthcare systems needed to consider providing clinical services to other patients in need. The specialty of general thoracic surgery includes the management of serious diseases such as chest wall congenital anomaly, lung cancers, esophageal cancers, mediastinal tumor, chest wall infection, and trauma. Thoracic surgery is one of high risk procedure in this pandemic, however, a high level of evidence supports the surgical management of potential patients with thoracic disease and anomaly is still lacking. Critical determinants of robust thoracic surgery service provision are pre-existing plans for epidemic response. "Flatten the curve" as an aggressive action is needed. Prioritizations of thoracic surgery cases are needed to differ between elective and emergency cases to limit any contamination. Before surgery, important pre-operative assessments were conducted aims to identify patients' high risk and adjust the procedure. example of a recommendation, if urgent / emergency surgery with symptoms clear clinical pneumonia or rapid test (+). The lessons learned can apply to the other areas during this pandemic, and the world, in preparation for the next one.


The genus Vibrio contains bacteria that are indigenous to estuarine and marine environments.
Worldwide, species that are pathogenic to humans include Vibrio cholerae , Vibrio parahaemolyticus
and Vibrio vulnificus . In recent years, fundamental discoveries have been made
about how environmental signals modulate gene expression and virulence of Vibrio spp.,
raising the question 'What are the roles of virulence genes in aquatic environments where
they most likely evolved?' In this chapter we provide the reader with an overview of the ecology, pathogenicity, and
virulence of V. vulnificus , V. parahaemolyticus and V. cholerae .


who repining over their failure, wrote in January 1773 that 'in truth, the battle for power is over; nothing now remains but to preserve consistency and dignity.' Bowen also notes the official view at this time (shared among others by George III): 'the East India business was still seen as representing a domestic political and financial problem rather than a problem of empire....' The course of the discussion, both within and outside Parliament is ably delineated by Bowen, and the book ends with the passing of the wellknown Regulating Act. The conclusion brings out an interesting set of parallels between Asian and American issues as viewed by ministers in London. In both areas, the possession of new territory was 'now seen as dangerous and expensive. It was for this reason that many politicians increasingly sought a direct financial return from the nations' overseas territories. Of course, trade profit was still important in its own right, but this alone could not pay for the deployment of the Crown armed forces, naval squadrons and administrators that were necessary for the protection of British interests .... these financial issues formed the cornerstone of political involvement and interest in imperial affairs, as ministers from George Grenville to Lord North sought to balance the imperial books....' This interesting study constitutes a useful supplement to the larger works of Lucy Sutherland and B.B. Misra, among others.


PurposeThe aim of this study is to explore students' expectations and perceived effectiveness of computer-assisted review tools, and the differences in reliability and validity between human evaluation and automatic evaluation, to find a way to improve students' English writing ability.Design/methodology/approachBased on the expectancy disconfirmation theory (EDT) and Intelligent Computer-Assisted Language Learning (ICALL) theory, an experiment is conducted through the observation method, semistructured interview method and questionnaire survey method. In the experiment, respondents were asked to write and submit four essays on three online automated essay evaluation (AEE) systems in total, one essay every two weeks. Also, two teacher raters were invited to score the first and last papers of each student. The respondents' feedbacks were investigated to confirm the effectiveness of the AEE system; the evaluation results of the AEE systems and teachers were compared; descriptive statistics was used to analyze the experimental data.FindingsThe experiment revealed that the respondents held high expectations for the computer-assisted evaluation tools, and the effectiveness of computer scoring feedback on students was higher than that of teacher scoring feedback. Moreover, at the end of the writing project, the students' independent learning ability and English writing ability were significantly improved. Besides, there was a positive correlation between students' initial expectations of computer-assisted learning tools and the final evaluation of learning results.Originality/valueThe innovation lies in the use of observation methods, questionnaire survey methods, data analysis, and other methods for the experiment, and the combination of deep learning theory, EDT and descriptive statistics, which has particular reference value for future works.


Since the discovery of the cochlear efferent system, many hypotheses have been put forth for its function. These hypotheses for its function range from protecting the cochlea from over stimulation to improving the detection of sounds in noise. It is known that the medial efferent system innervates the outer hair cells and that stimulation of this system reduces basilar membrane and auditory nerve sensitivity which suggests that this system acts to decrease the gain of the cochlear amplifier. Here I present modeling results as well as analysis of published experimental data that suggest that the function of the medial efferent reflex is to decrease the cochlear amplifier gain by just the right amount so that the nonlinearity in the basilar membrane response lines up perfectly with the inner hair cell nonlinear transduction process to produce a hair cell receptor potential that is proportional to the logarithm of the sound pressure level.


