We propose the use of oxidized porous silicon as a low-loss substrate for the microwave devices. The oxidization of porous silicon is expected to increase the resistivity of Si surface layer and to reduce its effective dielectric loss, which would leads to a significant reduction of the nature loss of low-resisitivity (low-R) Si substrates under the microwave operation. In the present study, a significant improved microwave performance on low-R Si substrates has been demonstrated by measuring the microwave characteristics of coplanar waveguides fabricated on the Si substrates with thick oxidized porous surface layers.


© Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag 2008 Abstract Due to the social environment of China's reform and opening up, as well as China's education system with knowledge impartation as its focus, some college students lack the humanistic care and education of value and significance of life. Universities should plan effective activities to make students realize the importance of life. They should provide students with such education as life conscience, failures in life, the ability to make a living and the values of life in order to have a clearer knowledge of life education, so that the students can set up a positive, healthy and correct life view, realize the value and meaning of life, and finally learn to respect life.


Petri nets are used to study many types of networked systems. [1] have designed a software tool for analysis and simulation of Petri nets. We extend this tool to handle a form of Petri net known as Predicate Transition (PrT) nets. We implement mechanisms that automate the process of folding a Petri net to a PrT net and finding invariants. We can compute invariants for systems that use either Petri net or the extended PrT net. Invariants are required to prove certain properties of the system being modeled, such as liveness and safety. Finally, for Petri net, we use the invariants to prove these two properties.


In this paper we are concerned with line detection for scene modelling. So we focus on horizontal and vertical lines and we propose a fast local approach to detect lines in binary images. The approach described here can easily be extended to lines characterized by other directions. Pixels are analysed using an accumulator on a block-based basis in order to obtain possible line segments for each block. As the results obtained rely only on a local analysis, their coherence can be further improved using a postprocessing step. The proposed method has been compared to classical approaches in order to show its efficiency.


We report on hydrothermal growth and gallium doping of ZnO (GZO) nanorods for field emitters. The GZO nanorods grown at 90°C were structurally uniform and well oriented with pure wurtzite structure. It was also found that turn-on fields were 5.4 and 3.6 V/μm while field-enhancement factors β were 1711 and 9058, for the ZnO nanorods and GZO nanorods grown at 90°C, respectively. In addition, the turn-on electrical field was reduced from 3.6 to 3.15 V/μm and β of GZO nanorods was enhanced from 9058 to 13529 by UV illumination.


ABSTRACT Cryobacterium arcticum PAMC 27867, a psychrotolerant, Gram-positive bacterium, was isolated from a sedimentary rock sample collected at Eureka Spurs in northern Victoria Land, Antarctica. Here, we report the genome sequence of C. arcticum PAMC 27867.


As high-speed non-memory devices require narrow gate widths of less than 100 nm, the technology for this requirement shou7ld be guaranteed. In view of microlithography, one candidate to support such a narrow gate width is a phase edge (PE) PSM technique. However, because this PEPSM technique has not yet been thoroughly developed in the viewpoint of mask making, an activity to find optimal mask parameters for best optical performances should be made. In this paper, optical performances of PEPSM have been described under various geometrical structures and phase defects as mask parameters. Optical performances of PEPSM were strongly dependent on the pattern pitch, the optimal phase, and the mask structure. From our studies, the optimal phase of shifter was considered to be 179 degrees and the optimal mask structure expressed in dry/wet etch ratio was 50/130 degrees when considering the overall pitch. The phase defect having its phase of less than 50 percent did not seriously affect the lithography patterning. We could easily make PEPSMs having maximum phase defects of 50 degrees with our hybrid etch process. Finally, we could build the manufacturing process of PEPSM for sub-100 nm resist CD patterning.


Syria and the Middle East lost one of the most active and renowned zoologists on 16.2.2015 as a result of the bloody conflict in Syria. Adwan was shot in the streets of Dara'a by a sniper in cold blood leaving behind his wife and four children. It is not just his family, the many people whom loved him all over world. Adwan was born on 20.10.1967 in Dara'a, Syria. He grew up in a struggling family, and then joined the University of Damascus in 1992 and earned his doctoral degree in 1999. Soon after graduation he joined the General Commission for Scientific Agricultural Research as a senior researcher, where he stayed until his death. Adwan was a very ambitious and active biologist. By far he was the most outstanding zoologists in Syria. He published over 30 articles on the mammals of Syria covering various aspects of rodents and bats ecology. His work stands as a legacy for his devotion for the gap of knowledge in the Syrian fauna. He teamed up with several zoologists from Algeria, Austria, England, Jordan, Lebanon, Poland and Turkey, and to conduct field work in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. He attended many meetings all over the Middle East, Netherlands, Bulgaria, Czech Republic and Bulgaria. He represented Syria in the Eurobats Convention. Adwan published 10 articles in Zoology in the Middle East on various topics of the mammals of Syria. His illustrations give an idea about his skills to produce high quality work, besides he was an excellent photographer, where some of his photos became a cover for Zoology in the Middle East. I worked very closely with Adwan since 1996; we conducted many excursions in Syria and Jordan, to explore the biodiversity of Syria. He was venturous and very knowledgeable about the terrain of Syria. I visited his family, his mother, father, his four brothers, his wife and children. For me, they represent what a family should be and the strong ties are exceptional. Adwan will be remembered by all his friends by his sense of humor and warm friendship.


Purpose: The proportion of early gastric cancer has recently increased. Although early gastric cancer has a very good prognosis following a curative resection, and recurrences rarely occur, if there is a distant recurrence the prognosis is grave. To predict to the potential of a recurrence after a gastrectomy, early gastric cancer patients were retrospectively analyzed. Methods: 1,131 early gastric cancers were curatively resected at the Asan Medical Center between Jan, 1990 and Sep, 1997. Recurrences were observed in 46 patients during the follow up period. The clinical characteristics of the recurred and cured groups were compared. Any statistical significance was calculated using Chi-Squared and Log rank tests, using SPSS version 10.0. Results: The recurrence and 5-year survival rates of the recurred patients were and 9%, respectively. Hematogenous recurrences were the most common mode of recurrence, followed by lymph node recurrences. The mean tumor size, numbers of lesions, location of tumor, status of lymph node dissection and operation type, did not affect tumor recurrences. The grossly elevated type of tumor, submucosal layer invasion and differentiated cancer, most frequently recurred. The rate of recurrence linearly increased with increase of the nodal stage. All patients with a lymph node recurrence had lymph node metastasis at the initial surgery. Conclusion: In early gastric cancer patients, the elevated type, or a differentiated adenocarcinoma, may recur at a distant organ. A more careful follow-up will be required if the surgical removal of a metastatic tumor is intended, as chemotherapy is ineffective. The sentinel lymph node should be examined by a frozen biopsy at the beginning of the initial surgery, in order to determine the range of a lymph node dissection to avoid a nodal recurrence.


This paper reports on the use of predictive techniques to translate Blissymbol sentences into grammatically correct English. Evaluations of this approach show that it is possible to translate short sentences by analysing the likelihood of word tri-gram occurrences in English source texts. The translation system is designed to be a component of a Blissymbol word processor which allows users to convert Blissymbol sentences into grammatically correct English.


E RNEST O RLANDO L AWRENCE B ERKELEY N ATIONAL L ABORATORY Los Angeles Air Force Base Vehicle to Grid Pilot Project Chris Marnay, Terry Chan, Nicholas DeForest, Judy Lai, Jason MacDonald, and Michael Stadler Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory One Cyclotron Road MS: 90-1121, BERKELEY CA 94720, U.S.A. Tobias Erdmann, Andreas Hoheisel, Markus Muller, and Scott Sabre Bosch Software Innovations Stuttgarter Str. 130, 71332 WAIBLINGEN, Germany Ed Koch and Paul Lipkin Akuacom Inc., 781 Lincoln Ave. #210, SAN RAFAEL CA 94901, U.S.A. Robert W. Anderson, Spence Gerber, and Elizabeth Reid Olivine, Inc. 2010 Crow Canyon Place Suite 100, SAN RAMON CA 94583, U.S.A. Environmental Energy Technologies Division to be presented at ECEEE 2013 Summer Study on Energy Efficiency 3–8 June 2013 Club Belambra Les Criques, Presqu'ile de Giens, Toulon/Hyeres, France http://eetd.lbl.gov/EA/EMP/emp-pubs.html This work is funded by the U.S. Department of Defence under its Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) by grant number 12 EB-EW1-032 / EW-201243, and by the California Energy Commission's AB- 118-funded Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Technology Program by contract number 500-11-025. Additional support comes from the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability's Smart Grid Program, under contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231. The authors also acknowledge the strong support and guidance of our DoD Program Manager, Camron S Gorguinpour, Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment, and Logistics, as well as all L.A. AFB personnel, but notably Maj. Jimmy Hernandez and Ed Wilson. Further, such a complex project as this has clearly required the counsel of numerous experts from many institutions, and to all we express our sincere gratitude.


