Objective To examine factors influencing decisions to test for COVID-19 among Native Americans on the Flathead Reservation in Montana and the Latino community in the Yakima Valley of Washington state. Methods We conducted 30 key informant interviews with community leaders and six focus groups with community members to examine factors impacting decisions to test for COVID-19 during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic from May 2021 to June 2021. Results Three major themes that impacted testing for COVID-19 were identified: (1) Social factors, including the influence of families and friends and employment practices; (2) health factors, including testing procedures, home-based testing, and health communication; and (3) contextual factors, including distrust for government and medical communities and the impact on cultural practices and celebrations. Conclusions Social, health, and contextual factors influence the decision to test for COVID-19. Understanding the community's perception is critical for successful implementation of preventive strategies.


Dimethyl acetylenedicarboxylate reacts with 2-phenylpyrazolidin-3-ones (1)–(3) to give tetrahydro-1,2-diazepin-5-ones (9)–(11) as well as Michael addition products, the oxopyrazolidinyl-maleates and -fumarates (4)–(8). The structure of dimethyl 1,2,6,7-tetrahydro-7,7-dimethyl-5-oxo-2-phenyl-1,2-diazepine-3,4-dicarboxylate (10) was confirmed by X-ray crystallographic analysis. The diazepinones undergo ring contraction reactions in acid to yield 1-phenylpyrazole derivatives (12)–(21).


The authors present a new multivariate analysis method for multidimensional parameter selection in such problems as controller design for nonlinear systems or other systems for which analytical solutions are not available. The method is based on the fuzzy clustering technique. This new multivariate analysis method is based on the most popular fuzzy clustering algorithm, the fuzzy c-means algorithm (FCM). To apply the FCM method to multivariate binary analysis an effective distance replaces the distance as originally defined in FCM, and a distance weight is defined. Together, they allow the finding of pass regions in the parameter space, and the estimation of the number of pass regions.<<ETX>>


Partial pressure of CO2 is a nonlinear function of several seawater properties. Due to the nonlinearity in this relationship, the partial pressure of a uniform ocean would be different from that of a nonuniform ocean with the same bulk seawater properties. Assuming uniformity of seawater properties at some temporal and spatial scales in carbon models leads to systematic errors in partial pressure of CO2. In this paper we evaluate the magnitude of these errors. We partition the Geochemical Ocean Sections Study and Transient Tracers in the Oceans data according to the horizontal structure of several box models from the literature. Our results suggest that assumption of uniformity at large scales leads to underestimation of global surface ocean partial pressure of CO2 by at least 3–12 μatm. Nonlinear effects also introduce systematic errors in the buffer factor estimated from bulk seawater properties. We find the standard deviation of partial pressure of CO2 to be an indicator of the magnitude of the nonlinear effects. We discuss the implications of these errors for some conclusions drawn from carbon models. Biogeochemical processes, such as mixing, gas exchange, or biological activity, influence the distribution of the seawater properties. A shift in spatial or temporal patterns of these processes can modify the nonuniformity of the seawater properties and thus alter the partial pressure of the surface waters, even if the mean intensities of the processes remain constant.


WiMAX is a new technology providing broadband data access to mobile as well as stationary users. Standards for Mobile WiMAX (IEEE 802.16e-2005) has already been finalized. In IEEE 802.16, security has been considered as the main issue during the design of the protocol. In this paper, a new WIMAX authentication protocol is designed to better satisfy the security goals under the WiMAX security architecture, then a formal correctness proof of the protocol is presented based on SSM. Finally, its performance is analyzed and improved.


This paper addresses the issue of production of charm orbottom quarks in association with a high pT process in hadron hadroncollision. These quarks can be produced either as part of the hardscattering process or as a remnant from the structure functions. Thelatter sums terms of the type (alpha_s log(pT/mq))n. If structurefunctions of charm or bottom quarks are used together with a hard processwhich also allows production of these quarks double counting occurs. Thispaper describes the correct procedure and provides two examples of itsimplimentation in single top and Drell-Yan at the LHC.


A case of essential type I cryoglobulinaemia is described in which bilateral below-knee amputation became necessary. Subsequently, the amputation stumps became necrotic. However, rapid healing was achieved with plasmapheresis which has only recently been recognized as an effective symptomatic treatment in cryoglobulinaemia. The blood film revealed persistent morphological abnormalities similar to those reported in other patients with cryoglobulinaemia, and it is suggested that these appearances may be a useful diagnostic test.


We measured lead concentrations in venous blood plasma from two subjects, one having a typical exposure and the other a high exposure to lead. Our preliminary data, obtained by isotope dilution/mass spectrometric techniques in an ultra-clean laboratory, show lead concentrations of 0.02 mug/L and 2 mug/L, respectively, in their blood plasma, and 110 mug/L and 800 mug/L, respectively, in samples of whole blood. These results indicate that plasma lead concentrations previously reported have been overestimated by a large factor, and that further improvements in analytical procedures are needed in most laboratories before data on lead concentratios in blood plasma can be properly interpreted. Our preliminary data indicate a positive correlation between lead intake and lead concentrations in blood plasma.


Robot-assisted mitral valve repair represents the least invasive surgical approach currently available for anatomical mitral valve repair in patients with myxomatous mitral valve disease. Standard mitral valve repair techniques utilized during conventional sternotomy/right thoracotomy are exactly replicated with robotic instrumentation through 1–2 cm port-like incisions, affording superior 3D visualization. The procedure is currently performed using cardiopulmonary bypass employing peripheral cannulation of the femoral vessels/right internal jugular vein. The ascending aorta is occluded with a transthoracic aortic cross-clamp. Antegrade cardioplegia is delivered centrally into the aortic root through a cardioplegia vent catheter. By replicating conventional mitral valve repair done via an open sternotomy approach, the quality of mitral valve repair is ensured while providing the patients with advantages of less invasive surgery including shorter hospital stay, rapid recovery and return to normal activities, less blood transfusion, superior cosmesis and complete elimination of sternotomyrelated morbidities such as deep sternal wound infection and sternal dehiscence. A significant reduction in operative duration with experience and diminished resource utilization over time has been observed.


The enforcement of the alkali acts by the chief inspectors Robert Angus Smith (1817–84) and Alfred Evans Fletcher (1827–1920) indicates how scientific ideals of neutrality and impartiality were placed under strain by their state‐sanctioned role as arbitrators between environmental and industrial interests. Previously unused or unexploited sources reveal the precise ways in which they sought to resolve the conflicts between 'muck and brass' intrinsic to environmental regulation and illustrate the value‐laden and discretionary implementation of scientific public policy. Through an analysis of the ethical considerations and decision‐making strategies of the first chief alkali inspectors this study highlights the social negotiation of regulatory science and shows the extent to which the cultural values of actors can shape the implementation of technical policy.


Two-phase flow of water and air was used to simulation the liquid-separation performance of the porous nickel foam as separation baffle.The gas-liquid separation capacity of the baffle was tested in experiment at different conditions.The variation of the capacity with inlet air flow and water flow was obtained.The permeability is analyzed by Darcy's law to provide guidance for the design of liquid-separation baffle.


Detection of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) is an important part of GMO labelling, as without detection methods the traceability of GMOs would rely solely on documentation. Efficient detection strategies for GM crops need to be in compliance with regulatory frameworks and address consumer concerns. The DNA based techniques are currently the major detection methods that are widely used due to their ease and accuracy Loop mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) is a simple, rapid, specific and cost effective nucleic acid amplification method. This method employs a DNA polymerase and a set of four specially designed primers that recognize a total of six distinct sequences on the target DNA. A set of six specific primers was designed to recognize six distinct sequences on the target cry1Ac gene, including a pair of inner primers, a pair of outer primers, and a pair of loop primers. The optimum reaction temperature and time were optimised to be 65°C for 60 min respectively and stained with SYBR Green –I for visual detection of GMO.


The purpose of this paper is to introduce the new approach to the integrated microsystem oriented for water monitoring. Nowadays it becomes extremely important to analyze and estimate the chemical composition of water. Presented microsystem is an important part of the complex monitoring system that in future is going to be set up in Europe. It bases on the two major parts. First one is the microsensor part which the sensor of chemical signal is included in. Second part of the microsystem is responsible for acquiring and processing of the signal from the sensor. It consists of the preprocessing part and analogue/digital conversion part, which bases mainly on the analogue/digital sigma – delta converter. The whole design of microsystem was simulated in ELDO (Mentor Graphics) environment in which the behavioral model of ISFET as well as model of processing part was implemented. Afterwards verification of this part was performed in ELDO simulator. Ke ywo r d s : CHEMFET, VHDL–AMS, MEMS, MICROSYSTEM, CADENCE


Oyster is a plankton feeder. Ninety freshly harvested oyster, Crassostrea iredalei were obtained from three important rivers in the East Coast Malaysia namely Merchang, Gong Batu and Semerak. Salmonella spp., Escherichia coli and Klebsiella spp. which are well known as foodborne pathogens were screened from the oyster for the purpose of isolation, enumeration and identification. All Salmonella spp. and Klebsiella spp. showed negative result in hemolysis test. 66.67% Escherichia coli isolated from Se merak River showed ' hemolysis on the 5% human blood agar. The preferable growth temperature of all tested bacteria were from 27°C to 28°C while preferable salinity were 0% and 2% sodium chloride. Based on the most probable number (MPN) test, the bacteria contained in the oyster sample were more than 2400/g which indicated that those oysters were highly contaminated.


