A typical mechatronic oscillator involving a tuned resistor-inductor-capacitor circuit driven by a voltage source and coupled to a mass-spring-damper mechanical subsystem is analyzed in order to develop a nonlinear control model. The analysis is approached using the Volterrra/Wiener framework of nonlinear systems combined with the Hilbert Transform. The former is needed since the coupling between the electrical and mechanical parts is lost, should standard linearization is adopted. The latter is needed since a very important characteristic of the system, due to the presence of the capacitance, is frequency selectivity. To use this very frequency selectivity in an application, involving more than one transducer units, modulation of the carrier signal, amplitude modulation in this case, must be implemented. Carrier modulation enables multiple units, structurally identical otherwise but for the capacitance value adjusting the tuning frequency setting, in the same application. Both a low-pass and a band-pass model are developed and subsequently simulation runs are performed. Since the modulation method employed is not of the suppressed-carrier type, the equilibrium point is of dynamic rather than static nature, corresponding to initial values for current and displacement. The model is enhanced by superimposing an external disturbance in form of a baseband force acting on the mass payload of the mechanical subsystem. Then, the response of the system to monochromatic and polychromatic excitations is investigated; making sure among others none of the constraints is violated. The transducer configuration investigated here can be employed as an energy harvesting device in cases where vibrational or oscillatory motion of a mass is involved, e.g. ocean wave energy concepts, Vortex-Induced Vibrations etc., especially if no physical contact between the driving process and the driven circuit is feasible or practical.Copyright © 2012 by ASME


Shanghai is a city located in a coastal region and to understand the flood risks it is exposed to, it is of most importance to first understand the processes that control the water levels for the different flood scenarios. Historically, the Huangpu River has reached its highest levels during landfalling typhoon events, which create a combined scenario that involves high sea water levels due to storm surge, and high river water levels consequent not only of the storm surge at the river mouth, but also of the runoff generated by precipitation in the upstream regions. This research project will focus on the later, assessing the impact of torrential rainfall during tropical storms on the water levels along the Huangpu River in Shanghai city. By studying the hydrological regime of the area of interest, three main watershed regions are identified for the Huangpu river basin; the Taihu lake basin situated upstream regulates the yearly discharge on the downstream areas of the river and is controlled by means of a flood gate which remains closed once a certain flood risk is identified, an agricultural area covered in its majority by an interconnected lake system, and the river basin which encompasses the remaining contributing regions to the system. A hydrological model is built for the Huangpu river basin following the rational method, identifying from satellite databases the dominant land cover classes of the region, the hydrological soil group based on the different soil contents, and the average slope around the area based on a digital elevation model. Using the precipitation data from typhoon Fitow, the hydrological model was used to estimate the corresponding discharge time-series from the storm to be used as input on a hydrodynamic model of the Huangpu river. The hydrodynamic model of the river was built using D-Flow Flexible Mesh, it was used to assess different scenarios of the river system configuration, allowing to understand not only the overall contribution of rainfall-runoff to the river discharge but also the effect of each of the catchments on the river system. The performance of this model, as well as of the hydrological model was observed by comparing the predicted values with the site measurements at two hydrological stations, one midstream at Huangpu Park which highlighted the strong influence of the tide on the water levels for the river sections closer to the sea, and one upstream at Mishidu where the influence of the rainfall runoff to the water levels could be observed. The hydrological model was then validated using the precipitation data from typhoon Haikui, taking the corresponding discharge time-series for it to the DFM river model and comparing the estimated water levels to the actual measurements. Finally the river profile with the maximum water levels along it as predicted by the DFM model was compared to the scenario modelled with no rainfall-runoff discharge and the measured embankment height to understand the contribution to flood risk of the torrential rainfall during tropical storms on the water levels along the Huangpu River.


It's an inevitable requirement of both higher education development and the self-development for the professionalism and specialization of college mentors.In recent years,there has been the focus of researches into the construction of professionalism and specialization of college mentors.This paper explores the measures and approaches from the construction necessity of college mentors' being professionalized and specialized with the overview the recent researches into the professionalism and specialization of college mentors.


Tissue engineering has been a topic of extensive research over the last few decades. In this field, various types of structures have been developed for regenerating different types of tissues such as cartilage and bone, a structural material that supports human skeleton.In order to treat the bone deficiencies it has been developed a support structure called Sscaffold .The aim of this study is the preparation of two different types of porous composite scaffolds: the former made of nanohydoxyapatite/poly(lactide) and the latter composed of nanohydoxyapatite/poly(hydroxyalkanoate). The purpose is to evaluate the feasibility of a preparation method combining melt blending and particulate leaching techniques. This method is particularly interesting because of its industrial applicability and because it is an organic solvent-free technique


why the firm gets the profit and how to achieve the economic rents of the industry above the average are the fundamental questions in the strategic management. Dynamic capabilities give us the new theoretical perspective, which is most important for the enterprise to address the changing environment. After literature review, we summarize the decisive factors of dynamic capabilities' activation are entrepreneurship, learning mechanism and motivation mechanism. Entrepreneurs are one of most important resources, whose decisions making are greatly relevant with the activation of dynamic capabilities and play the role of activating in this process.


In this paper we examine and compare the formal systems of law and finance in China and India and the alternative institutional arrangements and governing mechanisms in the two countries, and the relation between the development of these systems and their economic growth. China differs from most of the countries studied in the law, institutions, finance, and growth literature: Its legal and financial systems as well as institutions are all underdeveloped, but its economy has been growing at a very fast rate. More importantly, the growth in the Private Sector, where applicable legal and financial mechanisms are arguably poorer than those in the State and Listed sectors, is much faster than that of the other sectors. The system of alternative mechanisms and institutions plays an important role in supporting the growth in the Private Sector, and they are good substitutes for standard corporate governance mechanisms and financing channels. Despite its English commonl aw origin and British-style judicial system and democratic government, there is enough documented evidence to suggest that the effective level of investor protection and the quality of legal institutions in India are quite weak as well. Once again, this has evidently not prohibited growth. We find that to a large extent Indian firms conduct business outside the formal legal system and do not rely on formal financing channels from markets and banks for most of their financing needs. Instead, firms across the board, and in particular, small and medium firms, use non-legal methods based on reputation, trust and relationships to settle disputes and enforce contracts, and rely on alternative financing channels such as trade credits to finance their growth. The scope, methodologies, and results of our paper paint a more complete picture of the law-finance-growth nexus and how businesses and investors respond to the limitations of legal system and formal financial system than existing studies.


A rectangular dielectric resonator antenna (DRA) based on Barium Strontium Titanate-Cyclic Olefln Copolymer (BST-COC) composite for 2.4GHz wrist application is designed and characterized. The dielectric properties of the composite with » 57 vol.% BST loading are characterized using microstrip ring resonator structures at 2.45GHz frequency. The proposed DRA, flxed onto a reverse grounded FR4 laminate, has a very compact size of 19mm£10mm£5mm. The impact of the user's body proximity on the radiation performance of the antenna is studied experimentally. The percentage total e-ciency and gain of the antenna deteriorated by about 8.5% and 2dB due to the proximity of the user's body. The proposed DRA showed better performance than that of resonant type of antennas when close to the user's body.


It is well known that providing reasonable resource allocation schemes during the handoff execution phase can improve the handoff performance of broadband wireless access (BWA) system. In this paper, to improve the handoff performance from a different aspect and provide differentiated handoff QoS, we propose a handoff initiation threshold algorithm supporting multi-services. Our study indicates that the accuracy of the handoff initiation can be improved by integrating the information of the QoS demands of service, the change of the link quality and the speed of the MS as the handoff trigger. The analytical results show that the proposed algorithm can decrease the unnecessary handoff and control overhead during the handoff initiation phase, while the other aspects of the system performance are not deteriorated.


Abstract Wizzair was the first low-cost airline to operate at Kosice Airport. From the beginning, it has shown exceptionally good results and the occupancy of its lines has been over 80%. The situation that took place in Vienna forced Wizzair to cancel the base in Kosice and to move the fleet to Vienna. Ryanair takes advantage of this change and enters the market with practically the same line as Wizzair from Kosice to London. The aim of this paper is to describe the situation at Kosice airport. The competitive fight between these two companies is visible from the very first moment when Ryanair introduced its flights at a much better price than Wizzair. The paper also focuses on the comparing these prices and fares as well as the profit over the period under review.


Background: The purpose of this study was to investigate the correlation between yoga and autonomic nervous system in women with metabolic syndrome. Methods: A randomized controlled study was performed in participants recruited from a public center for managing chronic diseases located in Gyeong-gi Province. The 39 women participants diagnosed with metabolic syndrome were randomly assigned to the 12-week yoga exercise group (n=22) or the wait-listed control group (n=17). Biochemical laboratory tests and heart rate variability were measured before and after the 12-week program. Results: In post-menopausal women, the low frequency power of frequency domain significantly decreased in the yoga exercise group compared to the control group (P=0.07). On the time domain of heart rate variability and metabolic syndrome components, there were no significant differences between the groups. Conclusions: Sympathetic activity was decreased in post-menopausal women with metabolic syndrome who practiced yoga. Our results suggest that yoga might be beneficial in improving the autonomic nervous system in post-menopausal women with metabolic syndrome. Korean J Health Promot 2014;14(4):147-154


The presence of Pesantren has contributed in several ways to the progress that has been made in the field of education in Indonesia. In addition, around 900,000 graduates of Islamic boarding schools have been donated who are ready to continue the spread and da'wah of Islam and participate in building Indonesia's infrastructure which is full of Islamic values in addition to science. This is a significant contribution. Pesantren which is an educational institution that focuses on the formation of Islamic character has a high morality of the Islamic religion in terms of educational politics. This is because the Pesantren adheres to the teachings of the Qur'an and As-Sunnah. Not only that, this situation is because Pesantren is a form of education that emphasizes the cultivation of Islamic character. However, despite the fact that we live in an era of globalization, information, and technology, Pesantren are still the target of criticism for their alleged failure to adapt to globalization in an appropriate way. On the other hand, apart from that, the public education system strengthened by the government also gave birth to new moral problems, which were also the impact of globalization. Collaboration between different educational institutions is now the single most successful strategy to overcome the existing deficiencies in both the Pesantren education system and the general education offered by each school.