Abstract In order to better understand the effects of tidal resuspension on contaminant cycling in coastal waters, coupled physical and biogeochemical 1-D time and depth dependent numerical models were developed. The physical model calculates sediment resuspension and deposition in response to imposed tidal current forcing and passes time series of erosion rate, deposition rate, suspended sediment load, and shear velocity to the biogeochemical water quality model. The water quality model simulates interactions between a water column, a resuspendable floc layer, and the underlying sediments through multiple resuspension and deposition cycles induced by regular tides. It includes advection and diffusion of both particulate and dissolved contaminant phases, organic carbon biodegradation, and linear-reversible contaminant sorption. Pyrene and particulate organic carbon cycling were simulated simultaneously for this study. The model was used to explore the responses of relatively clean sediments to contaminated input loadings under different levels of hydrodynamic forcing. Model results confirm influences of resuspension found in previous field and model studies, and show some unexpected effects on porewater fluxes. The results indicate that tidal resuspension 1) accelerates organic carbon degradation rate in the water column; 2) affects porewater fluxes by increasing mass transport, but decreasing the concentration difference between the water column and sediments, with unexpected results; 3) decreases accumulation (burial fluxes) in the sediments; 4) prolongs particle residence time in the water column and allows greater diagenesis and sorption/desorption to take place. Sensitivity analyses using a Monte Carlo simulation technique indicate that sediment porosity is the most critical parameter for the model, indicating further development and testing. Enhancing the prognostic skill of the model will require comparison to specific data sets from laboratory experiments and field measurements, but it is clear that resuspension may influence the sites and rates of organic matter mineralization in shallow environments and therefore affect distributions of particulate organic carbon and organic contaminants.


During the metaphase and later stage of water flooding in heterogeneous medium and low permeability oil field,the remaining oil have characteristics of distribution describing as follow:(1) The irrationality of injection production pattern led to production without injection or injection without production or imbalance of injection production in single sand body,so it results in produced remaining oil; (2) Sand body was affected on one side,and remaining oil was produced in both flanks of sand body; (3) The heterogeneity of sand body caused water's breakthrough in high permeability area and produces remaining oil in low permeability part.On the basis of distributing characteristics of remaining oil mentioned above,analysing the shortcomings that two methods have,which was adopted at large in remaining oil development at present,namely,pattem in fill was restricted on reserve abundance and comprehensive adjustment was characterized with complex,a mass of work,difficult to manage and high cost.It was difficult to develop remaining oil fully by the mode of division of injection production wells,so the author put forward a new idea about developing remaining oil and improve water flood EOR in heterogeneous medium and low permeability oil field_separate layer injection production development mode in the same well,and water flood EOR can improve 3.7 percent over standard value by use of this mode through effect prediction in the south of Putaohua oil field in Daqing.


In case the ascending aorta is interrupted, the clamped site will rupture prior to heart failure due to rapid overload on the heart regardless under normo or hypothermia. Under severe hypothermia, it will, however, tolerate long cessation due to remarkable decrease of burden on the heart. Most of the cases could be successfully resuscitated after the aorta alone is interrupted or the inflow and outflow tract are -both obstructed at the same time. In case the ascending aorta is divided and reanastomosed, performance of operation is difficult and the main fatal cause is massive bleeding from the anastomosis.


Objective To evaluate rotating DSA 3D imaging in displaying intracranial vascular diseases.Materials and Methods Rotating DSA of both the routine area and questioned side was performed in 49 patients with suspected intracranial vascular diseases. With the help of postprocessing system, the 3D images thus obtained were reviewed and their effect on the demonstration of the lesion's size and extent, the hemodynamics and the spatial morphology was evaluated.Results Of 49 cases, cerebral vascular diseases were seen in 20, one of which was proved to be fusiform aneurysm on 3D shading display of rotating DSA but on the conventional anteroposterior and lateral images it only displayed irregularity of the vascular margin. The remaining 29 cases showed no abnormalities on DSA. Conclusion Rotating DSA technique can stereoscopically display integrated and directly perceived anatomy of the cerebral vasculature, which is of great value in guiding the interventional management and in observing the therapeutic results.


Knowledge creation has been widely recognized to be strategically important for organizational learning and innovation. The lack of empirical work in this area has limited our understanding of this important phenomenon. Previous studies have focused on limited aspects of the overall knowledge creation process, such as inter-organizational knowledge transfer, knowledge flows within the firms and the interplay of tacit and explicit knowledge. In developing countries, there is a sense that rich countries have failed to create knowledge that is appropriate to local needs. This study is a comprehensive analysis of the knowledge creation behavior by using general systems theory and HIV/AIDS epidemic which can help us to better understand of this process.


,There is a dearth of newspapers agenda setting research of municipal elections. The few studies which have been conducted have not focused on one city's campaign probably for two reasons. First, researchers are uncertain as to how confidently they can generalize from their results to municipal elections in other cities or even other types of elections.' Second, researchers may feel that local elections do not warrant the attention that presidential or state elections do. One recent mayoral race does warrant study, however, because it attracted national and international attention.2 The 1983 Chicago mayoral general election was labeled "ugly" and "vulgar" because race became such an important issue.3 A black Democrat, Harold Washington, narrowly defeated a Jewish, white Republican, Bernard Epton.4 The purpose of this study is to compare the campaign agendas in the three Chicago daily newspapers: the SunTimes, the Defender and the Tribune during the 1983 Chicago general election.5 A second focus of this study is how the three newspapers presented the racial issue.


[Objective]To understand the cognition and demand of iron-fortified soy sauce among women in Nanning,and explore the influential factors of popularization and purchase of iron-fortified soy sauce.[Methods]KAP questionnaire investigation was conducted among 511 women in Nanning selected by random sampling,the obtained data were analyzed.[Results]Women in Nanning had little knowledge about iron deficiency and iron deficiency anemia,and knew little about iron-fortified soy sauce,but had strong willingness to purchase the product after introduction.[Conclusions]Cognition is the important influential factor of purchase behavior,so nutrition knowledge should be propagandized through all kinds of ways,and health promotion should be developed,in order to improve dietary pattern,finally decrease the incidence of iron deficiency.Besides,the popularization of iron-fortified soy sauce should be emphasized on marketing strategy,quality、nutritional ingredient and package of products,and commercial network.