Abstract:  This study aimed to evaluate the outcome following myeloablative allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (SCT) among patients older than 50 yr of age. A total of 215 patients with a median age of 57 yr underwent allogeneic hematopoietic SCT for early (41%) or advanced (59%) hematologic malignancies. After a median follow‐up of 36 months a 10‐yr survival estimate of 56 ± 6% could be assessed for patients in early disease stages while patients with advanced diseases showed a significantly decreased survival probability of 31 ± 5% (p < 0.0002). Transplant related mortality (TRM) at day 100 and 365 post‐transplant was 13% and 30% for early but increased to 21% and 49% for advanced disease stages. As major determinants of TRM advanced disease stage (p < 0.0001) and occurrence of grades II–IV graft‐vs.‐host disease (GVHD) (p < 0.0001) were identified. These results show that hematopoietic SCT following myeloablative conditioning is also applicable to elderly patients whereas disease stage and high‐grade GVHD represent the essential prognostic factors for outcome.


In Texas, elementary school pupils are doing homework on a telecommunications network. A professor, a principal, and a production manager for a telecommunications network spearheaded this innovative use of an educational technology system. They got a pilot project started in one innercity school in 1991, and it has already spread to six surrounding school districts. The endeavor now involves parents, elementary teachers and administrators, university faculty and students, telecommunications technologists, videotex writers, and business sponsors. The children in the pilot program averaged two hours a week of extra-credit homework on the network during the school months. During their summer vacation, these children were allowed to keep equipment for accessing the telecom network at home. In June and July their average time online increased to over two hours a week on videotex programs that exercised math, writing, and reading. For this group, an educational technology system that involved doing homework on a telecommunications network definitely increased academic time on task.


Anthocyanins are natural pigments interesting in the area of food due to the large color range they exhibit and their beneficial effects on health as a result of their antioxidant properties. Their use in food is limited by the low stability of the compounds contained in the antioxidant extracts.  Stabilization by metal complexation is one of the most important mechanisms for anthocyanin stability. In this work, the main metals contained in blue creole corn are quantified by inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy followed by the evaluation of the stability constant of the selected ion metals with the main anthocyanidin (cyanidin); finally the effect of metal ion addition on the color stability is presented. The results obtained demonstrate that the main found metals are capable of complexing and stabilizing the cyanidin according to stability constants estimated by capillary electrophoresis (log β1 = 5.3, 5.0, 5.5 and 4.0 for Ca (II), Cu (II), Fe (II) and Fe (III), respectively).


This thesis first defines Collective Culture and Individual Culture which are for the investigation of the cultural essence and finds that as the Chinese cultural theories for 2000 years,Confucianism belongs to Collective Culture and Taoism belongs to Individual Culture.Compared with the doubts,criticisms,absent-focusing encountered in the past 200 years,Confucianism has had a history of being respected and believed for about 2000 years.The contemporary western scholars place emphasis on Taoism because it matches their individual culture and what's more,the alienation phenomenon in capitalist society emerges increasingly and they need Taoism to stimulate or call back their consistent individual culture.Confucianism has the common points with the culture of historical materialism.The cultural development in current harmonious society shall succeed and attach great importance to the Confucianism and learn some from Taoist culture as well.


Formulae are given for the Fisher information loss on parameters for the mean and the variance when some values of a Gaussian process are not observed. The special case of a one-parameter first-order conditional process on a rectangular lattice is considered in detail, and formulae are compared with numerical results.


Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a‐Si:H) films were deposited by a modified pulsed plasma decomposition of silane and disilane in which a nonzero low power level was maintained throughout the discharge. Deposition rate (rd), optical band gap (Eg), dark and photoconductivity (σD and σph), and photosensitivity (σph/σD) were investigated as a function of pulse parameters. By combining dwell time (τ) and the high power level (HPL) it has been shown that Eg can be tailored over a fairly wide range. Similarly, σD and σph/σD have been shown to depend, in addition to HPL, on τ as well, thereby proving the possibility of using τ as an additional process parameter. High band‐gap a‐Si:H material of quality (σph=4.4×10−6 Ω−1 cm−1, σph/σD≊105) comparable to that of device quality a‐Si:C:H has been deposited by this technique.


Abstract Given an infinite, compact, monothetic group $G$ we study decompositions and structure of unbounded derivations in a crossed product $\text{C}^{\ast }$ -algebra $C(G)\rtimes \mathbb{Z}$ obtained from a translation on $G$ by a generator of a dense cyclic subgroup. We also study derivations in a Toeplitz extension of the crossed product and the question whether unbounded derivations can be lifted from one algebra to the other.


Spillways with Highly Converging Chutes (HCCs) are a non-conventional alternative that can be applied to achieve a higher outflow capacity when the weir length exceeds the width of the valley at the toe of gravity or arch dams. This kind of spillway has been used in the past, but no general studies have yet been published. This article summarizes experimental research work aiming to increase the knowledge of the effect of some design parameters of HCCs on the energy dissipation in the stilling basin at the toe of the dam. As a comparison reference, we use the Type I stilling basins, widely known by the technical dam engineering community. The obtained results show that spillways with HCCs are a promising alternative to traditional designs, combining the ability to increase the weir length with a high capacity to dissipate energy through the impingement effect of the frontal and the side jets inside the stilling basin.


REFERENCES o ARKROG, A. "Worldwide data on fluxes of 239,240 Pu and 238Pu, inventories of selected radionuclides in the oceans." IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency, TECDOC-481, Vienna 103 (1988). o G. Lujanienė, B. Šilobritienė, D. Tracevičienė, S. Šemčuk, V. Romanenko, G. Garnaga-Budrė, J. Kaizer, P.P. Povinec, Distribution of 241Am and Pu isotopes in the Curonian Lagoon and the south-eastern Baltic Sea seawater, suspended particles, sediments and biota, J. Environ. Radioact. 249 (2022) 106892. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvrad.2022.106892. o Mežine, J., Ferrarin, C., Vaičiute, D., Idzelyte, R., Zemlys, P., Umgiesser, G., 2019. Sediment transport mechanisms in a lagoon with high river discharge and sediment loading. Water (Switzerland) 11, 1970. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11101970. o Gasiūnaitė, Zita Rasuolė, et al. "The curonian lagoon." Ecology of Baltic coastal waters. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, (2008). 197-215. o Wang, J., Du, J., Qu, J., Bi, Q., 2021. Distribution of Pu isotopes and 210Pb in the Bohai Sea and Yellow Sea: Implications for provenance and transportation. Chemosphere 263, 127896. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.127896 MATERIALS AND METHODS During the sampling campaign, suspended sediment samples were collected in situ by filtering a large volume of water (~1000 L) through 0.2 μm, 1 μm, 25 μm sediment filter cartridges (US Filter Plymouth Products). After sampling, the filters were dried at 25°C for one week. Gamma-emitting radionuclides were measured using an ORTEC gamma-ray spectrometer with an ORTEC gamma-ray spectrometer with an HPGe GWL-120-15-LB-AWT detector (resolution 2.25 keV at 1.33 MeV) . After the gamma measurements, the ash samples were dissolved in strong acids (HNO3, HCl, HF, and HClO4). TOPO/cyclohexane extraction and radiochemical purification with TEVA resins (100–150 μm) were used to separate Pu isotopes. Pu isotopes were electroplated on stainless steel discs and measured using an alpha-spectrometry system with passivated implanted planar silicon (PIPS) detectors with an active area of 450 mm2 (AMETEK, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA) (Lujaniene et al., 2022).


The present disclosure relates to a recording apparatus, a recording method and a recording medium, wherein the recording apparatus comprising: a recording unit, recording by laser irradiation is performed on the recording operation is performed medium, wherein the recording medium has (n + 1) or more layers as a recording layer, and wherein the test writing area of each layer is formed between at least n consecutive layers and when viewed from a laser light incident surface side of the test writing areas are not overlapped with each other; and a controller, including a laser power adjusting the recording operation of the test write, the n consecutive layers the recording target layer, and causes the recording unit performs the recording operation on the recording target layer n, wherein, n≥2.


As a final phase of a surface effect ship technology research and development project, two test craft were built. This paper presents the characteristics of the test craft and some of test results on performance, manoeuvrability, ride control and seal dynamics.


Silicon oxycarbide (SiOC) thin films are produced with reactive rf magnetron sputtering of a silicon carbide (SiC) target on Si (100) and SiO2/Si substrates under varying deposition conditions. The optical properties of the deposited SiOC thin films are characterized with spectroscopic ellispometry at multiple angles of incidence over a wavelength range 300- 1600 nm. The derived optical constants of the SiOC films are modeled with Tauc-Lorentz model. The refractive index n of the SiOC films range from 1.45 to 1.85 @ 1550 nm and the extinction coefficient k is estimated to be less than 10-4 in the near-infrared region above 1000 nm. The topography of SiOC films is studied with SEM and AFM giving rms roughness of 0.9 nm. Channel waveguides with a SiOC core with a refractive index of 1.7 have been fabricated to demonstrate the potential of sputtered SiOC for integrated photonics applications. Propagation loss as low as 0.39 ± 0.05 dB/mm for TE and 0.41 ± 0.05 dB/mm for TM polarizations at telecommunication wavelength 1550 nm is demonstrated.


The river Vamsadhara runs through the states of Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Odisha along a stretch of coastline that is prone to cyclonic storms. Riverine flow, along with cyclonic gales, is a crucial issue for most of India's coastal districts. As a result, a developed flood forecasting model is required to mitigate the danger of flooding to a certain level. For evaluating maximum water depth and inundation of flood plains induced by storms under existing and future land use circumstances, hydrological and hydraulic models are more prominently studied. The current work employs hydrological and hydrodynamic models to simulate a real flood inundation model for unsteady flow conditions. The technique involves the processing of the digital elevation models (DEM) to generate flood hydrographs that serve as boundary conditions for the reaches. In the present analysis, Manning's roughness coefficient is used as a sensitive parameter. Calibration and validation of extreme flood events that occurred in 2006, 2010, and 2013 using observed water levels yielded good results, with model performances of 0.79, 0.68, and 0.84, respectively. The results of the depth, velocity, and flood extent maps that were generated are presented. These maps can be used to plan for flood disasters and long-term watershed management.