In a multi-temporal (MT) interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) algorithm, if the Itoh condition is not met, the closure phase of zero or near zero is no longer true. To resolve it, we apply a phase gradient network (PGNet) to assess a cell's phase gradient not subjected to the Itoh condition. The PGNet has been trained over rugged terrain in Mao County (32.06°N, 103.65°E), Sichuan Province, China. Then, the network was applied to predict phase gradients of three differential interferograms, i.e., 18 July-30 July, 30 July-11 August, and 11 August-18 July of 2017, Jiuzhaigou, Sichuan. A Ms (surface-wave magnitude) 7.0 earthquake (33.20° N, 103.82° E) occurred on 8 August 2017 in Jiuzhaigou. The PGNet has 1,175,000 cells with 0 for the horizontal closure phase gradient and 1,149,000 for the vertical closure phase gradient. (n = 1,413,120) For the Itoh condition-based method, the cell numbers are 984,800 horizontally and 1,094,000 vertically, less than those after the PGNet. Thus, the PGNet is more effective in minimizing the closure phase than the Itoh condition, improving an MT-InSAR algorithm's performance.


The Prostate Cancer Prevention Trial risk calculator for high‐grade (PCPTHG) prostate cancer (CaP) was developed to improve the detection of clinically significant CaP. In this study, the authors compared the performance of the PCPTHG against multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (MP‐MRI) in predicting men at risk of CaP.


Efforts to build a modern civilized society by upholding human values and justice were pioneered by the Prophet Muhammad long before the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, the French Revolution of 1789 or the birth of the American constitution in 1776. Prof. HAR Gibb in his book Writer Islam states, "Islam is actually more than a religious system, Islam is a complete culture." History has recorded well, any nation that struggles for their survival by facing all obstacles in order to maintain its existence, of course one day it will reach a high level of civilization, will find its own culture. They can give "cultural lessons" to other nations in addition to passing on the culture to the nations after that. The Medina Charter is a document drawn up by the Prophet Muhammad SAW, as a formal agreement in 622 AD between himself and all the important tribes and people in Medina. The Medina Charter is also known as the Medina Constitution. Among the important objectives behind the Medina Charter are the creation of security, happiness and goodness for all human beings (all related segments of society), management of the territory by agreement. Because it contains a number of rules related to tolerance and harmony among the Ummah at a time when the world is filled with group fanaticism.


The existing wavelet-based image resolution enhancement techniques have many assumptions, such as limitation of the way to generate low-resolution images and the selection of wavelet functions, which limits their applications in different fields. This paper initially identifies the factors that effectively affect the performance of these techniques and quantitatively evaluates the impact of the existing assumptions. An approach called Optimal Factor Analysis employing the genetic algorithm is then introduced to increase the applicability and fidelity of the existing methods. Moreover, a new Figure of Merit is proposed to assist the selection of parameters and better measure the overall performance. The experimental results show that the proposed approach improves the performance of the selected image resolution enhancement methods and has potential to be extended to other methods.


Attribute significance of rough set can be used as an important reference of indicator reduction.An indicator reduction method was proposed based on attribute significance of rough set.Aiming at its problems of lacking flexibility and suitability,the equivalence relation was extended into fuzzy equivalence relation.The threshold was set to enlarge knowledge granularity.It improves the proposed method.


In Cyber-physical systems (CPSs), digital computing components control or monitor physical components in real-time. Models for CPS involve digital (discrete) and physical (continuous) elements. The development of accurate models for CPS always is a challenge due-to complexity of the system, fundamental differences in the operation of cyber and physical components, and significant inter-dependencies among these components. Sensors and sensor devices with diverse capabilities and complexities are major physical elements. The major theme of this paper is to present a survey on sensor models and their relationship to realizations of CPS. A technical analysis brings out the gaps of existing sensor description methods mainly in sensor modeling and subsequently underlines the importance to create a comprehensive description of a physical sensor to establish the correctness and validity of such cyber-physical models.


This paper estimates wage equations for New Zealand based on pooled data from the Household Economic Survey (HES) from 2006/07 to 2010/11. Equations are estimated separately for couple men and women, single men and women and sole parents. The results are compared to previous New Zealand estimates using the HES from 1991 to 2001. We estimate wage equations and account for possible sample selection bias. Our estimates of the wage equations are largely comparable to the earlier estimates. We extend the equations to predict wage rates for workers and non-workers by drawing from the estimated wage distribution. We find that sample selection is significant for married men, single women and sole parents but not significant for married women and single men. Overall, we find that wage rates are positively related to age, education and experience but the wage rates are generally lower for non-Europeans and for people living outside Auckland.


Image understanding is the enterprise of automating and integrating a wide range of processes and representations used for vision perception. It includes techniques not only for geometric modeling but also for inference and reasoning. In this paper, we look at the issue of inductive inference in digital image understanding. Many goals in both low-level and high-level image analysis can be formulated generally as a problem of inferring object-properties from image data, having assistance of a priori knowledge. This process of information processing would be called image inversion, as the desired information about the objects is derived from image dat.a. Based on the inverse problem theory, we provide a sound theoretical basis for determination of generalizations, descriptions, rules, and laws, from a set of raw data, observations, features or facts. To demonstrate this approach, we present its application in the limited domain of surface reconstruction from multiple images.


[1] We investigated the slow initial phase of small earthquakes (M 0.0–3.6) in western Nagano, central Japan, by deconvolution with causal attenuation operators and empirical Green's functions. To determine whether the slow initial phase is caused by propagation effects along the raypath or source effects, we investigated whether all earthquakes begin as shear cracks with a constant stress drop and rupture velocity, whether the path effect can be represented by a constant attenuation operator, and whether the seismograms of the smallest earthquakes are empirical Green's functions for the path effect of larger earthquakes. We found that the larger earthquakes (M ≥ 1.9) have complicated source processes in combination with linear growth, while smaller earthquakes show simple linear increases in moment accelerations. It is possible that the larger earthquakes are fundamentally different from the smaller earthquakes. It also appears that the complex waveforms observed in the larger earthquakes can be explained by multiple rupture processes, although the slow initial phase of M ≥ 1.9 events, at the very least, must be explained as a source effect.


This paper presents the numerical results of concrete footing-soil foundation seismic interaction mechanism. The concrete footing has been made with two different shapes, but with the equal volume of concrete material. The concrete footing-soil foundation has been analyzed using nonlinear finite elements, with the fixed-base state. The simulated near-fault ground motions have been applied to the concrete footing-soil foundation. The problem has been formulated based on the settlement controlled analysis. The local geotechnical conditions of all configurations have been analyzed. The numerical analysis results indicate that the shape of a concrete footing alters seismic response, revises inertial interaction, enhances damping ratio, improves load carry capacity, modifies cyclic differential settlement, revises failure patterns, minimizes nonlinear deformation, and changes cyclic strain energy dissipation. The novelty of this research work is the strain energy has more been dissipated with artistic concrete footing design.


The Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler Locustella certhiola was found to transit the Japanese Archipelago by two ringing records from Hokkaido and Kyushu recently. Both two birds seemed to be adults, sex unknown, and the second one from Kyushu appeared to belong to the subspecies rubescens by the coloration of the plumage, size and distributional range. This species is a very rare vagrant in Japan, but it is expected that further records will be reported by ringers.


As part of the BaBar project at SLAC to study the properties of B mesons, we have carried out a study of the exclusive charmless semileptonic decay mode B → ωlν, which can be used to determine the magnitude of the Cabbibo- Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element Vub. Using simulated event samples, this study focuses on determining criteria on variables for selection of B → ωlν signal and suppression of background from other types of BB events and continuum processes. In addition, we determine optimal cuts on variables to ensure a good neutrino reconstruction. With these selection cuts, we were able to achieve a signal-to-background ratio of 0.68 and a signal efficiency of the order of 1%. Applying these cuts to a sample of 83 million BB events recorded by BaBar in e+e– collisions at the (4S) resonance, we obtain a yield of 115 ± 19 B → ωlν decays.


The aim of this paper is to describe the suburban residents' t ransport demands from the viewpoint of consumption costs in the case of regular commuting. The surveyed suburbs have different transport patterns, because these suburbs are influenced by the catchment area of the city of Prague that is a dominant city of the region, and many of the suburban settlements do not behave as traditional municipalities. Most of the existing transport links are carried out in relation to the city of Prague on radially oriented roads. The traffic intensity is often at the roads' ful l capacity or the roads are even congested along the ride to the city. These congestions have a negative impact on the city's environment and increase the consumption costs of passenger car transport as well. This contribution describes the transport demands based on the traffic surveys that were carried out within 15 suburban settlements during the morning peak hours and during ordinary working days. These selected settlements are located at different distances from the city and include different types of buildings and build-up areas. Thus, the authors gained a high quality sample for statistical assessment. On the basis of traffic surveys, the authors found the total amount of transport demands which were generated by selected settlements. The obtained results have proved the low competitiveness of public transport in suburban conditions from the viewpoint of travelling speed and transport costs as well, because there are no competitive advantages in this issue.