In recent years it has been shown that alkali amides in liquid ammonia and refluxing piperidine and organolithium compounds react with non-activated aryl halides by the way of bensyne (I) intermediates.


We investigate the possible origin of the unstable mass-out flows from a low angular momentum thick accretion flow around stati onary black hole using 2D time-dependent hydrodynamical simulation. W hen the flow is advection dominated, a torus disc is formed in the vicinit y of the black hole. At the inner edge of the torus, a series of hot blobs is in termittently developed which grow up along the outer surface of the torus a nd eventually causes the irregular modulation of luminosity and th e mass-outflow rate. We point out that the unstable behavior of the mass-out flow perhaps results due to the existence of Kelvin-Helmholtz instabili ty in the inner region of the flow.


In 2005, the North Carolina General Assembly and North Carolina Governor Mike Easley requested that the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) coordinate a study to investigate issues related to hunting on Sunday in North Carolina. In particular, NCWRC was most interested in identifying stakeholders and their views on hunting on Sunday, and estimating the potential impacts of hunting on Sunday on hunter recruitment and retention. I developed a 12-page questionnaire that was sent to a random sample of 2,400 licensed resident hunters in North Carolina. The questionnaire was used to assess their views and opinions about hunting on Sunday and to estimate the potential impacts of hunting on Sunday on hunting participation. The final response rate was 41.6%. The issue of hunting on Sunday in North Carolina was strongly polarized: 38% of respondents strongly supported hunting on Sunday and 39% strongly opposed. Older hunters and those who frequently attended church or another place of worship were most opposed to hunting on Sunday. Although many respondents originally voiced support, many of these same individuals opposed hunting on Sunday if some limitations were imposed. The exact effect on hunter recruitment was not determined by this research effort; however, I found evidence that the opportunity to hunt on Sunday may have some positive impact on hunting participation. Hunters who previously had taken an adult friend, family member, or youth hunting in North Carolina indicated they would do so again if presented with an opportunity to hunt on Sunday. However, the opportunity to hunt on Sunday had little influence on persuading hunters who had not previously taken an adult friend, family member, or youth hunting on Sunday to do so. Most respondents (60%) indicated they would hunt at least the same number of days or more days (37%) if hunting on Sunday was legalized. Specifically, respondents indicated that they would hunt an average of 7 additional days that did not involve an overnight stay and take an average of 1.9 more overnight hunting trips if hunting on Sunday was legalized. Thus, legalization of hunting on Sunday likely would increase hunting participation, but would have unknown effects on hunter recruitment and retention.


Methanogenesis is a critical process in the carbon cycle that is applied industrially in anaerobic digestion and biogas production. While naturally occurring in diverse environments, methanogenesis requires anaerobic and reduced conditions though varying degrees of oxygen tolerance have been described. Micro-aeration is touted as the next step to increase methane production and improve hydrolysis in digestion processes; therefore, a deeper understanding of the methanogenic response to oxygen stress is needed. In order to explore the drivers of oxygen tolerance in methanogenesis, two parallel enrichments were performed in an environment without reducing agents and in a redox-controlled environment by adding redox mediator AQDS. The cellular response to oxidative conditions is mapped using proteomic analysis. The resulting community showed remarkable tolerance to high-redox environments and was unperturbed in its methane production. Next to expressing pathways to mitigate reactive oxygen species, the higher redox potential environment showed an increased presence of selenocysteine and selenium-associated pathways. By including sulfur-to-selenium mass shifts in a proteomic database search, we provide the first evidence of dynamic and large-scale incorporation of selenocysteine as a response to oxidative stress by methanogenic organisms and the presence of a dynamic selenoproteome.


OF DISSERTATION Deletion-Induced Triangulations Let d > 0 be a fixed integer and let A ⊆ R be a collection of n ≥ d + 2 points which we lift into R. Further let k be an integer satisfying 0 ≤ k ≤ n − (d + 2) and assign to each k-subset of the points of A a (regular) triangulation obtained by deleting the specified k-subset and projecting down the lower hull of the convex hull of the resulting lifting. Next, for each triangulation we form the characteristic vector defined by Gelfand, Kapranov, and Zelevinsky by assigning to each vertex the sum of the volumes of all adjacent simplices. We then form a vector for the lifting, which we call the k-compound GKZ-vector, by summing all the characteristic vectors. Lastly, we construct a polytope Σk(A) ⊆ R|A| by taking the convex hull of all obtainable k-compound GKZ-vectors by various liftings of A, and note that Σ0(A) is the wellstudied secondary polytope corresponding to A. We will see that by varying k, we obtain a family of polytopes with interesting properties relating to Minkowski sums, Gale transforms, and Lawrence constructions, with the member of the family with maximal k corresponding to a zonotope studied by Billera, Fillamen, and Sturmfels. We will also discuss the case k = d = 1, in which we can provide a combinatorial description of the vertices allowing us to better understand the graph of the polytope and to obtain formulas for the numbers of vertices and edges present.


A composite tracking control scheme, consisting of an adaptive friction estimation and a robust controller, is proposed for a robot manipulator to achieve a tracking control objective under the influence of unknown friction and uncertainty. The adaptive friction estimation is used to estimate the extent of friction, which includes Coulomb friction, viscous friction and the Stribeck effect, and then a robust controller is designed to enhance the overall stability and robustness. It is shown that the design of the friction estimator and the design of the robust control gain can be conducted separately. The effect of the robust adaptive friction controller is verified by the simulation results for a two-degree-of-freedom planar robot manipulator.