Brunel University London would like to acknowledge RSSB and RRUKA for funding this project and providing contact with key rail stakeholders.


Numerous cultivars of cyclamen have been developed by improving wild plants of Cyclamen persicum, and they are now among the most important pot plants. However, no cultivars have yet been produced in the other 21 Cyclamen species. Furthermore, these 21 wild species have not yet been used for improving C. persicum cultivars due to hybrid inviability and hybrid sterility. In recent studies, hybrid inviability caused by abortion of hybrid embryos was overcome by an embryo rescue technique involving culture of ovules with placenta, which resulted in the production of interspecific hybrids between C. persicum and each of ten wild species. Hybrid sterility caused by abnormal meiotic chromosome behavior in hybrids (allodiploids) between diploid C. persicum and each of two diploid wild species was overcome by chromosome doubling using in vitro colchicine treatment, resulting in the production of two types of fertile amphidiploids (allotetraploids). On the other hand, three types of allotetraploids were produced between autotetraploid cultivars of C. persicum and each of three autotetraploid wild species by the embryo rescue technique without chromosome doubling. Embryo rescue and in vitro chromosome doubling are simple and useful methods for overcoming hybrid inviability and hybrid sterility in interspecific hybridization in the genus Cyclamen. Some of the fertile amphidiploids thus produced have already been incorporated into commercial breeding of novel types of cyclamens with important traits such as flower fragrance and disease resistance.


The review presents modern information on pathogenesis of retinal vein occlusions and risk factors for their formation. An in-depth analysis of role of external factors, among which influence of geomagnetic field and geomagnetic disturbances, has been carried out. The definition is given to such notions as magnetosensitivity, its pathogenetic mechanisms, and their role in formation of acute vascular events. Information about influence of geomagnetic disturbances on the formation of retinal vein occlusion is presented. Key words: geomagnetic disturbancies; magnetosensitivity; retinal vein occlusion.


This paper surveys the current state of standardisation for the intelligent peripheral, or IP. The IP provides the 'ears and mouth' of the intelligent network. It is responsible for playing announcements to, and collecting information from callers, as required by the service logic, and as directed by the service control point. IP functions are specified by IN standards, such as ITU-T CS1-R, ETSI Core INAP and Bellcore AIN 0.2. The level of the function required of an IP by these standards is very low; it is required simply to play individual announcements, or collect single items of user input. This level of function hardly deserves to be called 'intelligent'. In our view it is beneficial to assign a higher level of function to the IP for the following reasons: (1) to enable new services to be implemented which are impossible with current standards; (2) to exploit the capabilities which are typically available on modem implementations of the IP; and (3) to make efficient use of the available signalling network bandwidth.


To the system which multisensor resource distribute to multitarget in multicell and multimission(M4 System).The old model and method of multisensor management is already not meet the M4 system requirements,but if target-mission was regarded research object,the problem can be easy resolved.First,the target-mission was defined,and this multisensor management model was divided into three sects,for example mission manage and partnership mission with resource and function evaluate.Then system sub-missions were created according to different kind of target-mission.Second,the submission priority can calculated from multiattribute decision-making.Third,rebuild relation connect resources with submission,and analyze capability function and cost function,after,the best priority distribute scheme is produced in help of linear programming.Last the method was simulated and analyzed in air-formation.


This book is the second in the new series of works edited and published by the Institute for Historical Research of the Human Sciences Research Council under direction of Dr C. M. Bakkes. The first book, Die Dagboek van H. C. Bredell, cast new light on President Kruger's years in exile; in the new publication some insight is given into the tensions and struggles in the mind of the writer, who orginally fought with the Boers but later went over to the British and actively supported them as a National Scout.


imple goiter (SG), that is an enlarged nontoxic thyroidgland which is not the result of an inflammatory or neo-plastic process, although on the wane, remains a nearly globalproblem (1,2). Until increasingly employed iodization pro-grams significantly reduces its prevalence, the etiology as wellasthetherapyofbenignnontoxicgoitershouldremaininfocus.It is well accepted that sporadic or endemic SG (2,3), alongwith the other common thyroid diseases co-existing withgoiterincludingGraves'disease(4),toxicmultinodulargoiter,and Hashimoto's thyroiditis (5), is a complex disease. Theseareallcommonandmultifactorialwiththeclinicalphenotyperepresenting the net effect of many contributing genetic andenvironmental factors. It has been difficult to disentangle en-vironmental influences from genetic susceptibility, progresshasbeenslowinrevealingcandidategenes,andlittleisknownof the roles of gene–environment and gene–gene interaction.AroleforgeneticfactorsintheetiologyofSGhaslongbeenrecognized. Familial aggregation is illustrated by the 5–10times greater prevalence of SG among the probands of firstdegree female relatives as compared with the backgroundpopulation (2,3). Subsequently, twin studies (3), demonstrat-ing a significantly higher concordance rate in monozygotic(53%,95%CI23–83%)thanindizygotictwins(18%,95%CI5–35%), have clarified that the familial aggregation is the resultof shared genes and not of shared environment. Our study ina nonendemic goiter area (3) estimated that heritability oradditivegeneticfactorsaccountedfor82%(95%CI,67–92%)ofcases, while specific individual environmental factors likelyaccounted for 18% (95% CI, 8–33%) of goiter development infemales. The influence of heritability decreases with the pres-ence of major environmental factors such as iodine deficiency(2). As a consequence, susceptibility genes are more easilydiscerned in nonendemic goiter areas. The pronounced influ-ence of heritability on thyroid size (6) and thyroid nodularity(7), with or without concomitant clinical goiter, strengthenstheconceptthatthereisaconsiderablegeneticinfluenceonthedevelopment of SG.A detailed account of the genetic influences on the devel-opment of SG is beyond the scope of this editorial. Mutationsand polymorphisms in the genes for thyroid peroxidase(TPO), thyroglobulin (Tg), sodium iodide symporter (NIS),and thyrotropin receptor (TSHR), however, all have a role (8–10). SG is polygenic, moreover, with no single gene beingeither necessary or sufficient for disease development. Thelimited studies to date suggest that the genetic backgroundvariesfromfamilytofamily.Furthermore,ourunderstandingof the interaction between heredity and environment is verylimited. There is a clear lack of longitudinal studies in indi-viduals with genetically based susceptibility to determinehow and when environmental triggers such as iodine defi-ciency or cigarette smoking influence the occurrence of SG.When studying this issue it is important to realize that SG isnot one single phenotype.The pronounced sex difference in prevalence of thyroiddisease, often 5–10 times more common in females, is puz-zling. Theoretically, a skewed X chromosome inactivation(XCI) pattern—which is probably genetically determined—andresultanttissuechimerismcouldofferanovelexplanationfor the female preponderance of thyroid disorders, includingthat of SG (11). The X chromosome harbors genetic markerslinked to SG (12) and a skewed XCI (i.e., predominant inac-tivation of the normal X chromosome) could result in ex-pression of X-linked diseases. When recently tested, thishypothesis was rejected (13). Intake of oral contraceptives,another potential explanation for the sex-related difference inprevalence of SG, is actually associated with a decreasedthyroid size (14).Whereas environmental influences can be modified whilegenetic background cannot, much of the current focus on theetiology and treatment of SG has been on identifying andcorrectingenvironmentalinfluences.Large-scalestudieshavedemonstrated the importanceof surprisingly small variationsiniodine intake notonly for the prevalence ofovert goiter butalso for the regulation of thyroid size in nongoitrous indi-viduals(15).Interestingly,arelativelysmallincreaseiniodineintake, for just a few years, leads to a measurable and signif-icant decrease in thyroid volume (15), suggesting that modi-fyingiodineintakemayrapidlyleadtoadecreaseinincidenceof SG and subsequently in overt nodular toxic goiter. Studiesof this kind, such as performed in Denmark (16), will un-doubtedly provide further evidence of the interaction be-tween genetic susceptibility and environmental triggers.Another modifiable goitrogen is cigarette smoking. Thereis abundant evidence of its importance, from both case–control studies and studies in discordant twin pairs (17,18).Large-scale studies have demonstrated an interaction be-tween low iodine intake and thiocyanate generating cigarettesmoking, offering an explanation for the effect and providinga means to eliminate one or more factors in the genesis ofgoiter (19).


In this communication, a wideband Sherman–Morrison–Woodbury formula-based algorithm (WSMWA) is proposed to efficiently compute the wideband and wide-angle electromagnetic scattering problems. In the proposed algorithm, the standard adaptive cross approximation (ACA) decomposition is only performed at the highest frequency of the frequency band of interest to find the dominant basis functions for each far-block pair. Then, at any frequency within the entire frequency band, the approximate compression of the impedance matrix can be efficiently constructed by using the impedance interpolation method with the dominant basis functions selected at the highest frequency. As a result, the WSMWA avoids performing the standard ACA repeatedly and saves a lot of computational time in comparison with the conventional Sherman–Morrison–Woodbury formula-based algorithm (SMWA) for wideband and wide-angle applications. Numerical results for electromagnetic scattering are given to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed algorithm.


With little community consultation, the Queensland Government announced that two dams would be built in South East Queensland, on the Logan River and the other on the Mary River at Traveston, near Gympie. The author argues that the Queensland Government ignored the concerns of the people of the Mary Valley, and that the people of this region are angry and alienated from a Brisbane-centric government.