The Wells 6.0 magnitude earthquake of February 21, 2008, occurred on a previously unrecognized northeast-striking southeast-dipping fault situated beneath Town Creek Flat, a few miles north of Wells, Nevada. Focal depth of the earthquake was 5 miles (8 km). Bedrock geology in the surrounding ranges did not indicate the existence of the fault prior to the earthquake, and no surface rupture has been observed related to the earthquake. Faults with a similar trend and attitude had not been observed in the southern Snake Mountains. Correlation of the earthquake fault to structures south of Wells that bound the East Humboldt Range and Clover Hill is plausible. High-angle northwest-trending faults in the southern Snake Mountains and Windermere Hills, adjacent to the earthquake foci, may have been responsible for partitioning aftershocks. This fault, referred to as the Wells earthquake fault (WEF), is an approximately 55° southeast-dipping normal fault (Smith and others, this volume). Its dip direction is opposite to that of most recognized Cenozoic (Neogene) high-angle faults in the immediate vicinity that are related to uplift of the Snake Mountains and Windermere Hills northwest and northeast of Wells, respectively. The geometry of the WEF was resolved by Smith and others (this volume) based on 3-D resolution of the main earthquake and subsequent aftershocks. The bedrock geology of the southern Snake Mountains, Windermere Hills, Clover Hill and northern East Humboldt, and Wood Hills, which bound the earthquake area, provided no suggestions that a fault, especially one capable of producing a large earthquake, was present at the surface location of the WEF. Attitudes of bedding-parallel faults and of stratigraphic units in the southern Snake Mountains are roughly parallel to the WEF, and thus, following the earthquake, it was initially postulated that there might be a relationship between the two. However, this does not appear to be the case. Rather, the earthquake fault may be related to a system of east-dipping normal faults south of Wells that bound the eastern flanks of the Ruby Mountains, East Humboldt Range, and Clover Hill (figure 1). Aftershocks from the main earthquake were distributed in a belt extending north from Wells and occurred in two major clusters/groups with an intervening area of lower occurrence (figure 2). Based on bedrock geology in the southern Snake Mountains and Windermere Hills, we interpret the frequency distribution of the aftershocks to be influenced/controlled by two or more high-angle west-northwest-striking faults, rather than a single northeast-striking fault. This interpretation suggests that the west-northwest-striking faults are deep-penetrating structures and of regional significance, as proposed by Thorman and Ketner (1979). It follows that future earthquakes may occur where oblique high-angle faults intersect rangebounding faults in the Basin and Range Province. This paper focuses on the nature of the west-northwest-trending faults, their ages, recurrent movements, and lateral and vertical continuity. In deciphering the geology of these ranges, comprehending the regional and local stratigraphy and structures is critical. As in much of the Basin and Range Province, it is impossible to do one without understanding the other.


Objective To investigate the effect of Bushen Shengjing decoction in the treatment of oligozoospermia. Methods Selected 120 male oligoasthenospermia patients in our hospital as the research object. The patients are divided into the control group and the observation group according to their treatment methods. 60 cases in each group. The control group were treated with L-carnitine oral liquid. While the observation group were with Bushen Shengjing decoction. Sperm quality was observed in 12 weeks after treatment. Results There was no significant difference of the sperm counts between the two groups before and after 4 weeks treatment(P 0.05). Two groups of sperm counts were significantly improved after 12 weeks of treatment, but the sperm counts of the observation group was significant higher than that of the control group, the difference was statistically significant(t=6.405, P 0.01). There is no significant difference of the sperm quality between the two groups before and after 4 weeks treatment(P 0.05). After 12 weeks treatment, two groups of sperm quality were significantly improved, but the sperm vitality of the observation group was obviously higher than that of the control group. the difference was statistically significant(t=5.649, P 0.01). Conclusion Bushen Shengjing decoction combined with L-carnitine in the treatment of oligoasthenozoospermic patients can significantly improve the sperm quality, increase sperm count, improve sperm vitality.


The research was carried out to compare the fertility and hatchability traits of naked neck, frizzle and smooth feathered phenotypes of village chickens. The study was carried out at Modibbo Adama University, poultry farm, Yola and it lasted for a period of eight months. Three phenotypes of Sixteen (16) hens and Two (2) cockerels each (48 breeder hens and 6 cocks) were selected and assigned randomly for the study. A total of three hundreds and twenty four fertile eggs were generated for incubation. All the hatchability parameters were significantly different except, hatchability on fertile egg and dead in shell. Hatching egg weight had significant (P<0.01) effect on all the phenotypes. Fertility, hatchability on set eggs, dead embryo, normal and abnormal chicks and average chick weight had significant (P<0.05) effect on all three the phenotypes. There were some correlations among different hatchability traits depending on the phenotype. The correlations were more profound among naked neck. Frizzle and Naked neck and its crosses were superior in most of the hatchability parameters studied. Smooth and its crosses were superior in terms of fertility, percent normal chicks, and average chick weight. It could therefore be concluded that crossing between Smooth and Frizzle feathered chicken produced better fertility and hatchability traits required. I, recommend Smooth Frizzle chickens to be considered and integrated for hatching and rearing programmes.


This work aims to examine the impact of green training on green environmental performance through the mediating role of green competencies and motivation on the adoption of green human resource management. The convenience sampling technique was employed to collect data through an online survey undertaken at public and private universities in Malaysia. The analyses were conducted using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) v.25 and Smart PLS v.3 software, with the aim of testing the predefined hypotheses. It was revealed that green training has a significant impact on green environmental performance, and all six dimensions of green competencies, namely, skills, abilities, knowledge, behavior, attitude and awareness, were also green motivations. Both green competencies and motivations positively and significantly mediated the relationship between green training and environmental performance.


—The exchange of phospholipids between liposomes and brain mitochondria has been studied in the presence of pH 5·1 supernatant fluids derived from rat, guinea pig, sheep and ox brains. The exchange phenomenon was similar to that observed in liver and heart, but phosphatidylinositol and not phosphatidylcholine was the most rapidly exchanging phospholipid. The phosphatidylcholine exchange activity was purified 186‐fold from sheep brain and the protein fraction contained two major and several minor protein species. The phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylinositol exchange activities have been shown to have very similar molecular weights and isoelectric points. However, their behaviour in response to changes in liposomal surface charge suggested that separate proteins might be involved in stimulating the exchange of the two phospholipid classes.


Under the background of the rapid development of Smart Substation in the new era, the relay protection device plays an important role in the operation of Smart Substation, which has great guarantee for the safety and stability of the power system. However, in the current situation, the relay protection equipment or the failure of the line is very common, which will not only hinder the operation of other systems, but also greatly increase the economic loss caused by system failure. With the continuous development of visual remote sensing image processing, the visualization technology is introduced into the design of remote sensing image processing system and applied in the protection system of Smart Substation. The visualized remote sensing image processing system technology can improve the efficiency of relay protection of Smart Substation. It can be seen that the application of this technology in Smart Substation has obvious superiority. Therefore, the research and improvement of the relay protection scheme for the relay protection of the new generation of Smart Substation is particularly important, which is convenient for the safe operation of the power system.


The involvement of quadriceps femoris muscle portions and fibre type recruitment was studied during submaximal knee‐extensor exercise without and with thigh occlusion (OCC) and compared with responses during intense exercise. Six healthy male subjects performed 90‐s of moderate exercise without (MOD; 29±4 W) and with thigh OCC, and moderate exercise followed by 90‐s of intense exercise (HI; 65±8 W). Temperatures were continuously measured in m. vastus lateralis (VL), vastus medialis (VM) and rectus femoris (RF) and successive muscle biopsies were obtained from VL. During MOD, muscle temperature increase (ΔTm) in RF was 0.52±0.09 °C, which was 57% and 73% higher (P<0.05) than in VL and VM, respectively. During OCC, ΔTm in RF was 0.39±0.05 °C, which was not different from VM but 54% higher (P<0.05) than in VL. After MOD, muscle CP in slow twitch (ST) and fast twitch (FT) fibres was 81% and 91% of resting levels, respectively, with lower (P<0.05) values after OCC (15% and 22%) and HI (24% and 13%). After MOD, OCC and HI, a total of 48%, 93% and 96% of the ST fibres had CP levels below mean‐1 SD, respectively, with corresponding values for FT fibres being 41%, 89% and 100%, respectively. In conclusion, a heterogeneous recruitment of the quadriceps muscle portions and muscle fibres was observed during submaximal knee‐extensor exercise, whereas recruitment pattern was homogenous during intense exercise. Thigh OCC caused an altered recruitment of fibres and muscle portions, suggesting a significant afferent response affecting the activation of fibres in the contracting muscles.


We investigate the quantum dynamics for a molecular-state-model system interacting with a resonant two-mode squeezed coherent field, in which each mode is initially correlated. As an example, we consider a three-state molecular model, which mimics the electronic excited states of trans-octatetraene obtained by a full-configuration-interaction calculation using the Pariser-Parr-Pople Hamiltonian, interacting with a two-mode squeezed coherent field. For comparison, we also perform parallel studies, in which the initial fields are prepared in uncorrelated two-mode states, i.e., a two-mode coherent state and a two-mode thermal state. It is well known that the case of two-mode coherent field leads to the usual collapse-revival phenomena of the Rabi oscillations, while the case of a two-mode thermal state leads to an irregular evolution of them. Although the two-mode squeezed coherent field exhibits similar collapse-revival behavior to that for the two-mode coherent field, some differences are detected in the amplitudes and periods of collapse-revival oscillations. Further, the dynamics of off-diagonal molecular density matrices between the ground and second excited states for these two fields are found to be distinctively different from each other. Such attractive behavior is found to be closely associated with the two-mode photon-phase dynamics obtained by the Pegg-Barnett phase operator and the initial quasiprobability (Q function) distribution of photons. These differences in phase properties are also shown to significantly affect the dynamics of the information entropy for a molecule, i.e., molecular entropy, which represents the degree of entanglement between the molecule and photons.


A new upper bound for the John constant is established. Let F denote the set of functions f(z) which are nonconstant and analytic in the unit disk Izi I 1 and let G denote the subset of F consisting of those f(z) in F which are not univalent. For f(z) in F we define M(f) = sup If'(z)I and m(f) = inf If'(z)1. John [1] defined the constant y by =f CG m(f) This constant has come to be known as the John constant. In the same paper John showed that y > exp( 0 instead of in the disk. In what follows, H and H will denote the open and closed upper half-plane, respectively. Let f(z) be analytic and not univalent in H. If a and / denote the infimum and supremum of If'(z)l in H, respectively, then y ra and consequently y < 8/3a. For the nonunivalent function f(z) which we study here If'(z)l is piecewise constant on the real line. What is more, it is the simplest kind of nontrivial piecewise constant function, namely one that takes on one constant value on some interval and another outside that interval. Our choice of f(z) is motivated by the following consideration: Let z1 # Z2 be two points in IzI < 1. One can show using standard variational arguments that if ho(z) is a function for which ih(zl) h(z2)1 attains a positive minimum for the class of functions h(z) which satisfy m < jh'(z)l < M in lzl < 1, then Iho(z)l is piecewise constant on lzl = 1. (This fact is solely Received by the editors November 3, 1980 and, in revised form, March 24, 1981. 1980 Mathematics Subject Classifjcation. Primary 30A40.