FIVE-HYDROXYTRYPTAMINE (serotonin, 5-HT) is a natural constituent of the brain with high concentrations in the hypothalamus, midbrain, caudate nucleus, and area postrema.1.2 Extrinsic 5-HT injected into the lateral ventricle of the brain of the conscious cat causes profound behavioral changes, including lethargy, somnolence, and muscular weakness.3.' These observations assume importance in the light of suggestions that the tranquillizing drug, reserpine, exerts its central effects by releasing bound 5-HT in the brain. 2-5 D-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD 25, LSD) has received considerable attention as a psychosomimetic drug since its unusual actions were described ten years ago by Stoll.6 The suggestion that it might exert its effects on the brain by antagonizing intrinsic 5-HT7.8 followed the discovery that LSD blocked the action of 5-HT on rat uterine mu~cle.~J0 Experiments to test the hypothesis have revealed that LSD will interrupt the behavioral effects of 5-HT or reserpine,' but in the dosages used extrinsic 5-HT did not appear to affect the action of LSD. Furthermore, substances other than LSD, including drugs which do not antagonize the effect of 5-hydroxytryptamine on peripheral tissues, were shown to have the same antagonistic effect on behavior. Conversely, several substances exhibiting 5-HT blocking actions in the periphery ( Brom-LSD, methylmedmain, and 5-benzyloxygramine ) did not antagonize the central effects of 5-hydroxytryptamine.4J1 In human psychiatric patients low doses of LSD have been antagonized by very high dosages of 5-HT.12 Attempts to analyze the mode of action of 5-HT and LSD on the brain by electroencephalographic technics have generally depended on cortical records only and have led to conflicting reports. With cortical electroencephalographic records, LSD has caused flattening in all leads in the rabbit,13*14 caused the disappearance of barbiturate spindles15 or induced low-amplitude fast activity with occasional slow waves in the cat,16 and has speeded the alpha rhythm or converted it into a beta rhythml7 or has led to variable results in man.18 LSD and 5-HT given together act synergistically in the cat.19 According to recent work by Purpura,2u desynchrony of the cortical electroencephalogram by LSD is attributable to inhibition of axodendritic synapses. This author has further shown in the cat that reserpine blocks the facilitatory or inhibitory effects of LSD upon some central neurophysiologic mechanisms. LSD also evokes "spontaneous" action potentials in the electroretinogram of the cat." The injection of 5-HT intraventricularly in man caused an increase in alpha amplitude but not frequency'z in the cortical electroencephalogram. Reserpine induces changes in cortical and subcortical electroencephalograms which have been regarded as an alerting type of response in the rabbit23.24 and in the cat25 while the animal is lethar ic.


G. E. Moore said that ethics was concerned with only two questions, the question what goodness meant, and the question what things were good. But there is an immense gap between these questions, and most of ethics lies between them. It deals with the various kinds of goodness. (Similarly, science does not deal only with the question what it is to be a thing, and the question what things there are. It deals with the kinds of thing.) Good is nearly as general a term as thing, lumping together many kinds of praise. The main business of ethics is to distinguish these kinds (and also the kinds of dispraise) and relate them properly. This involves studying, comparing, criticizing and deepening the various half-formed priority systems within which each kind of praise gets its sense. The disputes out of which ethics arises are not usually about whether something is good, but about conflicts between admitted goods (or evils). To arbitrate them, as we constantly must, we have to have a priority system of goods. And we get it by attending to the system of needs which those goods satisfy. Some, we argue, are more central than others. For instance-beauty, and the contemplation of beauty, would not be good at all except for a being that needed them. And since that being also has other needs, that contemplation cannot-as Moore suggestedi-have a walkover into a central and predominant place. If it is to go there, reasons must be given. Moore, unlike Plato,2 would not produce such reasons. But they can be given, and also answered. To understand the system of goods is to understand the system of needs which they satisfy-namely, in the human case, human nature. This line of thought, which is reckoned as naturalistic, causes alarm. I would like to explain it a little more in response to criticisms made by various moral philosophers, notably by Dr Christine Battersby in reviewing my book Beast and Man3 and by Dr Stephen Clark in replying to my paper 'The Absence of a Gap Between Facts and Values' at the i980 Joint Session.4 Both suggest that the notion of a structure of deep, central human needs is too obscure to be helpful. I quote some remarks from Dr Battersby:


The article presents a method for modeling the kinematic and dynamic parameters of the robot manipulator model KUKA KR 6 R900-2. The simulation is performed using a virtual prototype of a robot designed in the KOMPAS 3-D computer-aided design system and exported to the MSC Adams software package. The prototype of the robot is represented by idealized parts corresponding to the real links of the structure. The joints of the links are implemented by articulated joints. Various options of the robot working out a given trajectory of movement with varying the angular velocity of its turns and the applied load of the potential load are investigated: the maximum speed at the maximum weight of the load, the nominal speed at the nominal weight of the load and the minimum speed at the minimum weight of the load. The specified trajectory of movement is divided into separate stages, a certain set of workloads is applied during the simulation in each. The simulation is carried out in a three-coordinate space. The result of the simulation is kinematic parameters, such as movement, speed, acceleration, and dynamic parameters – moments in the robot's joints. The obtained results allow to perform a comparative analysis of the operating loads at different stages of the trajectory, to identify unfavorable conditions, such as critical peak values of accelerations and emerging moments of forces


An advanced power divider/combiner concept is presented and demonstrated. The new concept provides significant isolation and enhanced reflection cancelation for 1:N dividers/combiners. It is demonstrated with a 1:4, 2-8 GHz, with 0.4 dB insertion loss, 20 dB isolation, and 10 dB return loss improvement over conventional (e.g. Wilkinson) dividers. Additionally, a 1:3, 4-12 GHz (100% bandwidth) divider with low insertion loss, high isolation and high return loss improvement is demonstrated.