This thesis examines three types of the Japanese American experience during World War II, based on the central premise that there was not, in fact, a single experience. The Japanese American community was not a homogenous group, and different groups in different locations had different experiences during the war. The three particular forms of the Japanese experience considered in this study are: the mass internment of Japanese Americans on the West Coast, Hawaii's large Japanese population's escape from mass internment, and the relative equality found by the Nisei while serving in military units during the war. The incarceration experience victimized people whose only crime was being of Japanese heritage, and is a dark chapter in American history that must be examined. This is an issue that we must understand, because understanding this can help us make sure that it never happens again. Document Type Thesis Degree Name Bachelor of Arts (BA) Department or Program History First Advisor Carol Gayle Second Advisor Cynthia T. Hahn Third Advisor Virginia Stewart


This study aims to describe the techniques of teaching speaking skills from the book of al-Arabiyyah Baina Yadaik fī Ta'līm al-Lugah al-Arabiyyah li Gairi al-Nātiqīna Bihā. This type of research is descriptive qualitative research using content analysis methods and literature study in data collection. The results of this study indicate that the book of al-Arabiyyah Baina Yadaika is a good textbook in presenting speaking skills teaching techniques for foreign speakers. This is found in the following points: (1) this book uses the technique of "Listening to the Text" using untranslated Arabic; (2) this book uses the "Understanding of the Text" technique to determine the extent to which students understand the text; (3) this book uses the technique of "Imitating and Repeating" in teaching speaking skills to form habits for learners in language; (4) this book uses the technique of "Teaching Letters Pronunciation" with its three elements in order to correctly pronounce letters and words; (5) this book uses the technique of "Picture Vocabulary Teaching" which aims to teach speaking skills by direct method; and (6) this book uses the "Communication" technique because the basic goal in language teaching is communication.


A clock with 50% duty cycle is very significant in many applications such as DDR-SDRAMs and double sampling analog-to-digital converters. This crisp presents a Modified Successive Approximation Register (MSAR) controlled duty cycle corrector (DCC), to attain 50% duty cycle correction. Here MSAR adopts a binary search method to compress lock time while maintaining tight synchronization between effort and production clocks. The MSAR-DCC circuit has been implemented in a 0.18μm CMOS process which corrects the duty rate within 5 cycles which has a closed loop characteristics. The measured power dissipation and area occupation are 5581nW and 0.033mm respectively.


The study is an attempt to analyze the efficiency of working capital management of two Indian Fertilizer Industries during 2013-14 to 2017-18. The selected two Industries are namely, Gujarat State Fertilizers & Chemicals Ltd and Chambal Fertilizers & chemical limited, while have ranked this second and third largest fertilizer company of India. Working capital to the company is like the blood to human body. If it is carried out effectively, efficiently and consistently, that will assure the health of an organization and the researcher attempts to take result of comparison between two such industries. Four ratios have been selected for measuring the financial performance i.e. .Current Ratio, Liquid Ratio, Cash Ratio and Net working Capital Turnover Ratio. This research study concluded that the Current Ratio, Liquid Ratio, Cash Ratio and Net Working Capital Ratio of 1 st Company is better position on the basis of liquidity as compare to 2 nd Company.


The regularized identification problem of finite impulse response (FIR) models is considered. There, the penalty term which is added to the loss function to incorporate prior information is determined by the selected kernel function. We analyze different possibilities to incorporate further prior knowledge to the regularization term. Therefore, properties of the optimal kernel are discussed. These depend on the true parameters of the system. We show that the usage of the optimal kernel is equivalent to a ridge regression of the gain of the system due to its rank which is one. Furthermore, this contribution analyzes the properties of the tuned-correlated (TC) kernel. It is shown that this kernel puts a non-zero penalty on impulse responses of first order systems. Thus alternative regularization filter matrices, which preserve first or second order impulse responses, are proposed. It is shown that it is possible to construct filter matrices that preserve the impulse response of arbitrary linear time invariant (LTI) systems. The benefit of the novel regularization matrices is demonstrated with extensive simulations.


212 Background: Oncology Analytics, Inc. (OA) promotes evidence-based, guidelines-compliant cancer therapeutic decision-making on behalf of healthcare payers. The OA web-based 1,300 protocol treatment request system screens several hundred applications each month. Evidence-based requests are automatically approvable within seconds (Auto); those needing medical director (MD) review, within hours (Non-Auto). Some 10% of all requests require real-time consultation between OA board-certified medical oncologists/hematologists and the prescribing cancer specialist. Three-quarters of these non-compliant residual requests are rescinded by the treating oncologist. The remainder are either approved because of additional information while about 1% are recommended for an adverse determination.

METHODS
We hypothesize that OA's presence in a cancer market gradually improves the likelihood of evidence-based oncologist prescribing behavior. We tested this over 44 consecutive months of rapid growth, from May 2009 through December 2012, within a single southeastern US market. Since Auto requests are evidence- and guidelines-based, and Non-Auto requests are either not supported by evidence or have evidence support but with less toxic or less costly alternatives available, we reasoned that any sustained directional change in the ratio of Auto to Non-Auto represents a characteristic change in cancer specialist behavior over that span. The monthly ratios of Auto to Non-Auto were analyzed for trends by least squares and the slopes of each were contrasted by ANCOVA.

RESULTS
During the first six months, Auto-processed requests approximately equaled Non-Auto-processed request numbers, for a baseline ratio of one. Over the next 38 months, this ratio rose to approximately 1.4, meaning that 40% more requests were eventually approved automatically each month than those requiring MD review. The slopes of this relationship between Auto and Non-Auto approvals are statistically distinct (F = 43.34; p<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS
This progressive quality improvement reflects malleability of cancer doctor prescribing behavior, results in substantial savings, occurs quickly, persists and grows over time.


: The evaluation of the health of grasslands (an important terrestrial ecosystem) is a crucial part of grassland health research, especially in arid regions. The grasslands of Xinjiang, an arid region in Central Asia, show a distinct variation in vertical zonality because of its special geographical environment. Particularly, the differences in hydrothermal combination at each geographical location (latitude, longitude, and altitude) have resulted in a rich variety of grasslands. Therefore, assessing the health of Xinjiang grasslands is a systematic and complex task. In this study, we constructed an overall framework, including data sources and evaluation methods, for evaluating the ecosystem health of Xinjiang grasslands. An ecological geographic database of these grassland ecosystems was designed based on grassland quadrats, biometeorology, and multi-source remote sensing data that together form the data basis for grassland health evaluation. The steps in the grassland health evaluation method are as follows: Defining the evaluation objective, determining the evaluation area and reference system, filtering evaluation indicators, and finally selecting the specific method for performing grassland health evaluation. The objective of evaluation contains biological and non-biological components, as well as ecosystem services of grassland ecosystem. The evaluation area is often based on administrative divisions, grassland types, and grassland divisions. The reference system is a stable state achieved by maintaining balance with the local climate. The recommended evaluation methods include the analytic hierarchy process, vigor-organization-resilience, condition-organization-vigor-resilience, and pressure-state-response. The evaluation results were divided into health, sub-health, vigilance, and collapse based on the quarter method. This grassland health evaluation was validated in Minfeng County, Hotan Prefecture, Xinjiang. The research area, Minfeng County, is located at the northern foot of the Kunlun Mountains and the southern edge of the Taklimakan Desert. The temperate desert grassland of Minfeng County primarily contains Seriphidium rhodanthum , Ceratoides latens , Reaumuria soongarica , and Ephedra intermedia. The objective of evaluation was based on the biological components of grassland ecosystems. Our results showed that the temperate desert grasslands within the fenced area were in a healthy state, but those outside the exclosure were in sub-healthy state. Thus, we gave a further explanation for healthy and sub-healthy state in the verification area. By constructing this grassland ecosystem health evaluation system for Xinjiang, we hope to provide a reference for the local management of grasslands, with the goal of fostering ecological health of these systems and promoting the sustainable development of grassland areas in Xinjiang.


Thirty-eight rice varieties identified to be tolerant to salt stress previously were identified repeatedly with the 9-level identification methods of International Rice Research Institute using 0.8% instead of 0.5% NaCl solution in order to obtain extremely salt-tolerant rice varieties. Meanwhile, the effects of salt concentration on sprout rates of these varieties were studied. The results showed that high-concentration salt solution restrained significantly sprout rates of these varieties. six rice varieties were identified to be extremely resistant to salt, of which, one variety ranked first-level tolerance, four varieties second-level tolerance and one variety third-level tolerance. Increase of seedling height were limited by high-concentration salt solution, but difference between varieties extremely resistant to salt was not significant. The effects of salt solution on growth rate of rice leaves were different depending on varieties extremely resistant to salt.


For stationary-engine radiators, comparing with the ordinary fin-tube type radiators, our radiators have (i) by far high overall coefficients of heat transfer, (ii) larger pressure losses of air flowing across radiator and (iii) lower resistances of water in radiators. From our experiment carried out under equal engine speed and output, we saw that the radiator consisted of 6 rows of our new tube and 95 sheets of horizontal fin have about 93% heat radiation capacity of that of the peculiar radiator to the engine, where the heat transmitting areas of the former are about 60% of that of the latter. These figures mean the lower limit of our radiator performance, because our radiator was of poor make. Moreover we produced the radiators having smaller heat transmitting surfaces (or fewer rows of tubes) and carried out the performance tests of them under the condition corresponding approximately to the car running. Thus we knew that the heat radiation performances of our radiators using new heat transmitting tubes in a few rows get to about 70∼77% of that of the ordinary fin-tube type radiator installed originally on the stationary-engine where the heat transmitting areas of the former are only about 33∼36% of that of the latter. It is expected that our new radiators having almost as many holizontal fins as in the ordinary radiators may have nearly equal heat transfer performances to that of the fin-tube type radiators, though the heat transfer areas of new radiators are about 60% of that of the original radiator. Moreover we can expect the improvements on the performances of our radiators, if we choose their cooling fans and water pumps suitably.


This article describes the successful implementation of an oral examination format in the organic chemistry curriculum at the University of Toronto. Oral examinations are used to replace traditional written midterm examinations in several courses. In an introductory organic class, each student is allotted 15 min to individually discuss one pre-selected "named" reaction with the course instructors. To stimulate further learning, students must choose a particular reaction that has not been presented during lecture or performed in the laboratory. In upper-level courses, students review selected literature syntheses of either a drug molecule or natural product. The oral examination format provides a dynamic assessment approach that can be individualized to facilitate an in-depth analysis of student comprehension.