Laryngoscope design has been modified to simplify further the manceuvre of laryngoscopy (Macintosh, 1943), and the position of the head and neck which brings the axes of the larynx, pharynx, and mouth into line has been described (Bannister and Macbeth, 1944; Gillespie, 1948), so that Most endotracheal intubations provide no difficulty. There are, however, occasional cases in which direct laryngoscopy presents great difficulty. The following cases are worth reporting for this reason. It proved impossible to intubate one of these patients orally by the means available, while in the other four intubation was time-consuming.


An adaptive, ergodic cost stochastic control problem for a partially known, semilinear, stochastic system in an infinite dimensional space is formulated and solved. Since the results for discounted cost and ergodic cost stochastic control problems for known semilinear stochastic systems are only relatively recent, it seems that this is the first work on adaptive control for semilinear systems. The solutions of the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations for these stochastic control problems require some special interpretations because they do not typically exist in the usual sense. The solutions of the parameter dependent ergodic Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations are obtained from some corresponding discounted cost control problems as the discount rate tends to zero. The solutions of the ergodic Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations are shown to depend continuously on the parameter. A certainty equivalence adaptive control is given that is based on the optimal controls from the solutions of the ergodic Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equations and a strongly consistent family of estimates of the unknown parameter. This adaptive control is shown to achieve the optimal ergodic cost for the known system.


To increase the application accuracy of the inertia instrument, a distributed network test system for inertial instrument is designed and realized, on the base of analyzed the test contents, test parameters, network architecture, and network test mode. The system has four layers composite architecture based on C/S/B network model. The scheme of automatic test based on VXI bus was adopted in the field test unit. The Ethernet was selected as bottom level test network. The network communication technology based on TCP/IP was adopted in programming. Remote distributed test of inertial instrument, issues of test information, remote analyses of performance and remote manage of information are realized. The results of the practical use indicate that the system supplies a reliable hardware platform for remote fault diagnosis, remote expert guide and decision of inertial platform.


The low-noise amplifier (LNA) determines the noise performance and linearity of the ultrasound imaging system. However, due to the characteristics of the ultrasound system, the LNA is single-ended input and double-ended output which can lead to unbalanced branch gains. To address this issue, a negative feedback mechanism based on voltage-controlled resistor and shared common-mode feedback (CMFB) amplifier is proposed to make the gains at the two branches of the LNA equal and resistant to PVT fluctuations. Test results show LNA's equivalent input-referred noise voltage density is $1.37 \mathrm{nV} / \sqrt{} \mathrm{Hz}$ at 5MHz, and the −3dB bandwidth is 200MHz. The proposed negative feedback mechanism optimizes the gain difference between VON and VOP at the frequency of 5MHz from 2.3dB to 0.5dB.


Clay containing molding formulations of cordierite forming material and an organic binder is molded into a honeycomb shape to prepare a honeycomb molded body, the manufacture of honeycomb structure to obtain a honeycomb structural body by firing the honeycomb molded body a method, molding formulation, at least talc comprise two or more magnesium-containing materials containing (first magnesium-containing material), in the magnesium-containing material, magnesium other than talc-containing material (second the method for manufacturing a honeycomb structured body average particle size of the magnesium-containing material) is 4μm or less. Even with a small content of organic matter in the clay, to provide a manufacturing method and a honeycomb structure satisfactorily possible to obtain a molded honeycomb structure of the honeycomb structure.


To accurately quantify the anatomic parameters of the lumbar spinal bony canal using a novel three-dimensional imaging technique based on in vivo CT three-dimensional models.Copyright © 2011 by ASME


Judge Mark W. Bennett of the Northern District of Iowa calls himself a "true believer" of implicit bias, having instructed jurors on this subject for more than 8 years from the bench. He has developed a set of jury instructions to educate jurors on the existence of their biases and holds them accountable by signing their name consenting to be fair during trial. To emphasize the importance of this process, Judge Bennett describes an instance where a juror initially said she would be unbiased but when she had to sign her commitment to the jury instruction, she admitted she would find the Hispanic defendant guilty simply because he is Hispanic.


The present invention, by connecting a plurality of units of the float installation at an angle by a photovoltaic module to the support frame thereon, and providing a vertical and horizontal angle adjustment of the photovoltaic module to be suspended in the award, and can be installed in Water It discloses about the vertical and horizontal angle of the photovoltaic module at a high level and to adjust according to the position of the sun Water floating solar-electric power generator.


Membrane fouling is analyzed, and that concentration polarization, cake layer and pore blocking are main reasons of membrane fouling are pointed out. Most of all, the experiment determined resistance of PAN membrane, the results show that main resistances for membrane fouling are hole absorb, gel layer and concentration polarization witch share 71.61 percent in total resistances. Membrane self and irreversible resistance share 28.39 percent and 11.76 percent each other witch occupy little. So the PAN membrane is fit to practical application.


With the vegetations on reclaimed Calamagrostis angustifolia wetland as test objects,this paper studied the change patterns of their community structure and species diversity after different years(5,8 and 12 years) of natural restoration.After definite years' restoration,the vegetations had a visible community succession.Plant species increased gradually,dominant species changed from Artemisia stolonifera to C.angustifolia,and species composition differed evidently with restoration year.With the increase of restoration year, the Shannon-Wiener index(H) was decreasing,while Simpson index(D) increased after an initial decrease.As for the two plots both with C.angustifolia as the dominant species,the plot with 8-year restoration had a higher H value than that with 12-year restoration.After different years' restoration, the similarity index of the plant community between the wetlands with 5-year and 8-year restoration was 50%,and that between the wetlands with 5-year and 12-year restoration was 43%,suggesting that there was a definite inherent relationship between plant community composition and restoration year,i.e.,the longer the restoration year,the lower the plant community composition similarity.


Abstract It is often reported that embedded questions (EQs) are not syntactic islands in Spanish. However, some authors have observed that the acceptability of filler-gap dependencies (FGDs) into Spanish EQs varies with the EQ-embedding verb: FGDs into EQs under responsive verbs (e.g., know) do not result in island effects, but FGDs into EQs under rogative verbs (e.g., ask) do yield island effects. One account attributes the contrast to a structural difference between the two EQs, due to which ask-EQs violate Bounding constraints, but know-EQs do not. In two acceptability studies we investigated the reliability of verb-dependent island effects in EQs introduced by si 'whether' and cuándo 'when'. We found no qualitative acceptability differences between ask and know EQ-island sentences, suggesting that the syntactic islandhood of Spanish EQs is not verb-dependent. Nevertheless, average island effects were numerically greater with ask, suggesting the presence of a non-syntactic constraint. In addition, FGDs into whether-EQs were generally acceptable, whereas FGDs into when-EQs obtained unacceptable average ratings and highly variable judgments. We argue that in neither case there is a Bounding constraint violation. Instead we explore alternative potential explanations for the differences in terms of features, presuppositions and processing pressures.


3, 5-Di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxy-benzoic acid, 4, 4'-ethylenebis (2, 6-di-tert-butylphenol), and unchanged α-hydroxy-2, 6-di-tert-butyl-p-cresol were isolated and characterized from the urine of a rabbit dosed with α-hydroxy-2, 6-di-tert-butyl-p-cresol. The isolated 3, 5-di-tert-butyl-4-hydroxy-benzaldehyde was identified as its 2, 4-dinitrophenylhydrazone. A glucuronide was isolated as its triacetyl-methyl ester. Antioxidative effect of 2, 6-di-tert-butyl-p-cresol and its derivatives on vitamin A was examined.


Abstract The present study describes chemical composition, antifungal activities, antioxidant assays and total phenolic content of essential oil and different extracts from leaves of Alpinia allughas. Fifty-seven components were identified by gas chromatography and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry with eucalyptol (17.4%) and humulene epoxide II (14.1%) as the main component. The essential oil was found to be remarkable fungicide according to its inhibition action against tested pathogens like Colletotricum falcatum, Rhizoctonia solani, Sclerotinia sclerotium and Sclerotium rolfsii followed by different extracts obtained in hexane, dichloromethane and methanol, respectively, with their minimum inhibitory concentration values ranging from 31.25 to 500 µg/ml. The essential oil showed higher phenolic contents (82.36 µg/ml) than the extracts. The antioxidant assay evaluated in essential oil and extracts by different methods revealed good-to-moderate antioxidant potential with different IC50 values viz. (174.72–244.04 µg/ml) in Fe3+ reducing power, (124.63–135.41 µg/ml) in Fe2+ metal-chelating ability, (84.60–138.72 µg/ml) in DPPH, (87.06–187.44 µg/ml) in OH radical, (78.90–171.65 µg/ml), in NO radical and (97.31–143.24 µg/ml) in superoxide anion scavenging activities, respectively, in comparison to the standard antioxidants. Based on obtained results, the herb A. allughas can be a good source to develop a safe and sustainable natural antioxidant.


In this paper, we propose an adaptive resource control method for multiple resource real-time systems. Execution results of applications are evaluated as a QoS level and a fair QoS management is an important issue. The fair QoS level depends on the number of active applications and their characteristics so that it may change dynamically due to the current states of the real-time systems. The proposed controller activates at discrete times and updates resource allocations to achieve the optimal fair QoS level. Moreover, the algorithms used in the controller solve the update in O(mn) time per its activation. We derive sufficient conditions for achievement of the fair resource allocation. Simulation experiments show that a fair resource allocation can be achieved under the conditions.


Recent single electron transport experiments in nanometer size samples renewed the question about the lower limits of the size of superconductors, and the crossover from superconducting to normal state. In order to give answers to these questions, a pairing Hamiltonian for fixed number of particles is studied including the degeneracy of levels around the Fermi energy. For d-fold degenerate states we find that the ratio of two successive parity parameters ~p is nearly 1 + lid.


The method comprises: 1) when the serial number of currently received compressed message is n, the previously-received compressed message is m, and the n is less than m or n-m is more than 1, namely the out-of-order exists, the time stamp of current message is determined; 2) according to the determined time stamp, restoring the received compressed message. The invention also provides an apparatus for restoring the compressed message.