The paper describes problems related to the use of microstrip antennas in cellular telecommunications systems. Because of the unique properties, microstrip technology is nowadays often used to manufacture antennas for base stations as well as for handset terminals. It also seems to be a very promising technology for multisystem antennas, for which there is an ever-growing demand. The paper also presents a short overview of currently available solutions and ones under development by the authors, along with some key problems related to their design.


Objective To study bacteriostasis and its practical safe of Mango seed extract in vitro.MethodsThe in vitro bacteriostasis of Mango seed extract,double-diluted and agar-diffused,on common intestinal infection pathogenic bacteria was observed.Mice were orally adminstered Mango seed extract and toxic reaction,dose-toxic effect relationship and the toxic reaction of the major target organs were observed.ResultsMango seed extract possessed in vitro bacteriostasis in different degree on standard and drug fast Bacillus shigae,Bacillus dysenteriae,maximal tolerated dose of intragastric administration for mice was 40 g/kg,equivalently 50 times clinic dosage.ConclusionMango seed extract possesses in vitro bacteriostasis and is favorable safe on 3 types of common intestinal infection bacteria.


Background Within many large health care organizations, researchers and operations partners (i.e., policymakers, managers, clinical leaders) join to conduct studies to improve the quality of patient care. Yet optimal approaches to conducting partnership research and evaluation are only beginning to be clearly defined. The Veterans' Health Administration (VA) Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI), funded by operations leaders and administered by the VA's research service, now has nearly two decades of experience in fostering research–operations partnerships for improving quality of VA care. The work reported here is part of a national evaluation of QUERI. Because individuals in research and operations often have differing backgrounds and perspectives, we aim to identify the main sources of tension in research–operations partnerships and strategies for maximizing partnership success, through the eyes of QUERI participants. Methods We conducted semi-structured interviews with 116 researchers and operations partners chosen randomly from within pre-identified key participant groups. We conducted inductive qualitative analysis of verbatim interview transcripts, limited to the 89 interviews of individuals reporting at least some familiarity with QUERI. Results Tensions in research–operations partnerships were primarily related to diverging incentives and to differing values placed on scientific rigor or integrity versus quick timelines. To alleviate these tensions, operations' partners highlighted the importance of 'perspective-taking' (i.e., putting themselves into the shoes of the researchers) to ensure a mutually beneficial and attractive partnership, whereas researchers identified the importance of overcoming the need for recognition to be apportioned between either research or operations for achieved results. Both researchers and operations participants identified jointly designing each partnership from the beginning, minimizing research bureaucracy burdens, and prioritizing in-person communication and long-term relationships as key partnership building blocks. Conclusions QUERI research and operations participants had largely concordant views on partnership tensions and approaches for improving partnership success. The fact that only researchers mentioned moving beyond recognition for the results achieved and only operations staff mentioned the importance of 'perspective-taking' suggests, however, that there may be unresolved tensions. These results suggest that researchers may benefit from better aligning of academic incentives with contributions to the health care organization and establishing formal recognition of operational impacts of research, while preserving some flexibility and independence of the research process.


Data fusion is an attractive technology because it allows various trade-offs related to performance metrics, e.g., energy, latency, accuracy, fault-tolerance and security in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Under a complicated environment, each sensor node must be equipped with more than one type of sensor module to monitor multi-targets, so that the complexity for the fusion process is increased due to the existence of various physical attributes. In this paper, we first investigate the process and performance of multi-attribute fusion in data gathering of WSNs, and then propose a self-adaptive threshold method to balance the different change rates of each attributive data. Furthermore, we present a method to measure the energy-conservation efficiency of multi-attribute fusion. Based on our proposed methods, we design a novel energy equilibrium routing method for WSNs, viz., multi-attribute fusion tree (MAFT). Simulation results demonstrate that MAFT achieves very good performance in terms of the network lifetime.


In this paper, we present a novel hierarchical architecture for a large wireless sensor network wherein sensors are arranged into a multilayer architecture with the nodes at each layer interconnected as a de Bruijn graph and provide a hierarchical routing algorithm in the network. Using our approach, every sensor obtains a unique node identifier addressed by binary addressing fashion. We show that our algorithm has reasonable fault-tolerance, admits simple and decentralized routing, and offers easy extensibility. Besides, we also present simulation results using two metrics: the end-to-end delay and the success data delivery radio. To evaluate how well our protocol support, we compare our protocol with other protocol using two these metrics


The article presents a summary of the situation of immigration and of the immigrants to Spain. It begins by explaining the three stages in the process of formation of «Immigrant Spain» and the characteristics of each. It then goes on to describe some of the traits which characterize immigrants in Spain such as their national origin and the regions where they live, their gender and age structure, educational level and types of residence permits. The central part of the paper analyses the situation of immigrants in the labour market (explaining their activity and unemployment rate as well as the characteristics of the employments they hold) and in the educational system, The final headings in the text briefly unfold some aspects of the Spanish population's discourse and attitudes towards immigration and the political challenges for Spain and for the European Union posed by migration, with special reference to antidiscrimination policies.


The saturated vapor pressures of a series of α-pinene derivatives including camphene, isobornyl acetate, (±)-limonene, dihydromyrcenol, pinane, and dihydromyrcene were determined at the pressure ranging from (0.8 to 50.0) kPa by the boiling point method. Good agreement of the correlated values was obtained when the experimental data of vapor pressure and temperature were correlated by the Antoine equation, and the parameters A, B, and C were estimated. The molar enthalpies of vaporization ΔvapHm of these compounds were estimated within the experimental temperature range by the Clausius–Clapeyron equation. Furthermore, the reliability of regressed parameters obtained from the Antoine equation in the range of experimental data was verified.


Based on the analysis of the relationship between urban gardens and China urban social life at the end of 20th century,this paper discusses the effect and role of traditional gardens and urban new garden in urban social life.Then it elaborates the meaning of urban gardens in urban development and the construction of social relations.Combined with the development trend of Nanjing City,it discusses the problems of the development of urban gardens and puts forward relative suggestions.


Depending on literature analysis,interviews,Delphi method and analytic hierarchy process( ahp) and other research methods,the paper,based on the related theory of performance management,researches the assessment of grassroots coaches' work performance in Shanghai through primary screening,theoretical screening and experts' screening. It establishes an index framework containing 4 first-level indicators,13 secondary indicators and 37 third-level indicators,the aim of which is to change the present situation of overemphasis on the results of the competitions when evaluating grass-roots coaches' work performance by establishing the index system.


The very survivability of man is greatly associated with plants since his origin. Plants are responsible for the supply of Man's oxygen, food, medicine, fibre, shelter and what not! Also the relationship between man and environment in general has never been static and is changing continuously. But this is not the case with tribal/ aboriginal communities the world over. The life, culture and traditions of these communities have remained almost undisturbed and static for hundreds of years. They are the living archaeological museums of ancient traditions and cultural heritage of a nation.


Otoliths size and shape differ between species and populations and due to their high morphological specificity they are considered important tools for species determination. In this study we describe the sagittal otoliths of some species of Haemulidae indicating the main differences found. The Collection of Teleostei Fish Otoliths of the Southeastern-Southern of Brazil (COSS-Brasil) held at the Oceanographic Institute, (IOUSP) contains 1200 sagittal otoliths of six species of Haemulidae, represented by: Anisotremus surinamensis, Conodon nobilis, Haemulon aurolineatum, Haemulon steindachneri, Pomadasys corvinaeformis and Orthopristis ruber. Fifteen features of 202 left sagittae were analyzed following the methodology adopted by COSS-Brazil, based on the terminology of Assis (2004) and Tuset et al. (2008). For each feature the frequency of occurrence was calculated inside and among fish length classes (20 mm) and in order to verify statistical differences multiple χ 2 tests (p> 0.05) were applied. Morphometric analysis included length, height, thickness, perimeter, area, circularity and rectangularity data of the otoliths. The main features that characterized the Haemulidae were: Shape: elliptic or oval to elliptic; Anterior region : angled-round; Ostium morphology: funnel-like or rectangular; Cauda morphology: tubular strongly curved or tubular markedly curved. The six species analyzed showed as common characteristics: sulcus acusticus opening : ostial; sulcus acusticus morphology: heterossulcoide; and colliculum morphology: heteromorphic. The otolith shape and posterior region were diagnostic features between the two species of Haemulon : H. aurolineatum presented oval shape and posterior region oblique-round or round, whereas H. steindachneri presented elliptic to oval shape and posterior region angular or angular-round. This study is part of an otoliths atlas from the Southeastern-Southern Brazilian area which has been prepared and published.


Noting the finiteness of fossil energies and also the existing multiple obstacles in the development and construction of concentrated production resources and creation of transfer lines, using Microgrid (MG) is increasing rapidly in the world. This paper deals with the optimal cost analysis of the proposed MG system for islanded operation using Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewable (HOMER) software with the ultimate goal to minimize Cost of Energy (COE). The done analysis is presented to optimize MG based on the Total Net Present Cost (TNPC), Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) and operating cost. Simulations results are carried out with the proposed system using real life experimental data, to test the performance and accuracy of the system. Overall results obtained demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method, covering of total consumption power as well as to reduce COE.