Advance on Lusaka Harish Chandola SINCE the Lusaka summit meeting in 1970, there has been an attempt to divide the camp of the non-aligned countries by suggesting that there were various groups within it; that there were Arab interests, Latin American interests, African interests and Asian interests; and that the groups representing these interests tried to secure advantages for themselves by utilising the non-aligned forum and seeking its commitment to one cause or the other. There was also the theory that the Arab and African states came to the non-aligned conferences well organised and with definite ideas, and since the Asian countries did not hold consultations among themselves for evolving a common stand at the summit, the others took advantage of it and succeeded in focusing the attention of the conference and the world on African and Arab issues.


The present invention provides a method of doping brucite fiber and titanium dioxide powder of silica airgel. Cheap raw materials, non-toxic, doped brucite fibers increase the strength of the airgel, brucite fibers are not the only environmental carcinogenic fiber, and a melting point of up to 1960 deg.] C, than the glass fibers resistant to higher temperatures; titania powder was added to improve the high temperature infrared transparent disadvantages, the thermal conductivity can be reduced at a high temperature; the preparation of a crack-free airgel composite bulk supercritical process, a density of 0.13 ~ 0.3g / cm3,900K thermally rate can be as low as 0.045W · m-1 · K-1, flexural strength up to 1.08MPa.


The hypothesis has been advanced (Wong and Ajl, 1957; Kornberg and Madsen, 1958) that the significance of isocitritase (Smith and Gunsalus, 1954; Olson, 1954; Wong and Ajl, 1955; Smith and Gunsalus, 1957) and malate synthetase (Wong and Ajl, 1956, 1957) in nature stems from the fact that these two enzymes contribute to our knowledge of carbohydrate metabolism. The activities of the enzymes explain the baffling mechanism by which bacteria can grow on twocarbon compounds such as acetic acid. Direct experimental proof for this hypothesis has been lacking. Recently, we have conducted experiments which clearly implicate these two enzymes in the growth of Escherichia coli when acetate is the sole carbon source. The adaptive nature of both isocitritase and malate synthetase has also been further substantiated.


This paper presents a solution to diagnosis printed circuit boards in terms of wiring crossing, based on real-time image analysis. The image is captured using an ordinary video camera (web cam) that is placed above the board while a light source is placed under. The image is processed locally in the FPGA, and bright spots which indicate board cross are isolated. Through an Ethernet interface, the system allows the input "pattern" (correct PCB cross positions) to be compared to the processed image. The comparison can determine the exact position of the cross points and if it corresponds to the expected pattern. The system is meant to be an effective method of real time checking of the printed circuit boards' quality. For this paper we use the SoC circuit Zynq 7000 (XC7Z010).


Summary A newly defined clinical syndrome, haemorrhagic cellulitis, is described in 12 patients. The syndrome consists of an acute onset of extremely painful erythema affecting dependent areas, followed by dermal haemorrhage and sloughing of the overlying epidermis, and requiring both antibiotics and systemic corticosteroids for complete resolution. The patients usually have demonstrable Gram‐negative or Gram‐positive infection, of non‐cutaneous origin, and underlying systemic disease. Vacuolopathic necrosis of epidermal keratinocytes, and damaged vascular endothelium of the dermal blood vessels can be demonstrated by light and electron microscopy, as well as by lectin studies. Immunocytochemical studies reveal the presence of activated macrophages and T lymphocytes. We believe the syndrome is due to lipopolysaccharide‐induced or bacterial mitogen‐induced tumour necrosis factor‐alpha (TNF‐α), secreted by previously primed activated macrophages in a second‐set response. TNF‐α characteristically injures endothelial cells and epidermal keratinocytes. It is thought to induce its cytotoxic effects partly via neutrophil degranulation, and partly via DNAase activation, with resultant DNA fragmentation and cell lysis. Corticosteroids have been shown not only to inhibit TNF‐α secretion by activated macrophages. but also to block its cytotoxicity, thus accounting for the extremely rapid clinical response to this drug in conjunction with adequate and appropriate antibiotic therapy.


The presentations in this working group were focused on methods that push the state of the art in computer modeling of particle accelerators through increased accuracy, speed of execution, breadth of physical models, validation, versatility of application or usability of computer codes. The topics covered during the workshop include: novel algorithms, reduced models, more efficient implementation (such as single core optimization and parallelization), next generation hardware (CPU, GPU, manycore), extension and integration of physical models and numerical tools, evaluation and numerical analysis of algorithms performance and stability, validation and verification.


The most recent civil aircraft dominantly use composite structures such as in the ailerons. However, airworthiness authorities raise concerns about lightning strike damage and repairability if the aileron is made of composite material. Today, aerodynamic profiles of aircraft wings become more complex and challenging for designers who need adequate space to fit conventional "torque box" designs inside the wing surfaces. The aero-surfaces may become too shallow and curved in the trailing edge side of the wing which is highly exposed to edge impact and lightning strike damages. This paper presents a new design concept for Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) External Trailing Edge (CETE) structure for the trailing edge of the ailerons. CETE is attached to the main aileron torque box where the main load carrying composite spar, ribs and panels are located. The design objective of the CETE combines various important features such as better strength characteristics against lightning strike and edge impact, and easier repairability with a lighter aileron. This paper also discusses recurring and non-recurring costs and monetary benefits of the new design concept. The CETE concept is as simple as creating a secondary torque box on the trailing edge side of the aileron with two C-section parts; inner and outer parts of CETE. The inner part of CETE provides a secondary spar to the aileron to sustain the main torque box force flows and support the trailing edge panels. The main structural feature of CETE is to form a low loaded zone by its outer part which is located at the outermost region of the trailing edge where mechanical edge impact and lightning strike damages are frequently encountered. It is revealed during the lightning strike tests that, the resulting damages can be catastrophic and located at the trailing edge line where the metallic strips are located. In case of lightning strike damage on the CETE, the aileron is able to carry loads since the flows in the main torque box is minimally disturbed as the inner part of CETE is still intact while the outer part is damaged. Similarly, the damage after edge impact is trapped at the outer section of the CETE where the loads are minimized by CETE design. In case of a larger damage, CETE can be replaced easily instead of replacing the whole aileron which is cost effective in long term although the initial costs seem higher than the conventional designs.Copyright © 2013 by ASME


The Munich MP tandem accelerator is in operation since 1970. Now it is equipped with a NEC Pelletron charging system and HVEC stainless steel tubes. The negative ion injector and the high energy extension with the analyzing system were completely reconstructed. Also the instrumentation was improved continuously. The tandem is used in an increasing degree not only for nuclear and atomic physics, but also for biological and material science work.


Monetary policy-makers face a difficult task when evaluating the current state of the economy and deciding what actions are needed to achieve their objectives, such as keeping inflation within a given range. Because long and variable lags exist between a monetary policy action and its effects on economic variables, policy-makers need a way to assess whether their actions are having, or indeed will have, the desired effect. The M1 Vector-Error-Correction Model: Some Extensions and Applications


This datasheet on Sapelovirus A infections covers Identity, Overview, Associated Diseases, Pests or Pathogens, Distribution, Hosts/Species Affected, Diagnosis, Pathology, Epidemiology, Further Information.


This paper, after stressing the current safety analysis practice for commercial reactors, investigates and discusses the new challenges facing the nuclear community in the field of advanced numerical simulation for the safety demonstration of the most attractive concepts among those selected by the Generation IV International Forum in 2002, i.e.: the High Temperature / Very High Temperature Reactors, HTR/VHTR, the Sodium Fast Reactors, SFR, and the Gas Fast Reactors, GFR. The paper widely emphasizes the new needs in terms of computation, validation and experimental qualification of computer codes and chains which show-up as a consequence of a new design and an advanced operation. All those needs engender new and quite challenging requests for well fitted experimental programs and connected R&D activities.


Abstract Increasing and stringent regulatory requirements coupled with stakeholders' expectations of a solid risk and control effort have led to multiple assurance functions in an organization which ultimately results in assurance fatigue. If not addressed, this phenomenon can diminish the true value that internal audit brings in an organization. Companies are quickly realizing that there is an urgent need for a streamlined effort to manage these different assurance providers and the work they do if the true value of each is to be realized. Even though, there is a responsibility for internal audit to streamline its own work with the organization, it cannot solely address and solve assurance fatigue. The solution is to understand and apply some well-researched tips in addressing this problem.


The Ni nanoparticles supported on Al2O3 metal oxides with different Ni2+/Al3+ molar ratios from 1/1 to 6/1 (denoted as NixAL-MO) derived from Ni–Al hydrotalcite precursors (NixAl-LDHs) were prepared and applied to CO2 methanation at a low temperature. By adjusting the Ni2+/Al3+ ratios, the alkaline and reducibility of the catalysts were designed, and the catalysts showed efficient catalytic performance at a low temperature. The Ni5AL-MO catalyst demonstrated the highest CO2 conversion of 89.4% at 250 °C. The superior catalytic property was related to the basic property, readily reducible NiO species, and the cooperation of metal nanoparticles and basic sites. The reaction intermediate species formed on the catalyst surface were identified by in situ FTIR analysis, and the reduction mechanism of CO2 was revealed. Moreover, the Ni5Al-MO catalyst had excellent resistance to carbon deposition and metal sintering after a long reaction duration. The NixAl-LDHs as the catalyst precursor show a promising potentia...