The aim of this study is to identify the primary reasons for the popularity of a new form of faith healing amongst young Muslims in east London. Examining the actual practice of this new healing tradition as it is found in east London and the social landscape within which it is enmeshed have been distinguished as the two central objectives of the study. In achieving the former, participant observation and semi-structured interviews were undertaken with a local healer and his clients, whilst the latter was largely achieved by employing a general format of research that involved gathering data from a number of scattered sources, like pamphlets, transcripts, forums, audio and video recordings, etc. The findings suggest that the popularity of this tradition is in large part due to a "hybridisation" of key themes drawn from "Islam" and "science" that are seen to be attractive for a younger generation of Muslims.


— Since unmineralized tissues are supposed to possess a resistance to resorption, and demineralized dentin implants induce bone formation and may be remineralized, it was thought worthwhile to study the effect of superficial demineralization of the root surface prior to replantation of the maxillary incisors in 14 Java monkeys. The investigation showed that this treatment caused an accentuated resorption and ankylosis of the tooth as well as other pathologic changes in the periodontium. The technique neither improves the healing of the replanted tooth nor prolongs the survival time.


At the end of 2013, the government of Georgia (GoG) began a technical review of its main social assistance program, Targeted Social Assistance (TSA). The government was concerned that too many poor people would not be covered by the TSA and, conversely, that too many others would benefit from it, and therefore drain resources.This report assesses the policies taken concerning the TSA in 2015 and provides an initial and basic set of recommendations for building a comprehensive and efficient social protection and labor system. The various policy actions were supported by sound technical work that is presented and evaluated in this report. The study comprises the estimation of the formula to determine eligibility to the program, the analysis of the expected distributional impact of the policies undertaken, and a brief discussion on the pretesting of the implementation of the changes and the compensation measures adopted soon after initiating implementation. The report does not delve into the revision of the administrative and business processes of the program. It includes only a brief description of them in order to provide a context for the technical work and recommendations about how to continue improving them. In this way, the report also aims to set the agenda for future policy actions and to build institutional memory. The latter is of particular importance given the high turnover of officials (technical staff and decision makers) working with the TSA since 2013. In addition, the report provides guidance about next steps in light of its findings and the political actions taken by the government.


Letter from V. Krishnan written to the editor of the Journal of Near-Death Studies on the topic "OBEs in the Blind and Encounters with the Light."


The photocatalytic oxidition of advanced technique has been developed quickly in the field of environment engineering.In this article,the author introduced the development of the TiO 2 photoˉcatalytic reactor,analyzed the merits and the defects of each type of photocatalytic reactor,and prospected the treads of the development of TiO 2 photocatalytic reactor.


Hydrogen peroxide, an amine-based stabilizer, including borax (borax), and sodium hydroxide, as well as to facilitate the combustion is added to the fuel of coal, oil and gas or the like and by removing the fuel-pipe impurities improving the thermal efficiency by increasing the heat transfer , SOx, discloses a fuel additive composition for reducing the emission of harmful exhaust gases, such as NOx and CO.


Miniaturized, multi-band and high frequency oscillators that are compatible with CMOS processes are highly desirable for the synthesis of compact, stable, and low power frequency sources for reconfigurable radio frequency communication systems and cognitive radios. Aluminum nitride (AlN) contour mode MEMS resonators (CMR) are emerging devices capable of high Q, low impedance, and multi-frequency operation on a single chip. The frequency stability of these AlN MEMS devices is of primary importance in delivering oscillators that exhibit low phase noise, and low sensitivity to temperature and acceleration. In this article we describe how the resonator dynamics impacts oscillator performance and present some preliminary demonstrations of ultra-high-frequency (UHF) oscillators. An example of an oscillator prototype we synthesized with a 586 MHz AlN CMR exhibited phase noise <; - 91 dBc/Hz and - 160 dBc/Hz at 1 kHz and 10 MHz offsets, temperature stability of 2 ppm from - 20 to + 85°C, and acceleration sensitivity <; 30 ppb/G.


The geochemistry on Holocene lavas from the Jingpohu volcanic field in NE China are compared with other Cenozoic lavas from across the back-arc rift of NE China, in order to constrain their enriched mantle sources. Holocene lavas within Jingpohu volcanic field comprise two separate "Crater Forest" (CF) and "Frog Pool" (FP) volcanic areas. FP lavas have lower MgO, CaO, and heavy rare earth elements and higher Al2O3, Na2O, K2O, and large-ion lithophile elements than CF lavas. Yet, both CF and FP lavas share similar isotopic signatures, with depleted Sr and Nd isotopes (87Sr/86Sr = 0.703915–0.704556, 143Nd/144Nd = 0.512656–0.512849) and unradiogenic Pb isotopes (208Pb/204Pb = 37.79–38.06, 207Pb/204Pb = 15.45–15.54, 206Pb/204Pb = 17.49–18.15), similar to oceanic island basalts. An important new constraint for the Jingpohu lavas lies in their Ca isotopes of δ44/40Ca from 0.63 to 0.77‰, which are lower than that of the bulk silicate earth (0.94 ± 0.05‰). By comparing the isotopic signatures of sodic lavas with that of the potassic lavas across NE China, we propose a three-component mixing model as the source for the sodic lavas. In consistence with geophysical results, we propose that subducting Pacific plate induces asthenospheric mantle upwelling of an upper depleted mantle (DM), including subducted ancient sediments (EM I), which partially melted upon ascent. These primary melts further interacted with the lithospheric mantle (EM II), before differentiating within crustal magma chambers and erupting.


The conditions of spectrophotometric initial rate analysis of serum alkaline phosphatase and leucine-aminopeptidase were investigated with three synthesized substrates ; ƒ¿-naphthylphosphate for alkaline phosphatase, L-leucyl-ƒÀ-naphthylamide and L-leucyl-p-nitroanilide for leucine-aminopeptidase, respectively. This study attempted to establish a new multi-channel automated method attached with a single light source and a detector system, for the assay of many sorts of serum enzymes including alkaline phosphatase and leucine-aminopeptidase, such as LDH, GOT, GPT, etc. which can be measured at 340 nm with coupling of NAD-NADH system.


Objective:To explore the diagnostic value of multi-slice CT urography (MSCTU) in the urine leakage. Methods:15 cases of urine leaks confirmed by clinical diagnosis underwent spiral CT plain scanning and triphasic dynamic enhancement scanning.The CT features on axial images and multiplanar reformation (MPR),maximum intensity projection (MIP) and volume rendering (VR) were reviewed.Results:The breakage in renal parenchyma,subcapsular hematoma of kidney,prerenal fascia thickening appeared in 5 cases with pelvis leak affected by trauma.The excretory phase could detect the leakage clearly,MIP and VR could show the lake of contrast agent.Of 8 cases with ureteral leakage,1 case by trauma damaging the right ureter,1 case by EWSL damaging the right ureter,and 1 case invaded by cervical cancer metastasis,a large number of retrorenal space fluid accumulation,the spills of contrast agent in excretory phase,and the contrast agent deposition in hydrops could be seen,sagittal MPR and VR clearly indicated the leakage,1 case with the left pelvic ectopic kidney and ectopic ureter opening in the vagina,MPR and MIP could show that vaginal ureteral access in excretory phase.4 cases with duplication of kidney,their additional ectopic ureter opened in the part of the prostate.1 case with bladder leak had the defect of posterior wall,encapsulated effusion in rectal bladder space and eggshell-like calcification of the wall could be found, the contrast agent inpoured the urinary vesicle through the defect of the bladder wall . Conclusion:Since the multi-slice CT urography (MSCTU) examination clearly shows the leakage,the site of urine leakage,the scope of urinary vesicle and other complications,it can be used as a preferred diagnostic method of urinary leakage.


An acoustic echo sounder mounted on the NOAA ship Oceanographer during GATE proved to be a valuable tool for investigating the structure and dynamics of the tropical marine boundary layer up to 800 m in height. Under suppressed weather conditions the facsimile-recorded echo intensity returns depicted a mixed layer characterized by convective plumes rising from the surface of the water to 400 m. Disturbed weather events resulted in a substantial modification of the boundary layer; layered structures formed that at times limited the depth of the mixed layer to 100 m. The Doppler frequency shift of the acoustic returns made it possible to determine the vertical velocity field.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the demographics, usage patterns, attitudes, and experiences of online support site users.

DESIGN
Online survey. Patients A total of 260 subjects recruited from 5 online psoriasis support groups.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
An exploratory analysis was performed to determine demographic and disease characteristics of online support site users. Perceived benefits were also documented.

RESULTS
The mean (SD) age of respondents was 40.1 (11.5) years (range, 18-75 years), most (75.7%) were white, female (60.4%), and college educated (84.3%). Key factors associated with use of online support sites included availability of resources (95.3%), convenience (94.0%), access to good advice (91.0%), and the lack of embarrassment when dealing with personal issues (90.8%). The most common activities were posting messages (65.0%) and searching for information (63.1%). Nearly half of all respondents perceived improvements in their quality of life (49.5%) and psoriasis severity (41.0%) since joining the site. Intensity of participation in online support activities was associated with improved quality of life (P = .002), but not with improvements in psoriasis severity.

CONCLUSIONS
Our data demonstrate that psoriasis virtual communities offer users both a valuable educational resource and a source of psychological and social support. Such benefits could be further enhanced by physician engagement within these communities.


The new treatment plan for waste materials in Toyohashi produces thermal energy, organic compost, and material for landfill projects out of waste material and recovers waste materials which can be recycled for re-use. The resource recovery and waste treatment centre consists of five parts: an incinerator, a high-rate compost production unit, a human faeces treatment unit, a resource recovery unit and a chicken manure treatment unit. This combination results in a saving of heat energy and materials used in the waste treatment processes. Non-combustible wastes, together with ashes and other residue are buried in large sunken fields and serve as the base for farmland reclamation projects. To provide the optimum treatment and utilization of waste materials it is necessary to separate the waste materials into separate categories before it is collected. Citizens co-operate by separating waste materials into five types at home, office wastes are separated into three different types. The centre has been operated satisfactorily since April 1980.