Abstract The study examined socio-cultural factors as determinants of divorce rates among women of reproductive age. The study adopted the descriptive survey design. The study sample was 226 randomly selected from five local government of Ibadan metropolis, Nigeria. A self-completed questionnaire tagged: "Divorce Rates and Women of Reproductive Age evaluative Questionnaire (DRWRAEQ)" was used to collect the requisite data. The data was analysed using multiple regression and chi-square statistics. The results obtained showed that there is relationship between the five cultural factors and childlessness within the first marriage, marriage support by family and relatives, age at marriage, couple's role obligation and couple's ethnic/cultural background and divorce rates among women of reproductive age. The results also showed that there is significant relationship between educational background of women of reproductive age and divorce rates (χ2 = 53.67, df = 12, P < 0.05), and between religious affiliation of women of reproductive age and divorce rates (χ2 = 53.67, df = 9, P < 0.05). Based on these findings, it is recommended that family counsellors, social workers and other helping professionals will be helpful in providing positive strategies of reducing or solving the problems of divorce facing the families.


Using the counter propagation artificial neural network (CPANN) to diagnose the DGA fault, network structural parameters should be set, such as the training epochs, network size etc. When user to set, it would be affect by the artificial subjective factors. If we use the traversal search way, it would be the consumption of computing and time. So this article employed parallel genetic algorithm to optimize network structure optimization parameters of counter propagation neural network. Genetic algorithm is a simulation Darwin the evolution natural selection and genetic mechanism of biological evolution process calculation model, and a by simulating natural evolution to search the optimal solution. In the GA procedure, the fitness function was defined by the correct ratio combination of the calibration data set and validation data set, as the rules for selecting the optimal network parameters. When selecting the optimal network parameters, the relatively high repeated frequency of chromosome and the optimal fitness function values simultaneously were considered.


The embeddability problem is a very old and hard problem in discrete holomorphic iteration which deals with determining general conditions on a given univalent self-map $\varphi$ of the unit disc $\mathbb D$ in order to be contained in a continuous one-parameter semigroup. In this paper, we tackle this embedding problem by establishing different dichotomy results about the centralizer of $\varphi$ (i.e. the set of all univalent self-maps commuting with $\varphi$) which depend strongly on the dynamical character of $\varphi$. Our approach is, in part, based on a new technique to obtain simultaneous linearizations of two non-elliptic and univalent self-maps of the unit disc, which might be interesting on their own. We also introduce and study several closed additive subsemigroups of the complex plane that collect the main features of the centralizer of $\varphi$ and which play a prominent position in those dichotomy results.


Introduction and background The development of language and communication is the area of main emphasis in the education of children with hearing impairments. It has been discovered that the child who is deaf in Zimbabwe faces a language dilemma at home and at school. The majority of children who are deaf are born of parents who are not deaf (Chimedza and Mutasa 2003). They have problems accessing the mother tongue which is usually either Shona or Ndebele. Sign language is usually not known by the hearing parents. The children use unstructured gestures as they attempt to communicate with their parents and siblings. When the children go to school, they are introduced to English which is an official language used as a medium of communication in Zimbabwean schools. They are also introduced to the Zimbabwe sign language as described in Chimedza, Rinashe and Sithole (1998). They are supposed to communicate in any of English, Shona/Ndebele and the Zimbabwe sign language with their deaf peers and their teachers. One can understand the language dilemma the child faces as he grapples with acquainting himself/herself with three languages. It is in this light that this study seeks to examine the language dilemma of the deaf child from an educator's view point. When hearing is limited, it affects the individual in significant ways, limiting communication access to orally presented information as well as independent living (Smith 2001). Hearing loss, according to Vaughn, Bos and Schumm (1996), impacts on normal speech and language development which in turn impacts on reading development. Hearing impairment includes the deaf as well as children who are hard of hearing (Turnbull et al 1995). 'Deaf' describes severe hearing loss that precludes the understanding of speech even with a hearing aid and amplifying systems (Heward and Orlansky, 2009). Hearing loss may be pre-lingual (occurring before spoken language experience) or post-lingual (occurring after spoken language experience) (Hallahan and Kauffnan 2006., Smith, 2001., Chimedza and Mutasa, 2003) Language development for the deaf is crucial but these children are at greater risk for more problems in this area (Smith, 2001). The family's role in their child's language development is vital, often beginning with their choice of communication method for use during the early childhood period. Deaf children born of hearing parents are more apt to receive early amplification, auditory training and pre-school education (Meadow, 1980). There is, therefore, need for parents to be able to deal with various professionals who will become an important part of their child's life. It has been realised that young deaf children who are taught conventional sign language develop language in sign comparable in both content and form to the child language that young hearing children develop in speech (Goldwin--Meadow and Morford, 1985). The birth of a deaf child to hearing parents can be frightening and even devastating. A difficult decision for many families during the early childhood period is about which communication mode to use. Should the family use sign language, a language the family will have to learn? Will they use total communication, which can combine signed English and oral language? Smith (2001) poses these questions which obviously cannot easily the answered. In concurrence, Quigley (1994) refers to the bi-lingual and bi-cultural approach in which students who are deaf are taught sign language and a spoken language. Once the sign language has been mastered, they learn to write English as a second language. This may be easier said than done. Hence, this study investigates perspectives of teachers regarding the language dilemma faced by the child who is deaf. Many deaf parents and a growing number of educators support the view that sign language should be accepted as the natural language of deaf children. (Winzer, 1996) and Mclntire (1994) confirm that deaf children born to deaf parents who use sign language learn this system of communication as effortlessly as hearing children learn oral language from their parents. …


Adipocytokines (adiponectin, leptin and resistin) are known to play a major role in development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and intervention program is effective in reducing CVD risk factors. However, intervention program to improve the CVD risk factors including adipocytokines has been less studied. This study investigated the effects of 12-weeks worksite intervention program on cardiovascular risk factors, adipocytokines and nutrients intakes in industrial workers. 157 industrial male workers (32 metabolic syndrome (MS) subjects, 125 healthy subjects using age-matched stratified random sampling) received 5 face-to-face counseling based on their health profiles. Anthropometry, biochemical parameters and nutrients intakes were measured. The diagnosis of MS was adapted from modified NCEPATP III criteria (2001) and Asia-Pacific definition criteria (2000) for waist circumference (WC). After the intervention program, WC, BMI, SBP, insulin, leptin and intakes of total energy and fiber were significantly decreased (p < 0.05), while adiponectin was significantly increased (p < 0.05) in MS subjects. The WC, BMI, SBP, total cholesterol, LDL and HDL-cholesterol, HbA1c, leptin and intakes of total energy, protein and fat were significantly decreased (p < 0.05) and adiponectin was significantly increased (p < 0.05) in normal subjects. Multiple linear regression revealed that adiponectin was positively correlated with HDL-cholesterol (p < 0.01). Leptin was positively correlated with WC (p < 0.01), and resistin was positively correlated with HbA1c (p < 0.05) and intakes of total energy (p < 0.05), and negatively correlated with HDL-cholesterol (p < 0.05). The results of the 12 weeks intervention showed a positive impact on adipocytokines and nutrients intakes of industrial workers to reduce cardiovascular risk factors. Further research is needed to verify a tailored long-term worksite intervention program including adipocytokines as a protective factor for the CVD. (Korean J Nutr 2011 44(4): 292 ~ 302)


ORCID Jung-Hwan Yoon https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8009-7807 Jae E. Yang https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8641-6442 Hyuck Soo Kim https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9944-6245 In the process of biological desulfurization of gases from landfills, huge amounts of biologically produced Sulfur (BPS) were produced as by-products. A study was conducted to find out the possibility of using it as an adsorbent for Pb2+. BPS was subjected to an adsorption test in an aqueous solution in the presence of Pb2+ and compared with the removal efficiency of granular activated carbon (GAC), which is mainly used as an adsorbent for heavy metal. As a result of the Pb2+ removal experiment using BPS, it was a two-step process in which 54.5% of the initial Pb2+ was removed within 5 minutes by fast initial adsorption followed by slow adsorption. As a result of the isotherm adsorption experiment, the Pb2+ adsorption to BPS was fitted the Langmuir isotherm model, and the maximum adsorption capacity of BPS (175.4 mg g-1) was about 3 times higher than that of GAC (67.11 mg g-1). The data from XPS demonstrated that the main adsorption mechanism was the complexation of Pb2+ with the sulfide in the BPS. Therefore, it was confirmed that BPS has sufficient value to be recycled as a new adsorbent for Pb2+ removal in wastewater.