A 58-year-old man was referred to our clinic for a right ear discharge and hearing disorder he had experienced since childhood. The otoscopic examination showed total perforation of his right eardrum, erosion of the ossicular chain, and a mucosa-lined, whitish, oval lesion at the anteroinferior portion of the middle ear (figure). Pure-tone audiometry demonstrated a right-sided conductive hearing loss with a 38-dB air-bone gap. Excision of the whitish lesion, tympanoplasty, and ossicular reconstruction were undertaken simultaneously via a postauricular approach. The pathologic diagnosis was a retention cyst. The patient had an uneventful recovery, with no recurrence at 2 years postoperatively. Ossicular disruption is one of the common complications of chronic otitis media,1 while the retention cyst is a rare one. Retention cyst has to be differentiated from cholesteatoma, mainly relying on a pathologic study, because both are whitish lesions.2 The retention cyst originates from the obstruction of a glandular structure and contains fluid, while the cholesteatoma contains keratinizing squamous epithelium.


A network structure of computer control system for distribution water regimen was given.The composition and function setup of field control unit,and communication implementation,software design were introduced in detail.


: Previous studies have discussed the influence of two language level on creativity from many perspectives. The research has devoted itself to finding the embodiment of bilingual advantages in creative thinking, and also discussed the cognitive mechanism of two language level on creativity, but the relevant conclusions have not been consistent. In this study, adapted from the Gilfort divergent thinking self-measurement table, the results showed that the second language level and divergent thinking were significantly positively correlated. After grouping the second language level according to the 27% extreme grouping standard, the high English level group and the low English level group were significantly different.


A heat pump comprising an evaporator (10) with an evaporator inlet (10a) and an evaporator (10b); a compressor (32) for compacting in the evaporator (10) vaporized working fluid; and a condenser (12) for liquefying in the compressor (32) condensed vaporized working fluid, wherein the condenser (12) has a condenser inlet (12a) and a condenser outlet (12b), wherein the evaporator inlet (15b) with a return line (16b) is connected to by a warming region (16), and wherein the condenser inlet (12a) is connected to a return line (14b) from a region to be cooled (14).


Today, the need to develop more efficient thermal power systems that emit less greenhouse effect gas has become a paramount importance. In line with this awareness, our research has leapt into such development that the combination of SOFC and Gas Turbine could generate power at extremely high efficiency. In this paper, we would like to present our concept of Inter Cooled Multistage SOFC-GT Hybrid Power System, developed to maximize fuel heat input to the system. We propose the combination of F-class GT (TIT 1350°C class) and 5 stage SOFC as the best for the hybrid power plant system and 77% (LHV base) is achieved at high pressure ratio.Copyright © 2003 by ASME


The invention relates to oil industry, namely to the production of two simultaneous layers pumping units. Solvable proposed invention task and the expected results are to increase the efficiency of the installation for the simultaneous production of two layers with the software capabilities poplastovogo monitor the state of development. There is a possibility of advancing commissioning unused layers without special drilling of additional wells. Installation for simultaneous production of two layers comprising a pumping unit, a column of tubing, sucker rod pump, the packer and the shank comprises an additional pumping unit and further - short -kolonnu tubings installed at a depth above the upper productive formation and parallel anchor mounted on two columns of tubing and above the top of the producing formation; wherein a short column of tubings equipped with an additional sucker rod pump. Parallel anchor lock equipped with the sleeve for landing interference and short column of tubing. Installation equipped with a gas-sand filter mounted below the lower producing formation. 1 FIG., 1 tab.


Electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) is a high speed, non-invasive and label-free technique to characterize the dielectric properties of biological cells. Impedance-based microfluidic cytometers allow fast and accurate analysis (identification and differentiation) of single cells. The electrical properties of the cell constructs can also be characterized using other impedance measurement techniques, such as electric cell-substrate impedance sensing (ECIS). However these measurements are generally performed only in 1 dimension (between the excitation electrode and the sensing electrode). Electrical impedance tomography (EIT) extends the measurements to 2 or 3 dimensions, where measurements are taken across multiple electrodes. The method can be used to generate "images" of conductivity/resistivity distribution inside a sample by performing the measurements on the periphery of the sample. In our work, a miniaturized EIT system is used to image a multi-nucleated cell-Physarum polycephalum in culture.