Measurements of carrier lifetime have been made on both n- and p-type silicon crystals over the temperature range 0°C to 200°C. Results are given for both high and low values of injected carrier concentrations. A comparison is made with the Shockley-Read picture of carrier recombination. The results and theory may be reconciled on the assumption that the capture probabilities of the recombination centres are temperature dependent, and that the energy levels of the centres lie 0.45±0.05 eV above the valence band.


This article introduces a framework for predicting the survival of brain tumor patients by analyzing magnetic resonance images. The prediction of brain tumor survival is challenging due to the limited size of available datasets. To overcome the issue of overfitting, we propose a self-supervised learning method that involves identifying image patches from the same or different images. By recognizing intra- and inter-image differences, the network can learn the relationships between local spatial windows in the same image and across different images. In addition to analyzing local information, we also incorporate a global structure awareness network to capture global information from the entire image. Our proposed method shows a strong correlation between local spatial relationships and survivor class prediction in FLAIR MRI brain images. We evaluate our method using the BraTS 2020 validation dataset and observe that our method outperforms others in accuracy and SpearmanR correlation metrics.


Could reprogramming the pretumor microenvironment transform cancer care? There is ample evidence that inflammatory processes and signaling play a critical role in the progression of most cancers (1), especially as potent initiators at sites of chronic injury (2). In these chronic inflammation–associated cancers (CIACs), tissue injury is caused by sustained or recurrent infection, irritation, or trauma. This distinct class of malignancies, which includes acid reflux–associated esophageal adenocarcinoma (EAC), smoking-associated lung squamous cell carcinoma, Helicobacter pylori infection–associated gastric adenocarcinoma, and inflammatory bowel disease–associated colon adenocarcinoma, is responsible for 20 to 25% of all cancer deaths worldwide, killing more than 2 million people annually. Compared with other tumor types, CIACs tend to have a poorer prognosis, attributable to a high propensity for metastasis and drug resistance. The underlying mechanisms by which chronic inflammation promotes the development of such lethal cancers are still poorly understood.


In 1929, at the age of 82, the Swedish neurologist Salomon Henschen (1847–1930) planned an Academia Neurologica Internationalis. The exchanged letters with Cécile and Oskar Vogt suggest that there was a great number of neuroscientists internationally who approved of the project. However, during three months of preparation, the initial skepticism increased and, although the invitation to the conference had already been printed, it had to be revoked. The endeavors to revive the Brain Commission failed. Two other projects nonetheless did take shape: the founding of one of the largest and most modern brain research institutes in 1931 by the Vogts and the first International Neurological Congress in Berne that same year. For decades, the Brain Commission remained without successors until the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO) was founded in 1961.


Consumer protection in financial services has failed. A crisis is now playing itself out in the mortgage, credit card, auto loan, title loan, refund anticipation loan, and payday loan markets. Consumer protection was a traditional element states' regulatory power until federal preemption ousted states from almost all direct regulation of federally-chartered banks without substituting equivalent protections and enforcement. This Article argues that one avenue may remain to permit states to engage in consumer protection regulation of federally-chartered banks. Recent changes in financial markets have placed the majority of consumer debt in the hands of secondary market entities, such as securitization trusts and debt collectors, which are not protected by federal preemption. States' ability to directly regulate the secondary consumer debt market also gives them the ability to indirectly regulate the primary market, even when direct regulation would be preempted. States can impose targeted regulatory costs on the secondary market tied to the presence or absence of particular terms in consumer debts, regardless of what type of institution initiated the debt. By tying regulation to the terms of the debt, states can channel the hydraulic force of the market, which will pass these costs on to the originators of the debts - including federally-chartered banks. This would create an incentive for originating lenders to adjust the terms under which they originate consumer debts so as to avoid state regulatory costs. This Article contends that such regulation would not run afoul of preemption doctrine because it does not directly regulate federally-chartered banks; it affects them only indirectly, through the market.


We obtain lower bounds for the minimal norms in several families of integral lattices associated to the Weil representations of finite symplectic and unitary groups. Ultimately, these bounds come from Elkies' bounds for a certain family of Mordell-Weil lattices of elliptic curves, and from the minima of the Barnes-Wall lattices.


Purpose. Non-syndromic hereditary ocular diseases can lead to severe functional limitations of vision at all ages. Therefore, molecular genetic research into the causes of hereditary ocular diseases is of paramount importance. Due to the increasingly optimised pathophysiologically adapted treatments and gene therapy options, a rapid determination of the genetic cause of hereditary ocular diseases is neces- sary, also to increase the chances of treatment at early stages of the disease. In this context, the authors retrospectively analysed the database of the "rare diseases" consultation hour of the PraxisKlinik Augenärzte Halle, which has been in existence since 2016, for patients with a suspected hereditary ophthalmological disease after molecular genetic diagnostics, counselling and therapy options. Material and Methods. 367 index patients were treated dur- ing the period under consideration. In 221 (60.2 %) of them, the molecular genetic cause of the underlying disease could be found. In addition to a large group of patients with cor- neal dystrophies (304 patients, detection rate 61.2 %), we treated 23 index patients with hereditary retinal diseases (detection rate 69.6 %), 28 index patients with complex mal- formations (detection rate 50 %) and 15 index patients with optic atrophies (detection rate 33.4 %). In addition to the ophthalmological-clinical examination and diagnostics, ge- nealogical analysis and molecular genetic testing were always performed. Results. On the basis of 3 case studies with a molecularly ge- netically proven hereditary retinal disease (X-linked recessive inherited juvenile retinoschisis, hemizygous missense muta- tion in the RS1 gene; enhanced S-Cone syndrome, compound heterozygous mutation in the RS2E3 gene; oculocutaneous albinism, homozygous mutation in the TYR gene), the inher- itance, the clinical picture, the course and the therapeutic and rehabilitative options were explained. Conclusion. Ophthalmogenetic counselling and diagnostics in cases of suspected hereditary eye diseases are crucial for a prompt and a sufficient possible therapy and optical reha- bilitation in affected families. Thorough history analysis and diagnostics can optimise the detection rate and provide rapid and sufficient patient care. Keywords hereditary retinal disease, homozygous mutation, ophthal- mogenetics, juvenile retinischisis, oculocutaneous albinism


Aims: This research aims to determine the level of impact of strategic improvisation in achieving organizational brilliance in a sample of private Iraqi commercial banks.
Study Design: The research adopted the descriptive analytical method to describe the research variables and interpret the results.
Place of Study: The research was applied in a sample of private Iraqi commercial banks. These banks were chosen due to their importance, their close market shares, the great competition between them, and the role, size, and influence of these banks in the Iraqi banking sector, as they represent one of the tools for supporting investment and developing the Iraqi economy.
Methodology: A sample was chosen to represent the original community, and its size reached (160) individuals from the administrative leadership in ten private Iraqi banks. The research relied on the questionnaire form as the main tool, and a group of statistics was used, represented by (arithmetic mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variation and simple regression), and the research data was analyzed using the program (SPSS V.25).
Results: The results of the research showed that there is a significant, positive influence relationship for all dimensions of strategic improvisation on organizational brilliance at the level of the private Iraqi commercial banks investigated, and all research hypotheses were accepted.
Conclusion: The research was conducted by taking a sample of administrative leaders in private Iraqi commercial banks, and the research conclusions indicate that there is a positive effect of strategic improvisation on organizational brilliance, and the conclusions also indicate that there is a positive effect of all dimensions of strategic improvisation (strategic vigilance, strategic agility, minimal structure and bricolage) on organizational brilliance in private Iraqi commercial banks.


Based on the neutron energy spectrum measured with a time-of-flight neutron spectrometer,the 25.5 MeV neutron fluence rate was measured with 238U fission chamber at the HI-13 tandem accelerator in CIAE(China Institute of Atomic Energy).To verify the reliability of the fission chamber for measuring fast neutron fluence rate,the 14.8 MeV neutron fluence rate was measured simultaneously with the fission chamber and the association α particle instrument at the 5SDH-2 tandem accelerator in CIAE,of which results are coincident within the uncertainties.


Two experiments were conducted to examine the hypothesis that aging is associated with an increase in schema-related influences on memory performance.


Key Points Question Is task selection a factor in visuomotor adaptation strategies and therefore a complication in measuring outcomes for users of upper-extremity prostheses? Findings In this cross-sectional study of 8 prosthesis users and 16 participants with normal arm function, between tasks, prosthesis users changed their visuomotor compensatory strategies, and these strategies were different from those used by participants with normal arm function when performing the tasks. However, for a given task, prosthesis users demonstrated similar compensations despite varying amputation levels and technology. Meaning This study suggests that prosthesis users have inherently different ways of functioning for object interaction tasks compared with individuals with normal arm function, and compensation strategies appear to vary depending on the task.


In the advent of cloud computing technology, more and more customers are adopting a Cloud based approach for their infrastructure requirements which is being offered as an Infrastructure as a service model (IAAS).We will be presenting a model consisting of shared and dedicated storage which is differentiated by the cost involved in the services as well as the security mechanisms involved. Users can store the files either in a dedicated storage spaces which is highly secure as it is not physically shared among any other cloud users or opt to store the files securely in a shared storage along with files from other cloud users. The infrastructure involves both dedicated and shared storage spaces, the user has the option to mandatorily store the file only in the dedicated storage or leave it to the system to decide the services to be used. In a cloud scenario security is a major concern as multiple users may use the same infrastructure. So we present an approach where we encrypt the data with a convergent key which is obtained by hashing the data copy. The users can retain the keys and send the cipher text to cloud after the key generation and encryption. Multiple users who own the same file would generate the same hash value, convergent key and the same cipher text. Users are provided with a pointer from the server, so the user need not upload the same file again.


Histomorphometric semi-automatic image analysis of cross-sections of 101 femoral diaphyseal bone sections were performed to reconsider to what degree osteon remodelling in the outer cortex is affected by age. The data were analysed statistically using the generalized least squares method. The model estimation, which includes the covariance matrix of four single equation residuals, improves the accuracy of age determination. The standard deviation, however, of age prediction remains 12.58 years. An experimental split of the data was made in order to demonstrate that the use of subgroups gives a false impression of higher precision of age determination. The present study demonstrates that determination of age at death through microscopic bone morphometry is considerably less precise than generally stated in the literature.