The HP 1090 represents a major step forward in the analysis of these compounds. It's a hierarchical structure with an HP personal computer in command. A New Solvent Delivery System, by Wolfgang Geiger and Heinrich Vóllmer Precision pumps and an advanced control system deliver accurate flow rates over a 5000:1 range. Automatic Liquid Chromatograph Injection and Sampling, by Wolfgang Kretz and Hans-Georg Hartl Precise handling and injection provide high throughput and reduce costs. Mobile Helge Preheater Ensures Precise Control of LC Column Temperature, by Helge Schrenker Column temperature has become an important separation parameter. A Low-Cost LC Filterphotometric Detection System, by Axel Wiese, Bernhard Dehmer, Thomas detectability and Günter Hòschele It offers more flexibility and better detectability and selectivity then others in its class. It's designed for high-speed data acquisition and for qualitative and quantitative analyses using the latest columns. Authors New Technologies in the HP 1090 Liquid Chromatograph, by Alfred Maute Some of the new technologies aren't so new. development specialty is liquid chromatography, or LC, and the latest product offering is the HP Coincidentally, Liquid Chromatograph, the subject of this issue. Coincidentally, in bringing the HP Switzerland to life, it was to the watchmakers of the Black Forest and Switzerland that Waldbronn scientists turned for the skills to drill minute holes and cut tiny threads with high precision, and to shape and polish diminutive parts made of sapphire and similar materials. On page 44, Alfred Maute gives us his perspective on the remarkable engineering and manufacturing challenges that had to be met to make this new LC system a reality. In the article on page 3, two of the system's designers explain how new the HP 1090 is †" different enough from previous LC systems to warrant the coining of the term "low-dispersion" liquid chromatography. Like the gas chromatographs we've featured several times in these pages, a liquid Chromatograph is an instrument used for separating a sample of some compound into the components that make it up. The difference is that for GC the sample to be analyzed is a gas and for LC it's a liquid, perhaps sea water or a body fluid. The sample to be analyzed by LC is injected into a stream of solvent and carried through a tube called a column. The column is of with particles of a porous material. The components of the sample reach the other end of the …


Manufacturing plants, which account for two-thirds of the total energy use in the industrial sector, have seen a gradual upward trend in their energy consumption over the past decade. Understanding how an individual plant is performing relative to its peers - benchmarking - has not yet seen broad exposure throughout the manufacturing sector as a means to gauge plant effectiveness and as a basis for future action. Benchmarking energy performance as a frrst order ofmerit offers the possibilities of a quick, yet meaningful assessment of plant energy performance without the cost and rigor of a comprehensive audit or ~ngineering evaluation. Based on a commercially available database - the Major Industrial Plant Database™ (MIPD) - containing detailed energy and plant characteristics for roughly 18,000 manufacturing plants representing 450 industries, the development of energy performance benchmarking is investigated in support of the DoS. Environmental Protection Agency's revitalized manufacturing sector effort within ENERGY STAR®. The objective of this effort is to enable plant managers, operators, and owners to easily and credibly assess and track the energy, financial, and environmental performance ofmanufacturing plants relative to their peers.. The goal of which is to initiate more and better informed de~isions toward improving plant and corporate performance. The MIPD "is used to develop benchmarking models relating plant input -


Study of the interleukin 6 (IL-6) role in chronic autoimmune inflammation has led to the development of innovative treatments for various autoimmune inflammatory rheumatic diseases, including Takayasu's arteritis (TAK). Given the important role of IL-6 in the pathogenesis of TAK and its association with high clinical and laboratory activity of the disease, tocilizumab (TCZ) is recommended as a second-line drug if both glucocorticoids and basic antiinflammatory drugs are inefficient, and previous therapy with tumor necrosis factor-α (alpha) inhibitors. The article presents our own observation of the successful use of TCZ in a patient with refractory TAK.


An efficient multi-ray propagation model, which uses 3D geometry and image techniques to trace multiple signal rays from transmitter to receiver, is employed to analyse the electromagnetic environment of a dedicated short-range communication system on an express highway. The employed model is effective for investigating the location of EM wave absorbers to be set up on the highway, and it takes only a fraction of a minute for computation.


COMPOSITION cosmetic or dermopharmaceutical consisting of a emulsion of oil in water containing a silicone rubber IS STABLE IN THE ABSENCE OF A SURFACTANT through use in the aqueous phase of the emulsion of an acrylic copolymer and at least one monomer VINILICO carrying at least an amide function, amidine and nitrile.


Can we predict future events? Biostatisticians might answer with an unequivocal yes and state that logistic regression models do exactly that: they predict the relative risk of an outcome on the basis of logistic regression of multiple independent variables. If this is the case, then which approaches improve predictive capability? We are not attempting to predict individual events in individual athletes. However, certain approaches can improve predictive power. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther 2017;47(4):228-231. doi:10.2519/jospt.2017.0603.


Trade with agricultural products represent a central issue in the Doha Round negotiations, as also happened in the previous round, Uruguay, when were initiated most of the measures to eliminate barriers in agricultural products trade. The importance of this chapter is also outlined by the fact that suspension of Doha Round negotiations in July 2006 was due in good measure to the impossibility of reaching a common point in the agricultural issue. To achieve consensus are necessary agreements on three major issues on the agricultural policy of the countries which are part of the WTO: market access, export subsidies and internal policies to support agriculture. Our approach seeks to identify the main barriers to agricultural products trade, the benefits that liberalization would have on the global economy and the goals in this direction of the Doha Round.


Introduction Tom Marshall's view of leadership is broken down and described in his book, Understanding Leadership. Marshall views leadership from a different perspective than most business sense theorists. He reveals what he feels it means to be a leader, based on years of experience and scholarly biblical insight. He focuses on servant leadership, as defined by Robert Greenleaf. The book describes how and why leadership is different from management, administration or ministry. It offers guidance on topics such as foresight, status, trust, timing, criticism, failure, caring, and honor. It emphasizes lifestyle, attitudes, and relationships. It provides guidance for today's leaders on fostering interdependence while maintaining identity and integrity within their church, business, or community.


Abstract Objective To summarise the methods of data collection on foods eaten outside the home in the National Food Survey (NFS) and the new (2001) Expenditure and Food Survey (EFS). Design The treatment of foods eaten outside the home in the NFS was reviewed as part of a merger process with the UK household budget Family Expenditure Survey (FES). Problem issues were identified and the way these problems are being dealt with in the EFS is indicated. Setting United Kingdom. Results Pilot EFS results indicate improved coverage of foods eaten outside the home, in a comparable period to the NFS. Conclusion The new EFS, which represents a merger of the NFS and the FES at the level of data collection and validation, is likely to preserve the qualities of the previous surveys and represents an improvement over them.


. Light-frame wood structures have the ability to carry gravity loads. However, their performance during severe wind storms has indicated weakness with respect to resisting uplift wind loads exerted on the roofs of residential houses. A common failure mode observed during almost all main hurricane events initiates at the roof-to-wall connections (RTWCs). The toe-nail connections typically used at these locations are weak with regard to resisting uplift loading. This issue has been investigated at the Insurance Research Lab for Better Homes, where full-scale testing was conducted of a house under appropriate simulated uplift wind loads. This paper describes the detailed and sophisticated numerical simulation performed for this full-scale test, following which the numerical predictions were compared with the experimental results. In the numerical model, the nonlinear behavior is concentrated at the RTWCs, which is simulated with the use of a multi - linear plastic element. The analysis was conducted on four sets of uplift loads applied during the physical testing: 30 m/s increased by 5 m/s increments to 45 m/s. At this level of uplift loading, the connections exhibited inelastic behavior. A comparison with the experimental results revealed the ability of the sophisticated numerical model to predict the nonlinear response of the roof under wind uplift loads that vary both in time and space. A further component of the study was an evaluation of the load sharing among the trusses under realistic, uniform, and code pressures. Both the numerical model and the tributary area method were used for the load-sharing calculations.


. Inaccurate parameter estimation is a significant source of uncertainty in complex terrestrial biosphere models. Model parameters may have large spatial variability, even within a vegetation type. Model uncertainty from parameters uncertainty 15 can be significantly reduced by model-data fusion (MDF), which, however, is difficult to implement over a large region with traditional methods due to the high computational cost. This study proposed a hybrid modeling approach that couples a terrestrial biosphere model with a data-driven machine learning method, which is able to consider bothuses satellite information and considers the physical mechanisms. We developed a two-step framework to estimate the essential parameters of the revised Integrated Biosphere Simulator (IBIS) pixel by pixel using the satellite-derived leaf area index (LAI) and gross 20 primary productivity (GPP) products as "true values." The first step was to estimate the optimal parameters for each sample using a modified adaptive surrogate modeling algorithm (MASM). We applied the Gaussian Process Regression algorithm (GPR) as a surrogate model to learn the relationship between model parameters and errors. In our second step, we built an eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) model between the optimized parameters and local environmental variables. The trained XGBoost model was then used to predict optimal parameters spatially across the deciduous forests in the eastern United 25 States. The results showed that the parameters were highly variable spatially and quite different from the default values over forests, and the simulation errors of the GPP and LAI could be markedly reduced with the optimized parameters. The effectiveness of the optimized model in estimating GPP, ecosystem respiration (ER) and net ecosystem exchange (NEE) were also tested through site validation. The optimized model reduced the root-mean-squared-error (RMSE) from 7.03 to 6.22 gC m -2 8d -1 for GPP, 2.65 to 2.11 gC m -2 8d -1 for ER and 4.45 to 4.38 gC m -2 8d -1 f or NEE. The mean annual GPP, ER and NEE 30 of the region from 2000 to 2019 were 5.79, 4.60 and -1.19 Pg year -1 , respectively. The strategy used in this study requires only GLASS products and predicted values was significantly reduced with the optimized parameters. The results showed that there was significant spatial variability of parameters within a vegetation type, and that using high-quality satellite products could efficiently calibrate the parameters of 540 terrestrial biosphere models at the pixel level. Although we tested our approach only for deciduous forests of the eastern United States, it provided a feasible scheme for spatial calibration of other vegetation types, at higher resolutions and in larger areas.


The "Cloud Computing" paradigm is gaining ground with new IT service providers and traditional IT out-sourcing providers alike. Customers want to use cloud computing solutions with all their advertised advantages and without the hassle of traditional long term outsourcing migration and contracting. Risk is at the center of attention when dealing with the adoption of cloud services. Because of the security concerns and the consequential reservations towards the acceptance of public cloud computing platforms, a lot has been done to improve security and trust in these environments. However, most of the implementations and research regarding this issue is concerning technical security risks with a focus on preventing perimeter-based attacks. Security and trust issues beyond perimeter based security risks have gained little attention. This paper identifies the need to look beyond technical issues and turns the attention to improving compliance and governance in cloud environments. In this process the focus is set on the discontinuity cap between existing methods to identify and evaluate IT risks and the treatment of these risks with Service Level Agreements. To close this cap a model for a dynamic view on current IT risk is proposed to comply with modern IT environments that are composed of an ampleness of different services. The model has a strong corporate context and will help companies to evaluate their current risk exposure and thus make better decisions when choosing their services.