Objective:To investigate the safety of local chemotherapy with Fluorouracil Implants in breast cancer patients who were modified radical mastectomy.Methods:138 breast cancer patients with modified radical mastectomy were divid-ed into Fluorouracil group and control group.The control group accepted routine therapy,Fluorouracil Impalnts were im-planted in major pectoral muscle and axillary fossa in Fluorouracil group.The counting of blood cell,ALT,Cr,the inci-dence of nausea and vomiting,hospital day,postoperation pain,local solid nodule,axillary space fluidify,local ulceration were observed.Results:There was no significant difference(P0.05)between the counting of red blood cell and platelet,the incidence of nausea and vomiting,hospital day,postoperation pain,axillary space fluidify of two group.There were sig-nificant differences(P0.05)in the incidence of local solid nodule.White blood cell,ALT and Cr were different before and after operation,but there was no significant difference of two groups(P0.05).Conclusion:The application of Fluorouracil Impalnts in breast cancer patients is safe,effective,convenient,and might become a new promising method to prevent post-operative local recurrence of breast cancer.


The theory of the 27 lines on a surface of the third order is due to Mr. Cayley and Dr. Salmon; and the effect as regards the 27 lines of a singular point or points on the surface, was first considered by Dr. Salmon in the paper "On the triple tangent planes of a surface of the third order," Camb. and Dub. Math. Journ. t. iv. pp. 252–260 (1849). The theory as regards the reality or non-reality of the lines on a general surface of the third order, is discussed in Dr. Schläffle's Paper, "An attempt to determine the 27 lines, &c.," Quart. Math. Journ. t. ii. pp. 56-65, and 110—120.


The photosensitised degradation of 4-chlorophenol (4-CP) by iron meso -tetrakis(2,6-dichloro-3-sulfophenyl)- porphyrin (FeTDCPPS) has been studied in aerated aqueous solution, and is shown to lead to formation of p -benzoquinone (BQ) and p -hydroquinone (HQ) as main photoproducts. In deaerated solution no p -benzoquinone was formed. The photolysis products were identified by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and UV-visible spectroscopy. The photodegradation in aerated solution was also carried out in the presence of sodium azide (NaN_3) as a singlet oxygen [_1O_2(_1Δ_g)] quencher, and showed a significant decrease in the rate of photolysis, suggesting under these conditions, that Type II sensitisation is one of the dominant mechanisms of 4-CP degradation. Support for this comes from laser flash photolysis and time-resolved singlet oxygen phosphorescence measurements. However, these also show direct reaction between the excited porphyrin and 4-CP, indicating that there are two mechanisms involved in the chlorophenol photodegradation.


Ultrafiltration (UF) of sucrose and pectin solutions, their mixtures and enzymatically treated mosambi (Citrus sinensis [L.] Osbeck) juice has been performed on a batch unstirred membrane cell. Thin film composite polyamide membrane of molecular weight cut-off 50,000 was used. The sucrose solution's permeate flux declined marginally, but for the pectin solution, it decreased rapidly over time. The sucrose-pectin mixture exhibits a flux decline similar to that of the pectin solution. The gel-type pectin layer over the membrane's surface governs the flux decline of the sucrose-pectin mixture. The nature of the flux decline and the values of the permeated total soluble solids of enzymatically treated mosambi juice show similar behavior as compared with that of the UF of the sucrose-pectin mixture. The permeate of the enzyme-treated mosambi juice contains almost all the soluble solids and acids (in terms of citric acid) with a remarkable improvement in juice clarity.


Abstract : In the mid 1960's the Computer Aided Ship Design and Construction project office, located in the Naval Ship Engineering Center, was chartered to apply computer aiding techniques to all phases of the naval shipbuilding process. After the aerospace industry's success in developing a productive wiring data system and an in-depth NAVSEC sponsored study at three designated naval shipyards of the cabling/wiring flow process during installation design, it was determined that a similar system should be developed for naval ship design and production. Because there are significant differences between wiring an aircraft and wiring a ship, a direct conversion from one application to the other was ruled out. In 1965 the Westinghouse Electric Corporation was selected to develop a system of computer programs for processing the flow of electrical and electronic cabling/wiring information used in ship construction. This system was to address the entire process of installation design of equipment on board any Navy ship. This included,such functions as cable routing, hanger selection, penetration design, planning and estimating supporting documents and the equivalent of all the necessary wiring plans. The C/W System is now being implemented at Norfolk and Long Beach and is scheduled for implementation in the other naval shipyards. This system is the first of what the author hopes will be a large number of computer aided ship design and construction programs to be developed and implemented by the Naval Sea Systems Command. It is expected that by applying these systems deliberately and diligently in an integrated shipyard modernization program, the total benefits of electronic data processing can be obtained, thus producing a better ship faster and at a lower cost.


This master's thesis studies the impact of social marketing in the communication campaigns. The first part of the thesis puts at the forefront social marketing as a science, and defines an individual's process of behavioural change in a society. The paper presents different theories of behavioural changes, such as Social cognitive theory, Theory of stage changes, Theory of exchange and Behavioural theory. A more significant segment is the definition of strategically planned social marketing, which plays an important role in social change. Throughout the theory the meaning of communication in this field of work is stressed, and then purposefully developed into the second key part of the thesis, namely the strategically planned communication campaigns. The initial assumption was that non-governmental organisations do not focus enough attention on the phases of communication campaigns (planning, implementation and evaluation), and that the social marketing techniques are not sufficiently taken into account regarding changes in behaviour of target groups. Theoretical findings are complemented by interviews conducted online and in person with non-governmental organizations and professionals. The purpose of the research was to identify the stages in the communication campaigns used by non-governmental organizations in their work, and how they understand the importance of social marketing in addressing target groups. Based on the theory and results of the empirical part, the main contribution of the thesis are recommendations which can help with the planning, implementation and evaluation of successful communication campaigns in non-governmental organizations, reinforced by the knowledge and skills of active social pedagogues.


Method and Findings: Occlusal equilibration was performed for a TMD patient with coxalgia. First, painful symptoms were relieved by appliance therapy. Subsequently, occlusal analysis was performed on the patient by mounting dental models mounted on an articulator and identifying a deviation of the occlusal position from the bite plate-induced occlusal position (BPOP). Occlusal equilibration to the BPOP was performed for the patient by selective tooth grinding. On treatment completion, the occlusal position was shifted 1 mm forward on the left side and 1 mm backward on the right side from the previous habitual occlusal position. The TMD-related symptoms (temporomandibular joint clicking and pain) were resolved, and left coxalgia disappeared.


Objective:To know the current situation on nurses' job satisfaction research in China.Methods:25 papers,related to nurs- es' job satisfaction research from 1997 to 2005,were analyzed by literature analysis method.Results:Research papers related to nurses' job sat- isfaction were getting more and more,but they viewed this topic in a different angle.Although the quality of papers were improved,there are many deficiencies in them.Conclusion:Researches related to nurses' job satisfaction still focused on the research investigated,but not inter- vened,so intervention researches should be carried out.


The ANDROMEDA software, based on machine learning, conformal prediction and a new physiologically-based pharmacokinetic model, was used to predict and characterize the human clinical pharmacokinetics of 30 selected modern small antibiotic compounds (investigational and marketed drugs). A majority of clinical pharmacokinetic data was missing. ANDROMEDA successfully filled this gap. Most antibiotics were predicted and measured to have limited permeability, good metabolic stability and multiple elimination pathways. According to predictions, most of the antibiotics are mainly eliminated renally and biliary and every other antibiotic is mainly eliminated via the renal route. Mean prediction errors for steady state volume of distribution, unbound fraction in plasma, renal and total clearance, oral clearance, fraction absorbed, fraction excreted renally, oral bioavailability and half-life were 1.3- to 2.3-fold. The overall median and maximum prediction errors were 1.5- and 4.8-fold, respectively, and 92 % of predictions had <3-fold error. Results are consistent with those obtained in previous validation studies and are better than with the best laboratory-based prediction methods, which validates ANDROMEDA for predictions of human clinical pharmacokinetics of modern antibiotic drugs, which to a great extent demonstrate pharmacokinetic characteristics challenging for laboratory methods (metabolic stability, limited permeability, efflux and multiple elimination pathways). Advantages with ANDROMEDA include that results are produced without the use of animals and cells and that predictions and decision-making can be done already at the design stage.


Last year's global black uprisings which followed the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Tony McDade sparked the largest anti-racist movement in the midst of a global pandemic, not only in the US but also in various other parts of the global African diaspora. In Europe, thousands of people protested and mobilized for black lives and against racist policing. The protests demonstrated that racist policing is not limited to the US. Quite the contrary, protesters and vulnerable communities were emphasizing that policing unfolds as a violent and murderous condition in their various respective contexts, too. Engaging with the geographies of policing in three countries in continental Europe, namely Germany, France and Switzerland, and by drawing on ethnographic research on policing blackness and activist interventions in these three contexts, this article discusses modalities of policing blackness in continental Europe and shows that the recent mobilizations for black lives have a history in these respective contexts too. Interventions and forms of resistances put forward by anti-racist initiatives are also discussed.


Snoezelen therapy is intended for all people, children with SEN and the elderly who need mental relaxation or pleasurable sensations, training and exploration. Snoezelen therapy is a less common therapy in the Republic of Moldova. This therapy is instituted mostly in the capital and in some large cities of the republic. Snoezelen therapy creates a secure environment and a state of calm by encouraging the child with disabilities to explore and discover for himself what he enjoys, thus creating his well-being, provoking his desire to interact with peers, to share his feelings. enjoy or quietly explore the unknown.


The multiparton density matrices of the QCD gluon cascade are investigated. The generating functional and master equation for momentum space multiparton density in the double logarithmic approximation (DLA) are proposed.