Th e goal is uncontested: Th e social dimension has to be on the same footing as the economic policy of the EU. In this respect, I fully agree with Andreas Bücker. I disagree on how this goal can be achieved. Bücker's proposal ignores the historical development and the dynamics of the EU. It has to be kept in mind that in 1957 the primary purpose of the European Economic Community (EEC) was to establish a Common Market. Th erefore, it is no surprise that the free movement of goods and capital, as well as the freedoms of services and establishment, became the cornerstones of the Treaty. Th e freedom of movement of workers throughout the EEC also belongs in this context: it was necessary to provide this tool for the optimal allocation of workers. Th e removal of distortions of competition is another element of this concept. From the beginning, the EEC had widespread powers to legislate in order to facilitate the effi cient implementation of the market freedoms and the concept of competition. However, as regards social policy, the original Treaty only contained legislative powers to a marginal extent. Th is area was almost totally left to the Member States. Since then, fortunately, things have changed signifi cantly. First, the EU's purpose goes far beyond the establishment of a common market: it now focuses on political integration in the broadest sense. Step by step, the Treaty increased the Community's powers in the area of social policy. Now, with the TFEU, practically every subject matter in labour law can be regulated at the EU level except 'pay, the right of association, the right to strike or the right to impose lock outs' (Article 153(5) TFEU). Most importantly, however, a Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, containing a whole chapter of Fundamental Social Rights, has been developed. It has become legally binding by way of inclusion into the Lisbon Treaty. In short, social policy is now signifi cantly better addressed than it was in the original Treaty of 1957.


PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to evaluate, in vitro, the contamination of toothbrushes and pacifiers by Streptococcus mutans, and the efficacy of microwave and chlorhexidine for their disinfection.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Sixty pacifiers and 60 toothbrushes were contaminated with S. mutans and then divided into groups according to the disinfection protocol: Group 1-chlorhexidine solution; group 2-microwave sterilization; and group 3-sterile tap water. The devices were evaluated microbiologically after disinfection for the survival of S. mutans colonies and were examined. The results were analyzed statistically by ANOVA and Turkey test.

RESULTS
The results of both types of evaluation showed a large number of S. mutans colonies after spraying with sterile tap water, and chlorhexidine spraying and microwaving were effective in eliminating colonies. Groups 1 and 2 were statistically similar to each other (p > 0.05) and differed significantly from group 3 (p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION
The 0.12% chlorhexidine solution spray and 7 minutes of microwave irradiation were almost equally effective for disinfection of pacifiers and toothbrushes.


Shareholder engagement from institutional investors remains a topic on the agenda of both legislators and in the public debate. The recent amendment of the SRD can be seen as a token of a pan-European 'hardening of shareholder norms'. The arising question is if this hardening is sufficient to change the behaviour of institutional investors. Using insights from behavioural economics, the article discusses if the European Union and national Member States can apply nudging or other insights from behavioural economics to increase shareholder engagement and argues that in order to follow a behaviourally informed strategy, a distinct justification of both the applied means and the pursued purposes is required.
Corporate governance, European Union, shareholder engagement, active ownership, institutional investors, behavioural economics, choice architecture, nudging, biases, libertarian paternalism


Design and discussion of the cosmic ray measuring system are presented. Using inexpensive germanium transistors, the circuit measures cosmic ray energy and intensity. The system has been found to operate effectively at a temperature range of -45 to 38 deg C and at altitudes of 130,000 ft. A telemeter coding system is designed for reception through noise. (C.J.G.)


: In the process of ideological and political education for college students, public opinion plays a very important role. Public opinion often plays a guiding role, so the public opinion students hear will determine their thinking to a certain extent. With the development of the Internet, public opinion is no longer a macro concept, but has become more microscopic. In the "micro public opinion" environment, more and more public opinions have begun to form. The development of two micro-ones and the surge of users have led to the diversity of public opinion. Therefore, many campuses have begun to address the impact of "micro-public opinion" on students' ideological and political education and formulate relevant strategies to address the challenges. The ideological and political education of college students also has very important practical significance.


There are two types of equity investor generally found in shorter term energy projects: energy project developers or sponsors who view a given project as buying or building a business; and financial investors who have viewed an investment as buying a stream of cash flows. This article examines the objectives and needs of these two investor groups, and discusses the principal issues which govern their respective decision–making process.


* Introduction: This World Is Not This World Life Unworthy Of Life: The Genetic Cure * Sterilization and the Nazi Biomedical Vision * Euthanasia: Direct Medical Killing * Resistance to Direct Medical Killing * Wild Euthanasia: The Doctors Take Over * Participants * Bringing Euthanasia to the Camps: Action Special Treatment 14f13 Auschwitz: The Racial Cure * The Auschwitz Institution * Selections on the Ramp * Selections in the Camp * Socialization to Killing * Prisoner Doctors: The Agony of Selections * Prisoner Doctors: Struggles to Heal * Prisoner Doctors: Collaboration with Nazi Doctors * Killing with Syringes: Phenol Injections * The Experimental Impulse * A Human Being in an SS Uniform: Ernst B. * Dr. Auschwitz: Josef Mengele * Healing-Killing Conflict: Eduard Wirths The Psychology Of Genocide * Doubling: The Faustian Bargain * The Auschwitz Self: Psychological Themes in Doubling * Genocide * Afterword: Bearing Witness


Chronic stress has been associated with stress-related disease. Massage therapy may be a phychosocial relaxation and stress reduction. And also massage therapy is currently used in care for the skin beauty. The purpose of this study was to examine influence of back massage upon facial skin condition and stress relaxation in the middle aged women. The subjects were divided into 2 groups by massage area : goup I (back massage group, n=16), goup II (back + facial massage group, n=16). Back & facial massage was held twice a week for six weeks. Facial skin condition (sebum, moisture, pores, roughness, horny substance, wrinkles, pigment, elasticity), mental, physical stress and salivary α-amylase were analysed. A significant increase of facial hydration was found in group I (p<.001). But facial hydration was not changed in group II and a significant decrease of skin pigment was found in group II. And also mental, physical stress was significantly reduced in group I, group II (p<.05). Thus, only the back massage is considered to have desirable effect on the facial hydration, sebum and stress relaxation. The results suggest that only back massage could bring to desirable change to the skin condition & stress relaxation.


The essay draws an outline of the legislation process about the anti-dumping campaign,analyzes the present conditions about the anti-dumping investigations,and finally sums up several characteristics of the anti-dumping investigations.That is to say,the quantity of the investigations tends to grow steadily,the objectives of the investigations and the products involved are occasionally centered on a couple of certain items,the final trials of such investigations are more likely to levy anti-dumping taxes and the expiry review rate turns out high.In addition,the essay analyzes the causes of the consequences and puts forward solutions concerned.


New Zealand (NZ) mice give excessive immune responses when immunized in vivo with sheep red blood cells (SRBC). Spleen cells of young New Zealand Black and New Zealand Black/White hybrid mice developed low primary responses compared to conventional strains when immunized in vitro. These low responses could be raised to levels achieved by other strains by adding peritoneal cells and 2-mercaptoethanol to the NZ spleen cultures. Studies of the peritoneal cells indicate that the restoring activity is a property of the adherent population and that it is not due to thymus derived lymphocytes.


For symmetric pairings $e : \mathbb{G} \times \mathbb{G} \rightarrow \mathbb{G}_T$, Verheul proved
that the existence of an efficiently-computable isomorphism $\phi : \mathbb{G}_T
\rightarrow \mathbb{G}$ implies that the Diffie-Hellman problems in $\mathbb{G}$ and $\mathbb{G}_T$
can be efficiently solved. In this paper, we explore the implications of
the existence of efficiently-computable isomorphisms $\phi_1 : \mathbb{G}_T
\rightarrow \mathbb{G}_1$ and $\phi_2 : \mathbb{G}_T \rightarrow \mathbb{G}_2$ for asymmetric
pairings $e : \mathbb{G}_1 \times \mathbb{G}_2 \rightarrow \mathbb{G}_T$. We also give a simplified
proof of Verheul's theorem.


In this article, we demonstrate a samarium oxide (Sm2O3) electrolyte–insulator–semiconductor (EIS) sensor with nitrogen plasma immersion ion implantation (PIII) treatment for anion sensing and interfering characterization. Chloride (Cl−), nitrite (NO2−), and nitrate (NO3−) ions were detected, and the sensitivity was about 49.75 mV/pCl, 53.8 mV/pNO2, and 56.19 mV/pNO3, respectively. Ion sensitivity was enhanced with the increase in ionic radius of the target ion. Titration was performed to analyze the interference of anions. To assess interferences from these ions (Cl−, NO2−, and NO3−), selectivity coefficients obtained by fixed interference method (FIM) measurements were presented. In result, the coefficients indicate that the interference can be ignored. Furthermore, characteristics of drift demonstrates that the sample exhibits long-term stability for significantly lower drift of chloride, nitrite, and nitrate ions, respectively. The Sm2O3 EIS sensor with nitrogen PIII treatment exhibits superior anion sensitivity, selectivity, and stability; therefore, this sensor is suitable for future biosensing applications.


The experiment was carried out in the year 2013. The experimental plant material consisted of herb (leafy flowered stems) and leaves of periwinkle (Catharanthus roseus (L.) G. Don). The aim of the study was to compare the content of biologically active compounds (L-ascorbic acid, total polyphenols), dry matter, and antioxidant activity of fresh and dried plant material. Moreover, on the base of the dried plant material (herb and leaves of periwinkle), three kinds of water extracts were prepared: infusions, decoctions and macerates; with three times of extraction. In the obtained water extracts content of dry matter, L-ascorbic acid, total polyphenols and antioxidant activity were determined. On the base of the study results it was shown that fresh leaves of periwinkle had higher biological value in comparison with its herb. However, after drying process higher content of biologically active compounds was noted for the herb. 15 min/h decoction was found to be the most effective method of water extraction of dried perwinkle herb and leaves. Moreover, herb water extracts were characterized by higher content of polyphenols, while leaf water extracts – by higher content of dry matter, L-ascorbic acid and antioxidant activity.