Simple Summary Fruit intake plays a vital role in regulating the gut microbiota; nutrients obtained from fruit sources correlate with microbiota structure and composition. In recent years, the growing evidence indicates that gut microbial diversity is closely associated with human health and disease. Abstract Fruits contain many bioactive compounds, including polysaccharides, oligosaccharides, polyphenols, anthocyanins, and flavonoids. All of these bioactives in fruit have potentially beneficial effects on gut microbiota and host health. On the one hand, fruit rich in active ingredients can act as substrates to interact with microorganisms and produce metabolites to regulate the gut microbiota. On the other hand, gut microbes could promote health effects in the host by balancing dysbiosis of gut microbiota. We have extensively analyzed significant information on bioactive components in fruits based on Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA). Although the deep mechanism of action of bioactive components in fruits on gut microbiota needs further study, these results also provide supportive information on fruits as a source of dietary active ingredients to provide support for the adjunctive role of fruits in disease prevention and treatment.


Lymphocytes derived from rats immunized with respect to homologous transplantation isoantigens are capable of destroying target cells of donor origin. This destructive interaction of lymphocytes and target cells occurs via mechanisms entirely different from those operative in conventional immunologic cytolysis. It is suggested that this tissue culture system may provide the means whereby the role of lymphocytes in the destruction of tissue homografts in vivo may be more accurately assessed.


Abstract We aimed to evaluate the feasibility of a heart-shaped intrauterine balloon as antiadhesion method immediately after hysteroscopic adhesiolysis in terms of surgeon's and patient's experience. This feasibility study was performed at the Ghent University Hospital (Belgium) from 2018 to 2020. A heart-shaped intrauterine balloon was inserted in 10 women immediately after hysteroscopic adhesiolysis and left in place for 7 days under antibiotic prophylaxis. Insertion and removal of the balloon was easy in 7 women out of 10 (5-point Likert scale), and successful in all cases. The median pain score during balloon wearing on a visual analogue scale (VAS) was 1.7 (IQR 1.0–4.2). Seven out of 10 women were satisfied (5-point Likert scale). Eight out of 10 women would probably or certainly recommend the procedure to a friend (5-point Likert scale) and would use the balloon again. The heart-shaped intrauterine balloon as antiadhesion method is feasible in terms of surgeon's and patient's experience. Designing a proper Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) is worth the effort. Clinical trial registration: https://clinicaltrials.gov (NCT03446755). Initial release on 27th February 2018. IMPACT STATEMENT What is already known on this subject? Intrauterine adhesion (IUA) reformation is high and different methods to prevent this subsequent to an operative hysteroscopy have been assessed. The use of antiadhesion gel, acting as a mechanical barrier, may decrease the occurrence of IUAs compared to no treatment or placebo. A heart-shaped intrauterine balloon is another example of a mechanical barrier. A small number of studies, of varying quality and with heterogeneous results, have been performed. A proper RCT, comparing the intrauterine balloon to no treatment or placebo, is needed. What the results of this study add? The heart-shaped intrauterine balloon as antiadhesion method is feasible in terms of surgeon's and patient's experience. What the implications are of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? Designing a proper RCT is worth the effort.


ABSTRACT Las Vegas Wash, a natural wash east of Las Vegas, Nevada, carries stormwater, groundwater drainage, and sewage effluent from two sewage treatment plants to Lake Mead. Over 80 percent of the normal discharge of approximately 3.4 m3/s (120 ft3/s) consists of effluent from the City of Las Vegas and Clark County sewage treatment plants. Beginning in the 1950s, a large wetland area developed along the wash that supported waterfowl populations and contributed to some water quality transformations. Heavy rains and subsequent flooding in the area in 1983 and 1984 resulted in erosion and channelization that greatly reduced the wetland area within Las Vegas Wash. The reduction in wetland area shortened water travel time in the wash and affected water quality. The primary impacts on the water entering Lake Mead have been an increase in temperature, a decrease in dissolved oxygen concentration, and an increase in ammonia levels. Other physical-chemical parameters and changes in nutrient transformations are a...


According to this paper,the different roof and floor lithology and caving under the conditions of step away from the other were studied to determine a reasonable comprehensive mining process parameters and improving the mining rate of mechanized mining technology.The results show that and the device configuration,caving technique,frame strength of the face is closely related to the mining rate in sub-level caving working face.The reasonable mining technology has been studied and significance of sub-level caving working face comprehensive mining process parameters was determined about sub-level caving mining in thick coal seam in the paper.


There are a number of skills involved in answering a clinical question. Clinical skills are part of the picture, but best evidence must inform decisions. Unfortunately, there are many obstacles in the way. To quote the online journal Bandolier: 'For many reasons too much of the medical literature can be misleading, or is just plain wrong. We must be able to distinguish good evidence from bad, and to have accurate, reliable knowledge readily available and readily accessible for all.'


The Galileo spacecraft employs concatenated coding schemes with Reed-Solomon interleaving depth 2. The bit error rate (BER) performance of Galileo's concatenated codes, assuming different interleaving depths (including infinite interleaving depth) are compared. It is observed that Galileo's depth 2 interleaving, when used with the experimental (15, 1/4) code, requires about 0.4 to 0.5 dB additional signal-to-noise ratio to achieve the same BER performance as the concatenated code with ideal interleaving. When used with the standard (7, 1/2) code, depth 2 interleaving requires about 0.2 dB more signal-to-noise ratio than ideal interleaving.


Functional descriptions of the heart, especially the left ventricle, are often based on the measured variables pressure and ventricular outflow, embodied as a time-varying elastance. The fundamental difficulty of describing the mechanical properties of the heart with a time-varying elastance function that is set a priori is described. As an alternative, a new functional model of the heart is presented, which characterizes the ventricle's contractile state with parameters, rather than variables. Each chamber is treated as a pressure generator that is time and volume dependent. The heart's complex dynamics develop from a single equation based on the formation and relaxation of crossbridge bonds. This equation permits the calculation of ventricular elastance via Ev = 3D ∂pv/∂Vv. This heart model is defined independently from load properties, and ventricular elastance is dynamic and reflects changing numbers of crossbridge bonds. In this paper, the functionality of this new heart model is presented via computed work loops that demonstrate the Frank-Starling mechanism and the effects of preload, the effects of afterload, inotropic changes, and varied heart rate, as well as the interdependence of these effects. Results suggest the origin of the equivalent of Hill's force-velocity relation in the ventricle.


A fundamental understanding of phosphorus (P) bioavailability in alkaline soils is critical to its better management in agricultural and environmental applications. The main objective of this study is to characterize phosphate speciation in the alkaline pH range (pH 8–9.5) in binary mixtures of ferrihydrite and calcite using a combination of wet-chemical and P K-edge X-ray absorption near edge structure spectroscopy. Our results showed that ferrihydrite and calcite sorbed phosphate as an inner-sphere surface complex with binuclear-bidentate mode of phosphate bonding on ferrihydrite in both single- and mixed-mineral systems of ferrihydrite and calcite. Phosphate sorbed preferentially on ferrihydrite in binary mixtures of ferrihydrite and calcite particularly at higher concentrations of sorbed phosphate, probably due to greater concentration of metal-OH surface sites in ferrihydrite than in calcite. In addition, phosphate sorption in mineral mixtures did not behave as a linear combination of phosphate sorption in their single-mineral components, indicating mineral interactive effects. Molecular-scale insights from this study have important implications for macro-scale behavior of P bioavailability in alkaline soils, such as an increase in P bioavailability and subsequent P release with soil reduction and pH increase.


We show that the introduction of a minimal length in the context of noncommutative space–time gives rise (after some considerations) to higher-order theories. We then explicitly demonstrate how these higher-derivative theories appear as a generalization of the standard electromagnetism and general relativity by applying a consistent procedure that modifies the original Maxwell and Einstein–Hilbert actions. In order to set a bound on the minimal length, we compare the deviations from the inverse-square law with the potentials obtained in the higher-order theories and discuss the validity of the results. The introduction of a quantum bound for the minimal length parameter β in the higher-order QED allows us to lower the actual limits on the parameters of higher-derivative gravity by almost half of their order of magnitude.


After China joining in the WTO,performance appraisal has become more important than ever as a tool to improve the performance of the enterprise and the staff.But in the real world,it has much potential or side product to tap into. The article analyzes some common problems in performance appraisal of domestic enterprises.


A small survey was carried out on 38 camel herds in Qassim region of Saudi Arabia to study production and reproduction parameters, herding strategies, offtake and constraints to camel production. The study also recorded the rate and causes of mortality in the surveyed herds over one year. Four distinct herding strategies were discovered. Type one herders were companies or merchants who kept large herds (mean = 1260 camels) in semi-intensive operations and who marketed milk, meat and young camels on a regular basis. Type two herders were unspecialized merchants who kept medium-sized herds (mean = 86 camels) for family use without apparent commercial benefit. The third type of herders consisted of pastoralists or agropastoralists who kept smaller herds (mean = 14 camels) always with other animals (mainly sheep and goats, and occasionally cattle). Type four herders were classical camel merchants who also kept a relatively small group of camels (mean = 17 camels) in a feedlot for sale at a profit at the first opportunity. The calving rate was 68%, the mean age at first calving was four years and four months and the mean intercalving interval was 20 months. The highest mortality was recorded in the period from birth to one year of age and averaged 17% in all the data. In large commercial herds, an additional age group with high mortality was the two- to three-year-old females in which up to 9% mortality was recorded. Most of the male camels were sold for meat at around one year of age and only 4.3% males remained in the herds.