Study on magnetic susceptibility of soils under different land use types in Fuzhou basin shows that the average magnetic susceptibility of urban topsoil in Fuzhou is 230×10-8 m3/kg,and the mean frequency susceptibility is only 0.74%.The result uncovers the characteristic of high magnetic susceptibility and low frequency susceptibility,indicating that many coarse-grained magnetic particles produced by human activities enter into the soil.The average values of magnetic susceptibility in industrial zone,commercial zone,cultural zone and scenic zone are 326×10-8,297×10-8,156×10-8,113×10-8 m3/kg,respectively,indicating that the variation in different function zones presents industrial zonecommercial zone≥cultural zonescenic zone.This reflects the diversity of influence factors to soil magnetic susceptibility.The soil magnetic susceptibility of agricultural land in suburbs is generally low and it changes little with the increasing of depth,which is close to the background value below 20 cm.This indicates that the use of fertilizers and pesticides in the soil of agricultural land is not seriously superfluous.Thus,there is no abundant accumulation of heavy metal in soil.The values of magnetic susceptibility of different agricultural land uses from high to low are soil in orchard,woodland,kaleyard and paddy field.


In the competition intense market, the customer takes the efficiency, the service, the price, the quality and the product reliability increasingly. The computer retailers can not compete with the large-scale 3C shops on inventory strategy and the economical scale. They need to face the pressure of existing price war, but also the expectation for the best quality of the after-service which includes the free charge of the end-customer site computer inspection, transportation, and repairing service. In result, it will cause their service cost increasing. The research subject issue of this paper is to discussion about how to gain the consumer's favor in the price war primarily market. By elevating the service quality, the first step is to reach the customer's recognition, then fulfill the customer's satisfaction, but the high satisfied customers cannot present their re-buy intension in the same brand or shop. Therefore, how enhances the part which customer's loyalty also is worth discussing issue. In addition, Reichheld and Sasser (1990) think it is a big loss to lose the old customers than create the new customer. If company can avoid losing the old customers and advance the maintain rate of customers, it can increase the profit about 25% to 85%. It means the topic of customer relationship marketing is more important nowadays. The main purpose of this study is to investigate on the computer distribution agent adopting the "relationship marketing" and upgrading its "service quality" as well as, choosing two factors, the "population statistics variables" and "product unique characteristic" have any connection with the customer's satisfaction and loyalty. The related methods of analyzing multivariate data are used in this research. We use these methods to analyze and test all sorts of hypotheses in the study. According to the analyzing of the population statistics variables and product unique characteristic, the customer prefers to buy the desktop computer and the purchasing decision is mainly personal selection. The top three purchasing motives are work request, entertainment and learning for education. During the period of the after service, most of the customers expect three-year warranty, and if they need to purchase another computer, the higher probability they will choose the same brand of computer. The source of the customer to receive those computer related information, mostly is from the Internet, next is recommendation from their best friends and the last is from computer related professional shops. Three major emphasis factors before the customer buy are price, service and the brand. The relationship marketing has a significant influence on the customer satisfaction. The customer recognizes that "the closer of the customer trust and the relationship guaranty, the higher of the customer satisfaction". The data shows the "authenticity" is the most emphasized factor of the service quality and it will affect the most to the customer satisfaction. The customer recognizes that "the bigger of the authenticity, the higher of the customer satisfaction". The integrated performance is the most emphasized by the customer and it has an apparent and significant impact on the customer satisfaction. That is - the best of the integrated performance, the higher of the customer loyalty. The broad view of the population statistics variables and the product unique characteristic has part influence on the customer satisfaction and loyalty. There is a different extent of the interruption coming from the ethnic group in the integrated service, service people, and product value.


[Aims] A new analysis method for determination of propamocarb technical by GC with internal standard analysis method was established.[Methods] Using DMP as internal standard,acetone as solvent,samples were determined by gas chromatography with FID.[Results] The results showed that the correlation coefficient was 0.999 2,the average recovery was 98.32%,and the RSD was 0.89%.[Conclusions] This method has advantages of simplicity,rapidity,accuracy,reliability,and it is suitable for quality test of propamocarb.


Although neurophysin was discovered barely 20 years ago by Acher and Fromageot, its presence in the posterior lobe of the pituitary gland was already unwittingly recognized at the turn of the century. Progress in the field shows a remarkable dependence upon the advent of new techniques in protein chemistry. The neurophysins are low molecular weight proteins (approximately 10,000 daltons) that are remarkably stable to heat denaturation, Recent work has confirmed what has been suspected for many years: that the neurophysins are neural proteins manufactured within the brain and exported to more peripheral regions of the body. They are truly brain proteins. The first biological activity to be associated with the pituitary gland was the pressor activity.' It is localized in the posterior lobe2 which owes its activity to the presence of vasopressin. The pressor activity in aqueous extracts of pituitary glands 'can, however, unlike the hormone itself, be precipitated by ammonium ~u lpha te .~ Similarly the oxytocic activity of such extracts recognized by Dale4 can also be salted The nature of the material salted out was not fully r ecoezed until van Dyke and his coworkers6 isolated a protein from fresh-frozen bowne pituitary glands. As judged by the most stringent criteria then available, it was homogeneous and possessed oxytocic, pressor, and antidiuretic activities in the same ratios as in fresh tissue. The protein was rich in sulphur and later work on the amino acid composition revealed that the sulphur was accounted for by cystine alone; methionine appeared to be Thus, the early work of Abel:s'o who believed that the pharmacological activities of the gland were due to a single "mother molecule," was supported by the work of van Dyke. An alternative view of the number of active substances in the gland was put forward in 1919 by Dudley." He achieved a partial separation of pressor and oxytocic activities by partition between a mixture of water and butanol. This idea was pursued by Kamm and his colleagues* and was finally proved by du Vigneaud.'2 Two different chemical substances were isolated and synthesized: the one, oxytocin, accounted for the oxytocic and milk letdown activities; and the other, vasopressin, accounted for the pressor and antidiuretic activities found in the gland. This work stimulated further research on the protein of van Dyke. Haselbach and PiguetI3 showed that oxytocin could be dissociated from the protein by electrodialysis at pH 5-6 and suggested that the hormone was normally bound to the protein by an electrostatic interaction. The problem was pursued in Fromageot's labo~atory,'~-'~ where a protein essentially the same as that described by van Dyke was isolated from acetone-dried posterior pituitary glands.


Anarchist philosophy has often played and continues to play a crucial role in interventions in working-class and labor movements. Anarchist philosophy influenced real-world struggles and touched the lives of real, flesh-and-blood workers, especially those belonging to the industrial, immigrant working classes of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America. Too often the writings, which were disseminated to, and hungrily consumed by, these workers are dismissed as "propaganda." However, insofar as they articulate and define political, economic, and social concepts; subject political, economic, and social institutions to trenchant critique against clear and well-defined normative standards; offer logical justifications of their own positions; and advance positive alternative proposals, why should these writings not be regarded as philosophical texts and analyzed accordingly? Obviously they should, and the fact that they have been so long ignored by political philosophers, historians, and other scholars reflects academic prejudice rather than the intellectual and philosophical merit of the writings. This article is a preliminary step toward giving anarchist philosophy the hearing it so richly deserves.


expander graphs using the notion of spectral gap, and derived a number of interesting properties of expander graphs of low degree. In this lecture, we rst argue that expanders with nontrivial parameters exist. In fact, we will see that a random d-regular graph is a good expander with high probability, and that no d-regular graph can have signicantly better expansion. This suggests a randomized construction of expanders, which however uses too many random bits for the derandomization applications that we will cover later. What we need are explicit constructions, i.e., families of expander graphs that can be built in an ecient deterministic way. We consider two notions of explicitness. We say that a family of expanders is mildly explicit if the (multiset of) neighbors of a vertex can be computed in time poly(N), where N denotes the number of vertices. We call a family fully explicit if, on input the label of a vertex u and an index ', we can compute the label of the end point v of the 'th outgoing edge from u in time polynomial in the length of the description of the label and the length of the index, i.e., in time poly log(N). This presupposes an ordering of the outgoing edges at every vertex u. Such an ordering facilitates the description of a random walk on G. Ideally, the family contains an expander for every number of vertices. Typically, we will only be able to realize a subset of the natural numbers that is suciently dense for the applications. There are two general approaches for constructing explicit expanders: Direct Constructions All known direct constructions are based on groups or, more generally, on group actions. They are simple to describe and therefore very explicit, but their analysis typically involves heavy mathematical machinery: harmonic analysis, representation theory, number theory, and additive combinatorics. We only introduce the general approach and state some of the direct constructions, but do not present their analysis. We refer to the recent survey [Yeh12] for more information. Iterative Constructions These constructions start from a small expander, and iteratively build larger and larger ones using simple graph operations. They are harder to describe, but their analysis is elementary and intuitive. We develop an iterative construction in full detail, namely one based on the replacement product (or the zig-zag product) of graphs.


The ability to change operational behavior in response to changes in both external and internal environment is an important aspect of autonomic computing. Managing such behavioral changes is challenging. We propose emotions as a useful mechanism for understanding the structure and use of behavioral changes, and present the design and implementation of the Emotion System, a stand-beside environment for ordinary programs. Both the metaphor and the implementation are designed to make it easy for software developers to integrate autonomic computing into their systems.


The objective of this research is to study the drying of shiitake mushrooms by infrared-vacuum technique. Specific energy consumption, effective moisture diffusivity coefficient and suitable mathematical models to predict the drying kinetics of shiitake mushrooms were investigated under the drying conditions with the drying temperature of 50, 60, and 70 C and the absolute pressure in drying chamber at 10, 15, and 20 kPa. The results showed that, the increment of the temperature or the reduction of absolute pressure in the drying chamber, the drying rate was high and low specific energy consumption. Effective moisture diffusivity coefficient ranged from 1.77x10 to 2.685x10 m/s with increasing values according to higher drying temperature and lower absolute pressure in drying chamber. Midilli mathematical model gave the most appropriate predictions due to the highest coefficient of determination (R=0.99689), the lowest root mean square error (RMSE=0.18370) and chi square (=0.21419x10). Keyword: Vacuum-infrared drying, Specific energy consumption, Mathematical modeling, Effective moisture diffusivity coefficient, Shiitake mushrooms.