I am writing with regard to the marginal comment "Should the Media Advertise Contraceptives?" by Dr. Greydanus in the Journal (1981; 135:687-688). The medium that Dr. Greydanus is most anxious to see advertise contraceptives is television in the hope that this will cause more sexually active teenagers to use contraceptives and therefore to decrease the incidence of teenage pregnancy and venereal disease (VD). His reasoning is that television has a powerful impact on our society and that television has already entered the arena of sex education by portraying "overt sexuality" on the screen. In his marginal comment Dr. Greydanus states "If overt sexuality can be constantly portrayed by the media [television] why not also show the viewer more responsible sexuality? It remains a serious contradiction that the media can portray open nonresponsible sex and then refuse to allow alternatives to this (i.e. contraceptive information)." He further states "The television industry does have a responsibility in this arena and this includes discussion (and thus acknowledgement) of contraception whether in overt programming paid advertisements or public service announcements. The networks should not be concerned that they will promote increased sexual activity." Dr. Greydanus also remarks "Does education per se tend to increase sexual activity? No]" A number of points cry out for clarification. Dr. Greydanus seems to equate advertising with education. I think that most of us would agree that advertisers spend their money not with the intention of educating but of influencing. To believe that paid advertisements will responsibly educate teenagers is naive at best. Dr. Greydanus correctly points out that television has a powerful impact on teenagers and that by its continual portrayal of overt sex it is in part responsible for the "free" attitudes toward sex among teenagers. However Dr. Greydanus then says that the networks need not be concerned about promoting increased sexual activity] The logic of this totally escapes me. I thought that in our experience with government we learned the lesson of entrusting the solution of a problem to those who created the problem in the 1st place. Dr. Greydanus also equates responsible sex with the use of contraceptives. If responsible sex means using contraceptives the implied message (advertisers are experts at this) is that teenage sex is okay as long as one does not become pregnant or gets VD. Anyone who does not believe that teenagers who are abstaining from sex would not be influenced by such subtle messages is kidding himself (and others). I shudder to think what we can expect from paid advertisements for contraceptives on television. (full text)


The basic information on genetic diversity of wild and hatchery-propagated stocks of tropical abalone, Haliotis asinina is important for the construction of a breeding scheme leading to the sustainable culturing activity of this species. In this study, 2,876 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) were in silico analyzed and 178 EST sequences contained microsatellite motifs. Four loci (DW455, DW503, PHe177, and PT102) of type I and two loci (Haμ9 and Haμ10) of type II microsatellites were applied for genetic diversity studies. The mean number of alleles per locus and observed heterogeneity in wild populations were 4.167 and 0.483, and 4.833 and 0.528 for CAME (east coast) and TRGW (west coast) while those of hatchery-propagated samples were 3.000 and 0.708, 4.500 and 0.479, 5.167 and 0.524, and 6.333 and 0.527 for PHIH (2nd generation, G2; Philippines), SAMH (G1), SMaRT-TRGH (G8) and SMaRT-SICH (G8), respectively. The numbers of alleles, observed heterozygosity and effective population sizes suggested no severe reduction of genetic diversity in our breeding program of H. asinina. However, reduced Ne was observed in the cultured stocks from the Philippines (PHIH). FST-statistics and the exact test between pairs of samples revealed significant genetic differences between all pairwise comparisons of samples in this study.


Contingent convertible (CoCo) bonds are characterized by forced equity conversion under either accounting or regulatory trigger. Accounting trigger occurs when the capital ratio of the issuing bank falls below some contractual threshold. Under the regulatory trigger, sometimes called the point-of-non-viability (PONV) trigger, the regulatory authority may enforce equity conversion when the financial health of the bank deteriorates to certain distressed level. In this paper, we propose an equity-credit modeling of the joint process of the stock price and capital ratio that integrates both the structural approach of accounting trigger and reduced form approach of PONV trigger of equity conversion. We also construct effective Fortet algorithms and finite difference schemes for numerical pricing of CoCo bonds under various forms of equity conversion payoff. The pricing properties of the CoCo bonds under different assumptions of the state dependent intensity of PONV trigger, contractual specifications and market conditions are examined.


OF THESIS SYNTHESES, STRUCTURES AND MAGNETIC CHARACTERIZATION OF DIAND TRIVALENT HYDRIDOTRIS(3,5-DIMETHYLPYRAZOL-1-YL)BORATE CYANOMANGANATES The syntheses, structures, and magnetic properties of a series of di/trivalent hydridotris(3,5-dimethylpyrazol-1-yl)borate (Tp*) cyanomanganates were investigated. Treatment of manganese(III)acetylacetonate with KTp* followed by tetra(ethyl)ammonium cyanide affords [NEt4][(Tp*)Mn II (acac)(CN)] (1). Attempts to oxidize 1 with iodine affords {(Tp*)Mn II (κ 2 O-acac-CN)}n (7); a minor complex {[NEt4][(Tp*)Mn II (κ 2 O-acac-3-CN)]2(-CN) (8) was also isolated. The manganese(II) complex [NEt4][(Tp*)Mn II (κ 2 O-acac-3-CN)(κ 1 N -3-NC-acac)] (2) was obtained via treatment of Mn(3-acacCN)3 with KTp* and [NEt4]CN. [NEt4]2[Mn II (CN)4] (3) was prepared via treatment of Mn(OTf)2 with excess [NEt4]CN. [NEt4][(Tp*)Mn III (CN)3] (4), is prepared via treatment of 4 with Mn(3-acacCN)3, KTp* and excess [NEt4]CN. [PPN][(Tp*)Mn III (CN)3] (5) is obtained via treatment of [PPN]3[Mn II (CN)6] with (Tp*)SnBu2Cl. Combination of 4 with [Mn II (bipy)2(OH2)2][OTf]2 afforded a tetranuclear rectangular cluster {Mn III 2Mn II 2} (9). At low temperature, {Mn III 2Ni II 2} (10) was prepared via treatment of 4 and [Ni(II)(bipy)2(H2O)2][OTf]2. Treatment of 4 with [Co II (bipy)2(OH2)2][OTf]2 at low temperature failed to give the desired {Mn III 2Co II 2} complex. Magnetic measurements indicate that 1, 2, and 7 contain high-spin isotropic Mn II with no long-range magnetic order observed for 7 (T > 2 K); 4 contains low-spin Mn III that likely adopt an isotropic 3 A2 spin ground state. Surprisingly 9 and 10 do not exhibit slow relaxation of the magnetization (for T > 1.8 K) despite the presence of significant molecular anisotropy.