Further to the announcement of the arrangements for the 2012 final dividend provided with the Company's annual report, ABG has determined that the exchange rate to be applied to the 2012 final dividend is £1=US$1.5534. The sterling equivalent of the dividend of 12.3 cents per share will be approximately 7.9 pence per share.


Abstract The chemical modification of several polymers including poly (vinyl bromide), poly (chloromethyl styrene), poly (vinylidene bromide), and poly (epichlorohydrin) was studied using various nucleophiles in multiphase systems with the assistance of a phase transfer catalyst. Satisfactory results were obtained using o-dichlorobenzene as solvent and powerful nucleophiles. The use of dimethylformamide as solvent often resulted in large increases in both reaction rates and conversions but sometimes created other problems. With several polymers dehydrohalogenation or chain cleavage were observed and in general the more basic nucleophiles were more destructive. With poly (vinyl bromide) the reaction was used to produce efficiently polymers containing alkyl sulfide, methyl sulfone, vinyl sulfone, or thioethanol side chains with little apparent polymer degradation.


This article refers to a training strategies of a group of students which will obtain their Bachelor's degree in special education and your teacher, who through reflective reading on formation history of disabled people, identifies comprehensions and ways to assist this population; besides, a disciplinary hybridization process is recognized from religious beliefs, going through medical juridical comprehensions, analysis from metrical systems (anthropometry and psychometry), and then incorporating psychological and pedagogical reflections, thus making up a knowledge field named "special education." Current organization of education system doubts about the relevance of special education; however, this field of knowledge is in a continuous reflection and construction of pedagogical strategies according to needs of disabled people. This process has allowed not only to develop differentiated didactic technologies for this population, but also to drive related disciplines and reflections of inclusion, exclusion, and differences; in this direction, knowledge dialogue has been proposed as a comprehensive exercise which goes beyond disciplines, advancing in the construction of knowledge through cooperative work which leads to the consideration of inclusive academic communities.


Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) has been applied for generating power from different waste heat sources with higher thermodynamic efficiency. And the ORC's energy efficiency is closely dependent on the heat exchanger's operation. In this paper, a neuro-PID controller is proposed for the heat exchanger in ORC system for waste heat recovery. Compared with traditional control strategy, the proposed method could achieve better dynamics characteristic and have strong robustness against parameter and external disturbances. Finally, the simulation results illustrate the validity and superiority of the proposed approach.


This paper demonstrates the capability of a new and freely-available PiP software for calculating vibration from railway tunnels. PiP is used to examine the sources of uncertainly in models used to predict vibration from underground railways. By varying slightly the parameters of the model, consistent with uncertainties in measured data, the vibration levels predicted by the model vary significantly, often by 10dB or more. This error is hard to predict so it cannot be good practice to rely on prediction models for accuracy better than 10dB. The presentation will demonstrate the PiP model in real time.


Federated learning is for training a global model without collecting private local data from clients. As they repeatedly need to upload locally-updated weights or gradients instead, clients require both computation and communication resources enough to participate in learning, but in reality their resources are heterogeneous. To enable resource-constrained clients to train smaller local models, width scaling techniques have been used, which prunes the channels of a global model. Unfortunately, width scaling suffers from parameter mismatches of channels when aggregating them, leading to a lower accuracy than when simply excluding resourceconstrained clients from training. This paper proposes a new approach based on depth scaling called DepthFL to solve this issue. DepthFL defines local models of different depths by pruning the deepest layers off the global model, and allocates them to clients depending on their resources. Since many clients do not have enough resources to train deep local models, this would make deep layers partially-trained with insufficient data, unlike shallow layers that are fully trained. DepthFL alleviates this problem by mutual self-distillation of knowledge among the classifiers of various depths within a local model. Our experiments show that depth-scaled local models build a global model better than width-scaled ones, and that self-distillation is highly effective in training data-insufficient deep layers.


An embodiment of the invention discloses a method and a device for preparing soybean milk. The method comprises the following steps of controlling a pulverizing motor of the soybean milk maker to drive a pulverizator of the soybean milk maker to directly pulverize a soybean milk processing material so as to obtain raw soybean milk; and blending the raw soybean milk by using a blender in a barrel in a process of heating and boiling out the raw soybean milk under the condition that V2/d is greater than or equal to 12.5 revolutions/(minute*mm) and smaller than or equal to 225 revolutions/(minute*mm), d is the equivalent diameter of the pulverizator, and V2 is revolving speed of a blending motor for driving the blender to blend the soybean milk. According to the method for preparing the soybean milk in the embodiment, preparation efficiency of the soybean milk is improved, preparation concentration of the soybean milk is greatly increased, and the service life of the motor is prolonged.


Xie-ban-da-xue-shi Gang Yi, who was honest and upright, capable and practical when he was a local official, won promotion step by step for his achievements in trial, "Tuntian" and irrigation works. At the same time, Gang yi was also a conservative bureaucrat. He was firmly against Wu-Xu Reform. He tried hard to use the Boxer Uprising against foreign invaders. Gang Yi was a conservative and practical bureaucrat.


The paper deals with the pathogenic wood-decaying fungi on woody plants in China.One hundred and fifty-two species have been recorded,of which 49 species(accounting for 34% of the total pathogenic species) are firstly reported as pathogenic fungi in China.Their host,type of rot,occurrence and distribution were given according to field inventories.Among these fungi,135 species(accounting for 89%) cause a white rot,while 17 species resulted in a brown rot.Among these fungi 67,33 and 52 species belong to common,occasional and rare species respectively.


It is well known that French has no diphthongs in the English sense: any sequence of two nonconsonants will be realized phonetically äs either two füll vowels in two different syllables or a combination of a semiconsonant and a vowel in the same syllable. Can it be predicted whether the sequence will contain a semiconsonant rather than two vowels? In other words, are the three semiconsonants of French [w q j] phonemes in their own right or simply allophones of the vowels /u y i/ respectively? These are the questions to which we shall address our attention. Traditional grammars offer certain rules telling us under what circumstances to convert (Orthographie) vowels to (phonetic) semiconsonants: (A) ou [u], u [y], i [i] -»[w], [q], Jj], respectively, before a vowel. Examples: 0111 [wi] 'yes', louer [Iwe] 'to praise'; lui [Iqi] 'him', tuer [tqe] 'to kill'; vieux [vj0] Old', etudier [ety'dje] 'to study'. Then come the rules to explain the exceptions: (B) Preceded by a mute + liquid ou remains a vowel: clouer 'to naiP. (C) Preceded by a mute + liquid i becomes [ij]: tablier [tabli'je] 'apron'. (D) Preceded by a mute + liquid u [y] becomes a semiconsonant only before i'.fruit [frqi] 'fruit', but monstrueux [möstry'0] 'monstrous'. (E) In the first and second persons plural of the imperfect indicative and present subjunctive, ou [u] or u [y] before i are pronounced in two syllables: nouiez [nu'je] 'you were knotting', tuiez [ty'je] 'you were killing'. (F) In Her and rire two different pronunciations are possible: lions [Ijö] or [li'jö] 'we bind', riez [rje] or [ri'je] 'you laugh'. (G) In nier only one pronunciation is accepted: niant [ni'jä] 'denying'.


In 2013, more than 1,200 federally funded community health centers provided access to care for low-income populations living in medically underserved communities throughout the country. The Affordable Care Act made expansion of health centers a key part of its strategy for ensuring that these communities would realize the benefits of increased health insurance coverage for their residents. As health insurance coverage expands under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the demand for primary care increases, the role of health centers is likely to increase. A key question going forward is whether health centers' expanded capacity, developed over the past five years, will be sustained going forward.


In this case series of 25 eyes, we describe and analyze the clinical and multimodal imaging features of the chrysanthemum phenotype of idiopathic multifocal choroiditis. Purpose: To describe the clinical characteristics and multimodal imaging features of a distinctive subtype of active idiopathic multifocal choroiditis (iMFC) lesions with grey–yellow chorioretinal lesions surrounded by smaller satellite dots, a presentation referred to as "chrysanthemum lesions." Methods: Retrospective, observational, multicenter case series of eyes with active iMFC and chrysanthemum lesions. Multimodal imaging features were reviewed and presented. Results: Twenty-five eyes from 20 patients (12 women and 8 men), with a mean age of 35.8 ± 17.0 years (range, 7–78 years) were included. Chrysanthemum lesions were equally located in the macula (48.0%) or the mid/far periphery (52.0%). The number of lesions per eye varied from 1 (16.0%) to more than 20 (56.0%). On optical coherence tomography, chrysanthemum lesions showed typical features of iMFC, including subretinal hyperreflective material splitting the retinal pigment epithelium/Bruch membrane. Chrysanthemum lesions were hypoautofluorescent on fundus autofluorescence imaging, hyperfluorescent on fluorescein angiography, hypofluorescent on indocyanine green angiography, and associated with choriocapillaris flow signal deficit on optical coherence tomography angiography. Conclusion: Active iMFC may present with findings resembling chrysanthemum lesions. The distinctive lesion morphology on ophthalmoscopic examination, the large number of lesions, and the high prevalence of exclusive midperipheral and far peripheral involvement may represent a distinctive phenotype of iMFC.