Drinking some alcohol every day is safer than having a week's worth in one go, alcohol specialists said at a meeting in London last week. The beneficial effects of a daily glass of wine may explain why French men and women can eat a diet high in fat yet have less heart disease than populations who eat more healthily.

Binge drinking, especially among younger people, is becoming an increasing public concern because it can lead to traffic injuries, violence, and unwanted sex, said Professor Morten Gronbaek, director of the Centre for Alcohol Research in Copenhagen, Denmark. …


Discloses a mobile Internet activity monitoring systems, methods and devices. An example method includes the steps of: receiving a request for Internet content port on the agent, the mobile device via a cellular Yuanzi transmission request to the wireless access point request; a first port of the mobile device based on the request for Internet content associated; requests from the Internet content provider identified in the request for Internet content in content, Internet content providers different from the said agent; and transmitting the content.


Laboratory experiments using a synthetic sewage flowing through a model sewer have been carried out so as to investigate the effect of sulfate concentration on the rate of production of sulfide. The results have been interpreted and analyzed taking into account mass‐transfer resistances. The analysis provides a rational explanation as to why in some situations Pomeroy's predictive equation may be adequate, while in other situations Thistlethwayte's equation may suffice. However, neither equation properly accounts for the effects caused by mass‐transfer resistances in the slime and liquid phases. Improvements to the present predictive procedures require assessment and allowance for these mass‐transfer resistances together with further data on the intrinsic rate of conversion of sulfate to sulfide within the slime phase. The experiments indicated that the removal rate was zero‐order with respect to sulfate and the value of the rate constant was in the range 5-8mgcm-3h-1 at 20 °C. Areas in which further data...


SYNOPSIS. The lamprey, a lower vertebrate, has recently become a very useful model system for studying motor control, including the organization of neural networks, and for examining the relation between kinematic patterns and underlying neural mechanisms. This aquatic animal displays a number of interesting locomotor behaviors, including flexure reflexes, forward locomotion, backward locomotion, turning, withdrawal, and equilibrium reflexes. A valuable property of the lamprey preparation is that the nervous system survives under in vitro conditions for several days and generates well-coordinated locomotor activity that underlies some of the above behaviors. Thus, the neural control of basic locomotor behaviors can be studied in an isolated nervous system in which the ionic or pharmacological make-up of the bath can be altered and in which stable conditions are provided for intracellular recordings. In addition, recent data indicate that the lamprey preparation is a valuable model system for studies of axonal regeneration and recovery of locomotor function following spinal cord injury. This article will focus on three aspects of locomotor behavior in the lamprey: kinematics and motor activity of locomotor behaviors, descending control of locomotion, and regeneration of descending brainstem command pathways that initiate locomotion.


Lanthanoid perchlorates form complexes [M(ClO4)3(shoth)] with the title crown ether (shoth) whose n.m.r. spectra show shifts which are predominantly dipolar. The magnetic-susceptibility tensors are not axially symmetric.


Mean-field variational inference (MFVI) has been widely applied in large scale Bayesian inference. However MFVI, which assumes a product distribution on the latent variables, often leads to objective functions with many local optima, making optimization algorithms sensitive to initialization. In this paper, we study the advantage of structured variational inference for the two class Stochastic Blockmodel. The variational distribution is constructed to have pairwise dependency structure on the nodes of the network. We prove that, in a broad density regime and for general random initializations, unlike MFVI, the class labels estimated from our method converge to the ground truth with high probability, when the model parameters are known, estimated within a reasonable range or jointly optimized with the variational parameters. In addition, empirically we demonstrate structured VI is more robust compared with MFVI when the graph is sparse and the signal to noise ratio is low. The paper takes a first step towards understanding the importance of dependency structure in variational inference for community detection.


Liquid-liquid slug or bislug flow can occur in any cross sectional capillary tube that is wetting and has a low Bond number. When two immiscible fluids are in contact in a capillary tube forming three fluid-fluid interfaces, spontaneous flow may occur due to a pressure imbalance across the menisci. Flow traverses the tube towards the liquid with the higher surface tension. Bislug flow in both prewet and non-prewet channels has been investigated. The bislug velocity in the prewet channels is faster than those in the dry. The velocity increase can be attributed to the decrease in the energy loss associated with the moving contact line. There is a dramatic increase in flow velocity in prewet square channels where the fluid is wicked into the corners. This wicking action decreases the perimeter length of the advancing contact line thereby minimizing energy dissipation.Copyright © 2007 by ASME


Enterprise systems are inherently complex and maintaining their full, up-to-date overview poses a serious challenge to the enterprise architects' teams. This problem encourages the search for automated means of discovering knowledge about such systems. An important aspect of this knowledge is understanding the data that are processed by applications and their relationships. In our previous work, we used application logs of an enterprise system to derive knowledge about the interactions taking place between applications. In this paper, we further explore logs to discover correspondence between data processed by different applications. Our contribution is the following: we propose a method for discovering relationships between data using log analysis, we validate our method against a benchmark system AcmeAir and we validate our method against a real-life system running at Nordea Bank.


Objective:To study the composition of fatty acids in Phyllanthus Emblica Seed oil.Methods:Phyllanthus Emblica Seed oil was exeracted by ether.After saponification and esterification the oil was determined bycapillary GC-MS.Results:14 compounds have been identified and their relative contents determined by area mormkalizaion.They were tributyl phophate(0.03%),myistic acid(0.10%),diethyl phthalate( 0.020%),palmitoleic acid(0.02%),palmitic acid( 13.75%),margeric acid(0.12%),oleic acid(15.95%),stearic acid(6.30%),trans-linolenic acid(19.74%),trans-linolenic acid(43.16%),trans-11-eicosenoic acid(0.30%),arachidic acid(0.32%)behenic acid( 0.05%),lignoceric acid(0.06%). Conclusion:Phyllanthus Emblica seed oil contains an appreciable amount of unsaturated fatty acids,unsaturated fatty acids make up 79.34% of the total amount of fatty acids,trans-unsaturated fatty acids make up 79.66% of the total amount of unsaturated fatty acids,chief unsaturated fatty acids are oleic acid,trans-linoleic acid,trans-linolenic acid and trans-11-Eicosenoic acid. Author's address:Bioengineering college of Fujian Normal University,Fuzhou 350007,China


Water is a miraculous substance, a wondrous energy that moves in the deep places of nature including the depths in ourselves. In the Five Elements of Classical Acupuncture, each season correlates with a different element. The Water Element is associated with winter. Wood is about spring, Fire about summer, Earth is late summer, and Metal is associated with autumn. Each energy feeds the next, just as each season prepares the way for the one that follows. As we move into springtime, it is helpful to examine how we lived during the past winter. Did we fill ourselves with the qualities of the Water Element that we need in order to move into spring in a healthy, balanced way? We are familiar with the energies of spring. The quality and mystery inherent in Water are less accessible to us. Winter can be filled with wonder and fraught with difficulty. It is a time of long nights and short days. It can be bleak, filled with cold and snow and ice. Winter is a time of dormancy, of hibernation. It is the wide space between the death of autumn and the rebirth of spring. In winter, life exists in a potentiality that can seem like nothingness. It is a time for waiting. So, too, the energy of Water. The winter seeds in the ground are blueprints for what will come. They are promises. While huge energies are condensed in the seed, life is reduced to bare bones, to what is essential. Unlike the cheery, playful dance of summer's Fire, Water is a quieter, deeper energy. In winter, in Water time, we are drawn to go deep into ourselves, to seek to know who we are in our essence, not in our activity. People spend more time inside, reflecting, reading by the fire. Winter gives us space. We can see further — there are no leaves on the trees, no flowers in the gardens. No bugs, no frogs, few bird songs. We can see through to the fundaments, earth and sky. It's a quiet time. The gift winter brings is the opportunity to explore our own spaciousness and to find clarity and quiet around us and in ourselves. We are replenishing our reserves, preparing for the spring to come. Like molasses in January, winter slows everything down. I have found that only when I slow down can I take things in deeply. I think about the difference between what I am able to notice when I take a slow walk, stopping to look closely at the arrangement of snow flakes on an evergreen branch, as compared to what I see when I whiz by in a car. Or the tone of a conversation in which there are lots of pauses, space between thoughts, compared to a rush of words that seem to come from the top of the head.


CHISIO: A VISUAL FRAMEWORK FOR COMPOUND GRAPH EDITING AND LAYOUT Cihan Küçükkeçeci M.S. in Computer Engineering Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Uğur Doğrusöz June, 2007 Graphs are data models, widely used in many areas from networking to biology to computer science. Visualization, interactive editing ability and layout of graphs are critical issues when analyzing the underlying relational information. There are many commercial and non-commercial graph visualization tools. However, overall support for compound or hierarchically organized graph representations is very limited. We introduce a new open-source editing and layout framework named Chisio for compound graphs. Chisio is developed as a free, easy-to-use and powerful academic graph visualization tool, supporting various automatic layout algorithms. It is written in Java and based on Eclipse's Graphical Editing Framework (GEF). Chisio can be used as a finished generic compound graph editor with standard graph editing facilities such as zoom, scroll, add or remove graph objects, move, and resize. Object property and layout options dialogs are provided to modify existing graph object properties and layout options, respectively. In addition, printing or saving the current drawing as a static image and persistent storage facilities are supported. Saved graphs or GraphML formatted files created by other tools can be loaded into Chisio. Furthermore, a highlight mechanism is provided to emphasize subgraphs of users interest. The framework has an architecture suitable for easy customization of the tool for end-users' specific needs as well. Also Chisio offers several layout styles from the basic spring embedder to hierarchical layout to compound spring embedder to circular layout. Furthermore, new algorithms are straightforward to add, making Chisio an ideal test environment for layout algorithm developers. iii