We use explicit difference scheme,implicit difference scheme,and Crank-Nicholson difference scheme to discretize an anomalous diffusion equation with spatial fractional derivatives,and analyze their performances in terms of truncation error,stability and computing expense.A numerical example is examined to validate the results.


In order to determine the direction of migration of gases, use was made of the coefficient of migration, which is the ratio of the content of ethane in the free gas to the total content of propane and butane. For determination of the direction of migration of oils and condensates, along with such geochemical criteria as the variation in ratio of normal methane hydrocarbons C5-C8 to their isomers and the ratios of C7-C8 among the methane, cyclopentane, and cyclohexane hydrocarbons, new geochemical indexes were used that are based on the high-boiling fractions of the oils and condensates.


Different chemical and physical treatments have been used to improve the properties and functionalities of steels. Anodizing is one of the most promising treatments, due to its versatility and easy industrial implementation. It allows the growth of nanoestructured oxide films with interesting properties able to be employed in different industrial sectors. The present work studies the influence of the anodizing time (15, 30, 45 and 60 min), as well as the stirring speed (0, 200, 400, and 600 rpm), on the morphology and the corrosion resistance of the anodic layers grown in 304L stainless steel. The anodic layers were characterized morphologically, compositionally, and electrochemically, in order to determine the influence of the anodization parameters on their corrosion behavior in a 0.6 mol L−1 NaCl solution. The results show that at 45 and 60 min anodizing times, the formation of two microstructures is favored, associated with the collapse of the nanoporous structures at the metal-oxide interphace. However, both the stirring speed and the anodizing time have a negligeable effect on the corrosion behavior of the anodized 304L SS samples, since their electrochemical values are similar to those of the non-anodized ones.


This article is aimed at determining existence conditions of single layer potentials for pseudo-differential equations related to some linear transformations of a rotationally invariant stable stochastic process in a multidimensional Euclidean space and investigating their properties as well. The carrier surface of the potential is smooth enough. In this article, we consider two main cases: the first, when this surface is bounded and closed; the second, when it is unbounded, but could be presented by an explicit equation in some coordinate system. The density of this potential is a continuous function. It is bounded with respect to the spatial variable and, probably, has an integrable singularity with respect to the time variable at zero. Classic properties of this potential, including a jump theorem of the action result of some operator (an analog of the co-normal differential) at its surface points, considered.
A rotationally invariant $\alpha$-stable stochastic process in $\mathbb{R}^d$ is a L\'{e}vy process with the characte\-ristic function of its value in the moment of time $t>0$ defined by the expression $\exp\{-tc|\xi|^\alpha\}$, $\xi\in\mathbb{R}^d$, where $\alpha\in(0,2]$, $c>0$ are some constants. If $\alpha=2$ and $c=1/2$, we get Brownian motion and classic theory of potential. There are many different results in this case. The situation of $\alpha\in(1,2)$ is considered in this paper. We study constant and invertible linear transformations of the rotationally invariant $\alpha$-stable stochastic process. The related pseudo-differential equation is the parabolic equation of the order $\alpha$ of the ``heat'' type in which the operator with respect to the spatial variable is the process generator. The single layer potential is constructed in the same way as the single layer potential for the heat equation in the classical theory of potentials. That is, we use the fundamental solution of the equation, which is the transition probability density of the related process. In our theory, the role of the gradient operator is performed by some vector pseudo-differential operator of the order $\alpha-1$. We have already studied the following main properties of the single layer potentials: the single layer potential is a solution of the relating equation outside of the carrier surface and the jump theorem is held. These properties can be useful to solving initial boundary value problems for the considered equations.


examined. It may be suggested that an analysis of the recent decision in Lindheimer v. Illinois Bell Telephone Co., 292 U.S. 151 (1934), would have thrown considerable light on recent trends in the court's dealing with fair value. Part III, presenting the authors' constructive contributions to the problem of rate control, contains certain significant conclusions, among which are: Criteria for a proper rate base and effective regulation include "the rate base . . . must be capable of systematic administration; . . . provide for definite protection of both investors and consumers; . . . maintain the financial stability of companies; . . . make available new capital as needed for public service, but prevent dislocation of capital additions; . . . encourage progressive development in industries and service to the public; . . . and provide rate flexibility for development purposes . . . " (p. 371). Also, "the dependence upon reproduction cost as a basis of valuation results in the almost inevitable default of rate control" (p. 382). The authors propose in a convincing manner what they consider an effective substitute for the fluctuating rate-base of the past. They would provide a fixed value for rate-making that would result in a fixed return, including the provision for reserve set up in good times to assure returns to investors in poor times. They are confident that court precedents and constitutional barriers are not insuperable in making the desired transition.