Nicotine cessation medication, combined with behavioral support, is considered the "gold standard" treatment for tobacco cessation, but it is only successful in 20% to 30% of patients. New and alternate tobacco cessation strategies are needed to address patients who fail or are unwilling to use current evidence-based options for cessation. Electronic cigarettes are one such product gaining popularity for use as a smoking cessation aid. Robust evidence-based support of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation is lacking, but their use is likely less harmful than that of conventional cigarettes. As such, it is reasonable to support a quit attempt with e-cigarettes following failure of evidence-based cessation treatments and behavioral support, stressing the fact that it is safest to do so without continuing to smoke tobacco.


This chapter presents the cellular materials and their composites in general and then mostly concentrates on the particularities of advanced pore morphology (APM) foam. Single metallic APM spheres and their mechanical properties are characterized with experimental testing and computational simulations, providing the basic properties and knowledge for an efficient design of composite APM foam structures. The chapter also presents APM foam elements molded with epoxy matrix, resulting in composite structures of different morphology types. One of the most important areas for the future application of cellular materials is in the automotive industry, where their high impact energy absorption through deformation is of crucial importance for increasing the passive safety of vehicles. The experimental testing of single APM foam elements has been performed for quasi-static loading conditions and for dynamic loading conditions. The chapter comprises the mechanical properties of single APM foam elements.


Two hundred and forty two Chinese wheat cultivars and lines from autumn-sown wheat regions were used to analyze the genetic variation of the water-soluble pentosans (WSP), water-insoluble pentosans (WIP), total pentosans (TP), and the solvent retention capacities (SRC). The results indicated that variation of WSP, WIP and TP was 0.72%-(1.81%,) 2.92%-6.93%, and 4.42%-8.11%, respectively(Table 1). WSP content of hard wheat was higher than that of soft wheat, while WIP content of soft wheat was higher than that of hard wheat. Slight difference was observed in TP between hard wheat and soft wheat. The contents of WSP, WIP and TP were positively and significantly correlated with grain hardness, WSP and WIP were positively and significantly correlated with mixograph parameters(Table 3). Significant variation among SRC were observed of genotypes, the variation of water SRC, sodium carbonate SRC, sucrose SRC, and lactic acid SRC were 32.51%-79.52%, 50.00%-139.99%, 11.15 %-123.06 %, and 67.01%-140.96 %, respectively(Table 2). Hard wheat showed higher SRC than soft wheat. Water SRC was positively and significantly correlated with hardness and flour particle size, and sodium carbonate SRC was also positively and significantly correlated with them, and the correlation coefficients were 0.66, 0.64, 0.55 and 0.48, respectively. Lactic acid SRC was positively and significantly correlated with SDS sedimentation volume, mixing time, and mixing tolerance, the correlation coefficients were 0.71, 0.73 and 0.62, respectively(Table 4). SRC is a new method for evaluating wheat qualities, which can be directly used for early generation selection in breeding programs.


The adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by the United Nations (UN) most definitely brings well-needed hope in today's technically advanced yet tumultuous and troublesome world where large segments of the population are desperate, helpless, and generally left out. It connects poverty alleviation, human wellbeing, and environmental protection in new and more integrated ways. The 2030 Sustainability Agenda brings hope by stimulating action over the upcoming years through the implementation of the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and their 169 associated targets in areas of critical importance for humanity and the planet, thus hopefully shifting the world onto a sustainable and resilient path where no one is left behind. International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) was among the first institutions embracing the SDGs and, judging by its undertaking of the hefty global initiative to close the 50 most polluting dumpsites of the world, ISWA is clearly committed to ensure that the SDGs are indeed effectively implemented as soon as possible. Closing dumpsites constitutes an implicit or explicit target for many of the SDGs, as outlined in the September 2016 ISWA Roadmap Report, unveiled during the ISWA 2016 World Congress in Novi Sad. Sadly enough, the most recent landslide failure on 11 March at the Koshe dumpsite in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa comes to underscore the significance of this ISWA initiative in the most devastating yet not so much pollution-related way: A mound of trash collapsed on an informal settlement killing at least 115 people, the majority of them being women and children, with dozens more still missing. And it is not the first and definitely not the deadliest such tragic failure, both the Payatas in the Philippines (2000) and Bandung in Indonesia (2005) dumpsite landslides claimed more lives, 200 and 143 souls, respectively. However, no matter how devastating such tragedies are, they are mostly mechanical failures where mountains of trash are piled with little regard for stability. From an engineering standpoint, such failures can be very easily averted, by just following some simple rules of slope stability (while also accounting for flammable methane and other decomposition gases) when piling the waste. And, of course, by moving to a different disposal location, once the waste piling capacity of the site has been reached, which is easier said than done in most of the world, especially in the places that is most needed. This was, at least partly, the case in the latest Koshe dumpsite landslide, where last year, the local authority tried to close the site and relocate dumping to a new landfill site at Sendafa, but opposition by local farmers caused the rubbish collectors to move back to Koshe, leading to the tragic epilogue of 11 March 2017. Unlike dumpsite landslides, environmental pollution-related tragedies are, by and large, much more subtle, less sudden failures, but in the long run much more devastating for both humans and the environment. There is now growing scientific evidence that exposure to lower levels of chemicals in the general environment is contributing to society's cancer burden. Pollution of air, water, and soil, primarily owing to inadequate management of wastes and chemicals, constitutes the largest threat for disease and death in lowand middle-income countries. The World Health Organization (WHO), Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), and Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP) calculated that in 2012 exposures to polluted soil, water, and air resulted in an estimated 8.9 million deaths worldwide – 8.4 million of those deaths occurred in lowand middleincome countries. In this editorial I place a special focus on significant environmental pollution issues targeted by the SDGs, that would need to be mostly tackled by waste management professionals, both researchers and practitioners; namely, soil and groundwater pollution as they are intricately related to the provision of clean, safe, and accessible water around the world. This is clearly articulated in SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), but is also implied in the first four SDGs (No Poverty, Zero Hunger, Good Health and Well Being, Quality Education) and is a main thread of SDGs 11 through 15 (Sustainable Cities and Communities, Responsible Consumption and Production, Climate Action, Life Below Water, Life on Land). The rest of the SDGs can also be linked to soil and groundwater pollution, although under a more subtle, indirect context. To this date, the traditional, highly successful technologically approach, ensuring availability of safe potable water, has been mainly based on wastewater treatment and desalination advances. This has provided a very solid and effective applied science and engineering foundation and a highly entrepreneurial and very profitable business environment. However, in my view, at this time, there has to be a shift in focusing more on groundwater protection and treatment. Considering that about one-third of the world population lives in slums, without adequate sanitation and other public services, wastewater treatment and even more so desalination require, for the most part, relatively high capital investments. Conversely, protection, pumping (even from larger depths), and treatment of groundwater can be a significantly more affordable and flexible option, ensuring access to safe potable water, until the economics would allow for upgrading to the high-tech, yet more costly, wastewater treatment and desalination infrastructure. Aside from this, as a direct result of overpopulation and climate change, there is an Waste management and research and the sustainable development goals: Focus on soil and groundwater pollution 706474WMR0010.1177/0734242X17706474Waste Management & ResearchEditorial editorial2017


We performed molecular dynamics calculation to study hydrogen molecules' diffusion in the voids of C2 hydrogen hydrate with varied occupancy at 291K and 4GPa. The same hydrate systems under pressure conditions of 76MPa to 174.2MPa at 77K to 150K were also investigated. LAMMPS molecular dynamics program is employed to the 3×3×3 unit cells with periodic boundary conditions of C2 hydrogen hydrate. TIP4P/Ice and three sites were used to model water molecules and the encapsulated hydrogen gas, respectively. The whole system was simulated for 10ns. The diffusion coefficient calculations show conformity with the experimental results, with the highest of 9.07 × 10−9 cm2s−1 shown by a system of 80% hydrogen gas occupancy under 291K and 4GPa of temperature and pressure, respectively. Hydrogen gases are actively diffuse between voids in every simulated system configuration.


Presents a narrative of a trip through the upper provinces of India to the Himalayas. This title also includes an account of Monghyr, Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Agra, Delhi, and Simla.


Four prenylated flavonoids, isoglabratephrin, (+)-glabratephrin, tephroapollin-F and lanceolatin-A, were isolated from Tephrosia apollinea L. and tested against three stored grain insects. Using the filter paper bioassay, compounds showed adulticidal activity against Sitophilus oryzae (L), Rhyzopertha dominica (F) and Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) at concentrations of 0.875, 1.75 and 3.5 mg mL− 1. At 3.5 mg mL− 1, tephroapollin-F was the most toxic (78.6%, 64.6% and 60.7% mortality was recorded after 10 days exposure of S. oryzae, R. dominica and T. castaneum, respectively). The F1 progeny production of insects was affected after parental exposure to flavonoids, where S. oryzae was the most susceptible. A nutritional bioassay, employing a flour disc and test concentrations of 0.65, 1.3 and 2.6 mg g− 1, revealed a significant reduction in the relative growth rate, relative consumption rate and efficiency of conversion of ingested food by all insects. The structure–activity relationship among the tested flavonoids was discussed.


In this letter, we investigate quasi-cyclic low-density parity-check (QC-LDPC) codes in a 40-Gb/s nonreturn-to-zero differential phase-shift keying (NRZ-DPSK) signal transmission system based on a fiber-based optical parametric amplifier (FOPA). A constructed algorithm of QC-LDPC codes according to the optimizing set of shift values on the circulant permutation matrix (CPM) of the basis matrix is proposed. Simulation results prove that the coding gain in the encoded system can be realized at 10.2 dB under QC-LDPC codes with a code rate of 5/6 when the bit error rate (BER) is 10-9. In addition, the error-floor level originating from the uncoded system is suppressed.