A transition duct (10) for a gas turbine includes a tubular body having a front end and a rear end (12), a plurality of cooling channels (16) formed on an outer surface of the tubular body at the rear end (12), a fastener tape ( 32) which surrounds the rear end (12), wherein at least a portion of the cooling channels (16) is covered, and a seal (37) which is mounted (to the fastener tape 32), surrounds the rear end of the tubular body ,


What caused the behavior of company in the market? Why is the development of the company as a system do not pay attention to? This article attempts to provide answers to your questions in the management. The management system determines the quality of decisions, speed and flexibility of management, timely, appropriate response to the changes. Any investment in a management system should lead to its development.


Firstly,the function of high performance gateway(HGT) is briefly introduced,then the hardware design and operating principle of the HGT test system based on NI virtual instrument are introduced in details,involving three aspects: CAN information conversion between vehicle body system and fuel cell power system,conversion of CAN information in fuel cell power system to hardware signal,collection,conversion and transmission of switching value and analog signal.The software design of the test system and the judgment criteria are presented.Finally,the HGT is tested by this system,and the results show that the test system meets the expectant demands of design.


We present first results for a study with two mass-degenerate dynamical Chirally Improved (CI) fermions on lattices of spatial extent 2.4 fm. The CI Dirac operator obeys the Ginsparg-Wilson condition in good approximation. The pion mass we use is still large O(470 MeV) for the 16**3*32 lattices with lattice spacing of 0.15 fm. The hadron masses are obtained with the variational technique and the results compared with earlier quenched calculations with similar lattice parameters. We find indications for the isovector, scalar meson a0(980) near the experimental value, in contradistinction to quenched results which always produced a mass value compatible with the first excitation a0(1450).


A non-descript doe of fourth parity with the history of straining and unable to deliver the fetus was brought for treatment. On clinical examination, left side post cervical torsion was diagnosed and correction of uterine torsion was done using modified Schaffer's (Plank on Flank) method. Following correction, one live female kid and two dead male fetuses relieved and the goat had an uneventful recovery.


Purpose: To evaluate the efficacy of various image‐guided target localization techniques to assist in the safe dose escalation for prostate cancerradiation therapy in the presence of geometric uncertainties. Method and Materials: Five prostate cancer patients were analyzed, retrospectively. All patients were planned with an 18MV six‐field conformal technique with a 10 mm margin and an initial prescription dose of 70 Gy in 35 fractions. For the dose escalation study, the prescription dose was increased from 50 Gy in 2 Gy increments until the rectum normal tissue complication probability (NTCP) reached the level equal to that of the plan NTCP (i.e., iso‐NTCP). The target localization techniques simulated were (1) laser alignment to external tattoo marks, (2) alignment to bony landmarks with daily portal images, and (3) alignment to the clinical target volume (CTV) with daily CTimaging. Techniques (1) and (3) were re‐simulated with a reduced margin of 5 mm to investigate further dose escalation. Results: The selection of the target localization technique was less critical on the treatment outcome when 10 mm margin was used. Reducing the margin size from 10 to 5 mm effectively decreased the NTCP by ∼60 % for all patients. For iso‐NTCP dose escalation, to our surprise, the average dose and TCP gain for the five patients were largest with the external tattoo technique (6.4 Gy and 7.5 %, respectively) followed by the daily CTV and the bony landmarks. The variability in gain across the five patients, however, was also largest with the tattoo registration technique and smallest with the daily CTV technique. Conclusion: Based on these data, the best dose escalation strategy is to combine margin reduction (for increased normal tissue sparing) with the use of the daily CTV technique to localize the target volume (for consistent dosimetric coverage and escalation).


The optimal timing and modality of therapeutic intervention during early phases of HIV infection is still debated; in our prospective observational study we evaluated immunological and virological outcome in HIV+ patients treated during acute or recent HIV infection.


This article discusses the continuity of the May Fourth discourse in the last thirty years. Although much has changed in China economically and socially, many fundamental problems of the country re...


Five sediment cores from Kuwait Bay were taken in order to study the present distribution of total mercury (THg) in the vicinity of the Salt and Chlorine Plant (SCP) operated in the 1963–1985 period. The THg concentration profiles were also determined in four sediment cores from the northern part of Kuwait Bay. Additionally, average THg contents were measured in the surface layer (40 cm) of five sediment samples in the entrance of Kuwait Bay, in order to compare the present Hg levels in other parts of this reservoir. The cores were dated by 210Pb method. The observed contents of mercury were in the range of 35 to 2000 µg/kg dry weight (ppb). Thus, the bottom sediments in these three areas of Kuwait Bay are still contaminated by Hg. In a few cases, the depth concentration profiles of THg were disturbed as an effect of partial mixing of the sediment layers, especially in the shallow, northern part of Kuwait Bay. This suggestion was supported by the results of additional measurements of the anthropogenic 137Cs profiles in the same cores.


There is perhaps no better time to make a further appraisal of the impact that mining and extractivism more generally have had on the global South. Depressed mineral prices, partly driven by the gl...


Objective: To investigate the effect of proteasome inhibitor MG-132 on myocardial infarction size and biochemical marker levels in rat myocardium after reperfusion injury.Methods: Adult Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into 4 groups: left anterior descending(LAD) coronary artery ligation for 30 minutes without treatment(I30min),LAD ligation for 30 minutes with subsequent 6 hours reperfusion without treatment(I30min/R6h),LAD ligation for 30 minutes with subsequent 6 hours reperfusion with treatment(I30min/R6h+I30min/R6h) and Sham(Sham30min).After LAD was ligated for 25 min,at 5 min before reperfusion,MG-132(0.75mg/kg)or sterile saline was given to all the treatment group/sham rats,the myocardial infarct size,levels of serum creatine kinases(CK),CK muscle-brain fraction(CK-MB),and troponin I(TnI),were measured.Results: Compared with Sham group,the myocardial infarct size and the ratio of the volume of myocardial infarct over the total volume of left ventricular wall,as well as the levels of serum CK,CK-MB,TnI were significantly increased in I30mingroup(P0.01).While proteasome inhibitor-MG-132 treatment significantly reduced the size of myocardial infarct and decreased serum CK,CK-MB,TnI levels in I30min/R6h+T group(P0.05).Conclusion: Our data suggest that myocardial reperfusion injury can be inhibited by proteasome inhibitor MG-132.


The exceptional advantages of cloud have attracted the organisations to shift their IT business on to cloud. Smart grid is maximum optimisation of energy management achieved through transmission and distribution automation and integration of smart devices. The monitoring sensors generate enormous uncorrelated data that need scalable storage servers and this requirement can be fulfilled by smart grid cloud. But the biggest concerns of organisations moving towards cloud computing are security and privacy. Precise intrusion detection techniques in addition to intrusion prevention techniques are necessary to augment cloud security. In this paper the cloudlet completion time analysis has been done under normal and attack conditions with respect to number of cloudlets, cloudlet length, virtual machine (VM) RAM and VM bandwidth in a space shared mapping policy for VM and cloudlets. The results indicate that during attack the cloudlet completion time increased drastically and this analysis can prove to be an important parameter to detect intrusion.


A better understanding of the molecular effects of aging in the brain may help to reveal important aspects of organismal aging, as well as processes that lead to aging related brain dysfunction. In this study, the ageing specific expression genes of the murine cerebrum were investigated by employing differential display reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (DDRT PCR) in three senescence accelerated mouse (SAM) strains: SAMP8/Ta, SAMP10/Ta and SAMR1TA. Through compared gene expression profile among the age 18, 12, 4, and 2 month of the SAMP10/Ta strain, two differential fragments have been found, which belong to 4 and 12 month individually; and in age 11, 4 and 2 month of the SAMP8/Ta strain, two fragments have been found, which belong to 11 and 2 month respectively. And compared gene expression profile in different strain mice, 16 fragments have been detected, 3, 6 and 7 of them belong to SAMP10/Ta, SAMP8/Ta and SAMR1TA respectively. Sequence results indicate that those fragments are homologous with heat shock protein cognate protein 70,ATP dependent mitochondrial RNA helicase, Dleu2 mRNA, mouse DNA sequence from clone RP23 334C3 on chromosome X, ubiquinol cytochrome c reductase complex (7 2 kD), 60 S ribosomal protein L21, FIS, phenylalkylamine Ca 2+ antagonist (emopamil) binding protein, fucosyltransferase 9, glial cell line derived neurotrophic factor family receptor alpha 1, endonuclease/reverse transcriptase, PER1 interacting protein of the suprachiamatic nucleus homolog, centrosomal protein CG NAP, ferritin heavy chain gene, NID 2 gene, and prkdc gene for DNA dependent protein kinase catalytic subunit.


Using ethlendiamine as the unique raw material and grandular solid superacid as the catalyst was synthesized Alkyl-pyrazine was synthesized in the gas phase on the condition of ordinary pressure.The effect of factors like reaction temperature,the speed of adding raw material,the ratio of raw material,water and were discussed,The optimun reaction conditions were obtained:temperature 340°C;ratio of raw material n(Ethylendiamine):n(water)=0.9:1;the speed of adding raw material 1.2cm~3/min.


It is widely recognized that plants contain nutrients and chemicals that are beneficial beyond general nutrient needs. In fact, research has shown that of the more than 4,000 chemical compounds found in plants, some help prevent the development of disease by interfering with the destructive oxidation of cellular components, and others prevent the development of certain cancers. Moreover, plants can also provide for enhanced mineral nutrition. The same mechanisms that allow plants to extract heavy metals such as lead and uranium can also be applied to the phytoextraction of desirable, beneficial micronutrients, such as selenium, under controlled growing conditions. This process provides for hyperenrichment of the desired micronutrient. Plants containing targeted micronutrients can provide the minimum daily adult requirements in a single tablet or capsule. We describe in this report selected cultivars of Brassica juncea, or Indian mustard, a member of the Brassicaceae (formerly the Cruciferae) containing 2,...