The modified starch-based Retanning Agent DF-Ⅱ was synthesized by graft polymerization of enzyme degradation starch and vinyl monomers in presence of initiator. The application properties of the modified starch retanning agent were studied. The result showed that the retanning agent has excellent selected filling property and better absorption of fatliquor and dyestuff. The retanned leathers have many good characteristics such as good feel, softhess, fullness and silk gloss. It is also an green retanning agent for reducing pollution.


The main function of planning is to deal with the coordination among various interest groups in order to achieve the planning goals.The comprehensive planning have to cope with the coordination in such four areas as:(1) coordination between economic and social development,(2) coordination among population,resources,environment,and development,(3) coordination among different types of regions,and(4) coordination among regions at different spatial levels.It is necessary to straighten out the relationship among planning bodies and establish integrated planning laws and regulations.


Increased investment in perinatal health in developing countries has improved the survival of preterm newborns, but their significant multiorgan immaturity is associated with short and long-term adverse consequences. Cathepsin B, as a protease with angiogenic properties, may be related to the process of nephrogenesis. A total of 88 neonates (60 premature children, 28 healthy term children) were included in this prospective study. We collected urine samples on the first or second day of life. In order to determine the concentration of cathepsin B in the urine, the commercially available enzyme immunoassay was used. The urinary concentrations of cathepsin B normalized with the urinary concentrations of creatinine (cathepsin B/Cr.) in newborns born at 30–34, 35–36, and 37–41 (the control group) weeks of pregnancy were (median, Q1–Q3) 4.00 (2.82–5.12), 3.07 (1.95–3.90), and 2.51 (2.00–3.48) ng/mg Cr, respectively. Statistically significant differences were found between the group of newborns born at 30–34 weeks of pregnancy and the control group (p < 0.01), and between early and late preterm babies (PTB) (p < 0.05). The group of children born at 35–36 weeks of pregnancy and the control group did not differ significantly. This result suggests that the elevated urinary cathepsin B/Cr. level may be the result of the kidneys' immaturity in preterm newborns.


We successfully developed an in situ measurement technique to evaluate air-bearing surface (ABS) temperature distribution using infrared thermography. We clearly observed the difference in the ABS temperature distribution; when the slider was loaded on the disk and a writer current was induced, high temperature was. observed only in the vicinity of the head element, whereas high temperature was observed throughout the ABS when the slider was unloaded off the disk.


Activation of bile acid (BA) receptor, farnesoid X receptor (FXR) has been shown to inhibit inflammatory responses and improve tissue ischemia-reperfusion injury (IRI). This study investigated the effect of FXR deficiency on liver IRI, using a liver warm IRI mouse model. We demonstrate that liver IRI resulted in decreased FXR expression in the liver of WT mice. FXR-/-mice displayed greater liver damage and inflammatory responses than WT mice, characterized by significant increases in liver weight, serum AST and ALT, hepatocyte apoptosis and liver inflammatory cytokines. Liver IRI increased expression of X box binding protein 1 (XBP1) and FGF21 in WT liver, but not in FXR-/- liver, which conversely increased CHOP expression, suggesting a loss of ER stress protection in the absence of FXR. FXR deficiency increased circulating total BAs and altered BA composition with reduced TUDCA and hepatic BA synthesis markers. FXR deficiency also reshaped gut microbiota composition with increased Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria and decreased Firmicutes. Curiously, Bacteroidetes were positively and Firmicutes were negatively correlated with serum ALT levels. Administration of FXR agonist CDCA inhibited NF-κB activity and TNFα expression in vitro and improved liver IRI in vivo. Our findings demonstrate that FXR signaling plays an important role in the modulation of liver IRI.


○ INTRODUCTION Hydatidosis is a silent, cyclozoonotic and oldest infection of man and domestic animals and is caused by larvae of the cestode, Echinococcus (Bhatia and Pathak, 1990). The infected human beings and animals loose their normal functional capacities leading to huge economic losses. The diagnosis of hydatid disease is based on clinical, radiological, microscopical and immunological methods of which the last one is most sensitive. The crude or fractionated sterile hydatid cyst fluid obtained from cattle may be used as antigen in a variety of immunoassays. For improving the efficacy of immunodiagnosis of hydatid diseasis in cattles, the purification and characterization of hydatid cyst fluid is essential. Moreover researches so far were performed mostly on diagnosis of Echinococcus granulosus in human beings only; relatively less research work hasbeen performed for the early diagnosis of hydatidosis in cattles. Considering the above, the present study is carried out with the objectives of purification and Immunobiochemical characterization of hydatid cyst fluid antigen of cattle. MATERIALS AND METHODS COLLECTION OF SERA AND PREPARATION OF CRUDE CATTLE HYDATID CYST FLUID ANTIGEN (CCHCFA) During the study sera of five positive cases of cattle with presence of visible cysts in their visceral organs and five negetive cases of cattle with the absence of visible cyst in their visceral organs were collected and preserved at -20 C. CCHCFA (Crude Cattle Hydatid Cyst Fluid Antigen) were prepared from fertile hydatid cysts by centrifugation and dialysis. Phenyl Methyl Sulfonyl Fluoride PMSF(0.03mM) was added. The globulinic antigen of the hydatid fluid was obtained by precipitating with ammonium sulfate at half saturation. The protein concentrations of PURIFICATION AND IMMUNO-BIOCHEMICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF CATTLE HYDATID CYST FLUID ANTIGEN