Thrombocytopenia and microangiopathic hemolytic anemia together with a severely deficient ADAMTS-13 activity (<5%) confirm the diagnosis of acute thrombotic thrombocytopenic purpura (TTP) [1], even though not all patients with a clinical diagnosis of TTP have a severe ADAMTS-13 deficiency [2]. Since the initial reports by Furlan et al. [3] and Tsai and Lian [4], numerous assays for the determination of ADAMTS-13 activity have been developed. The majority of these assays comprise two steps [5]. First, a von Willebrand factor (VWF) substrate is subjected to proteolysis by plasma ADAMTS-13. This is followed by a second step of either quantifying VWF digestion products [3,4,6] or determination of residual VWF function [7,8]. These assays are time-consuming, often difficult to perform and hence restricted to specialized laboratories. Recently, Kokame et al. [9] reported a new fluorescence resonance energy transfer assay using a truncated, synthetic 73amino-acid VWF peptide as a substrate for the determination of ADAMTS-13 activity (FRETS-VWF73 assay). While the performances of several of the older assays have been evaluated and compared in two multicenter studies [10,11], this new method has not yet been formally evaluated in this way. Therefore, we compared the results obtained with the FRETSVWF73 assay with those obtained with other ADAMTS-13 activity assays in a series of 30 plasma samples. The FRETS-VWF73 assay was performed essentially as described [9] with the following modifications. Pefabloc SC (Boehringer, Mannheim, Germany) was added to the assay buffer (5 mmol L Bis-Tris, 25 mmol L CaCl2, 0.005% Tween-20, pH 6.0) at a final concentration of 1 mmol L. Assay calibration was obtained by using a normal human plasma pool (NHP; Swiss Red Cross Blood Services, Bern, Switzerland) diluted 1:25 (100%) in assay buffer. Further calibration samples were obtained by serial predilutions of NHP of 3:4 (75%), 1:2 (50%), 1:4 (25%), 1:10 (10%), 1:20 (5%) in heat-inactivated fresh frozen plasma (FFP, incubated for 30 min at 56 C followed by 15 min of centrifugation at 15 000 · g) to correct for a plasma matrix effect in the lower activity range of the standard curve. All of these standard samples as well as heat-inactivated FFP (0% ADAMTS-13 activity) and all test samples were subsequently diluted 1:25 in assay buffer. Next, 100 lL of each diluted standard or patient sample was incubated at 37 C in a 96-well white plate (NUNC, Roskilde, Denmark). After 10 min, 100 lmol L of 4 lmol L FRETS-VWF73 peptide substrate dissolved in assay buffer was added to each well and evolution of fluorescence recorded at 37 C in a TECAN Spectrafluor microplate reader (Tecan, Zürich, Switzerland) equipped with a 340 nm excitation filter (band width 35 nm) and a 450 nm emission filter (band width 25 nm). Fluorescence was measured every 5 min and the reaction rate was calculated by linear regression analysis of fluorescence over time from 5 to 60 min. ADAMTS-13 activity was determined in the same 30 plasma samples of patients with acquired or hereditary TTP and other conditions that had been previously analyzed forADAMTS-13 activity in the context of the first multicenter study by quantitative immunoblotting assay, residual collagen binding activity assay using two different VWF substrates, residual ristocetin cofactor activity assay, and immune radiometric assay [10]. For the FRETS-VWF73 assay, aliquots of the same samples, which had been stored at )70 C, were analyzed three times with different FRETS-VWF73 peptide substrate lots (550 116, 550 703 and 550 827). Patient samples with an ADAMTS-13 activity<20%were screened for the presence of inhibitory autoantibodies for which the patients' plasma was heat-inactivated as described above, mixed 1:1 (v:v) with NHP and incubated for 2 h at 37 C. This mixture was then diluted 1:25 in assay buffer. The key to the plasma samples and former results remained confidential until completion of all analyses. FRETS-VWF73 inter-assay reproducibility expressed by the mean coefficient of variation, calculated as the ratio between the standard deviation and the mean of the triplicate measurements of all samples multiplied by 100, was 6% and thus excellent. Predilution of calibration curve samples in heatinactivated FFP was superior to dilution of NHP in assay buffer alone as judged from the standard curve correlation coefficient as well as reproducibility, especially in the lower ADAMTS-13 activity range (0–25%). This lower range is not formally covered by the original method described by Kokame et al., as their standard curve point next to 0% corresponds to an ADAMTS-13 activity of 25% [9]. Correspondence: J. A. Kremer Hovinga, Department of Hematology and Central Hematology Laboratory, Inselspital, University Hospital, CH-3010 Bern, Switzerland. Tel.: + 41 31 632 90 22; fax: + 41 31 632 34 06; e-mail: email@example.com


The estimation of several dietary fibers (lignins, wheat bran, microcrystalline cellulose) possibility to absorb vitamins from the solution containing simultaneously ten vitamins in vitro model (gastroenteric transit imitation) has been made. Fiber apparent capability to absorb retinol palmitate, alpha-tocopherol acetate, ascorbic acid, thiamine hydrochloride and riboflavin phosphate has been determined. It has been demonstrated that dietary fibers are able to decrease vitamins availability.


Abstract Comparing closely related species from disparate habitats can uncover habitat-specific adaptations. We compared 32 environment and oviposition characteristics in two closely related grasshoppers from opposite environments: Romalea microptera from the Florida Everglades wetlands vs Taeniopoda eques from the Chihuahuan Desert. These closely related species can interbreed, but differ in oviposition characteristics. Desert T. eques deposited long, straight, deep pods containing more eggs, and tended to lay within vegetation where they were shaded and hidden from predators. They did not oviposit in the early morning, late afternoon or evening, and males did not mate-guard. In contrast, wetlands-inhabiting R. microptera laid smaller pods closer to the soil surface, and often laid exposed to full sunlight on elevated ground away from water and nearby vegetation, in the morning or even after dark, and were usually mate-guarded. Oviposition phenology also differed, with R. microptera ovipositing in the summer and T. eques in the fall, possibly as a consequence of life-history shifts driven by local seasonal rainfall patterns. Our results suggest rapid trait divergence in these sister species. These divergent behaviors appear to be adaptive, given the divergent (desert vs wetland) environments of these species.


Owner-driver schemes are being introduced by companies wanting productivity improvements in the distribution of their products. This article examines motivating factors for owner-driver schemes and evaluates findings from interview-based research. It also examines factors relating to owner-driver schemes and productivity improvement and identifies issues concerning their design, implementation and management. Findings suggest that owner-driver schemes improve productivity and that key factors concur with a model of the motivational cycle underlying implementation of owner-driver schemes.


SummaryAnimal studies using standard in vitro and in vivo techniques have shown that fentiazac, a novel alkanoic acid derivative, has marked analgesic, anti-inflammatory and antipyretic activity. In common with some other anti-inflammatory agents, it also has platelet anti-aggregation activity. Fentiazac is well absorbed after oral and rectal administration and the drug has been widely studied in man in doses ranging from 600 mg to 900 mg per day orally and from 200 mg to 400 mg per day given rectally. The results of clinical trials involving 712 patients are reviewed and indicate that fentiazac is an effective and well tolerated agent which compares favourably with other such agents used in the treatment of rheumatic disorders and other painful conditions.


OBJECTIVES
The rate of smoking in people with bipolar disorder is much greater than in the general population, but the implications of smoking for the course of bipolar disorder have not been well studied. The purpose of this retrospective study was to examine the relationship between smoking, severity of bipolar disorder, suicidal behavior, and psychiatric and substance use disorder comorbidity.

METHOD
We evaluated 399 outpatients with bipolar disorder who were treated in a bipolar specialty clinic from December 1999 to October 2004. Diagnosis, mood state, course of illness, functioning, and psychiatric comorbidities were assessed using the Affective Disorders Evaluation and the Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview.

RESULTS
Of the 399 patients evaluated, 155 (38.8%) had a history of daily smoking. Having ever smoked was associated with earlier age at onset of first depressive or manic episode, lower Global Assessment of Functioning scores, higher Clinical Global Impressions-Bipolar Disorder scale scores, lifetime history of a suicide attempt (47% for smokers vs. 25% for those who had never smoked), and lifetime comorbid disorders: anxiety disorders, alcohol abuse and dependence, and substance abuse and dependence. In a logistic regression model including these factors, suicide attempts and substance dependence were significantly associated with smoking in patients with bipolar disorder.

CONCLUSIONS
Bipolar patients with lifetime smoking were more likely to have earlier age at onset of mood disorder, greater severity of symptoms, poorer functioning, history of a suicide attempt, and a lifetime history of comorbid anxiety and substance use disorders. Smoking may be independently associated with suicidal behavior in bipolar disorder.


This prospective study reports the midterm outcome of total hip arthroplasty performed in a consecutive series of patients using a tapered uncemented femoral component. From Nov. 2001 to Apr. 2006, total hip arthroplasties were performed in 138 patients (150hips). The clinical records and the routine serial radiographs of these patients were monitored closely over a 1-year period. Clinical evaluation was done by Harris hip score before surgery and at last follow-up. Radiological evaluation was done on plain radiographs. The average follow up period was 4.05 years. There was a significant improvement in functional outcome of these patients as measured by Harris hip score. There were no revisions for aseptic loosening of the femoral component in this series, accounting for an overall survivorship of 100%. The study confirms that the midterm outcome of this stem is excellent, with no revisions.


in study-hall time during school. Currently, a guided study approach using A/V media is being used with success by industry, the military, and educators in other subject areas such as foreign language instruction and the teaching of phonics. For music educators, publishers presently provide A/V materials related to a variety of topics, including theory, synthesizer techniques, vocal production and diction, and instrument care. An examination of any recent Music Educators Journal provides numerous examples of available merchandise. By creating your own, though, you can develop assignments of varying length that reinforce and immediately relate to classwork recently completed or in progress.


The names of Li Po (701-762) and Tu Fu (712-770), like Wordsworth and Coleridge in the West, have been traditionally linked together for comparison and contrast. The poetry of Li Po is imbued with a sense of freedom, fantasy, and enjoyment of life, though tinged with sadness at its evanescence. Tu Fu's work is dominated by a painful concern with a suffering humanity: poverty, hunger, homelessness, the evils of war. While there are many modern Chinese anthologies devoted entirely to these two poets, Mr. Cooper's book is the only one in English that presents them together in a single volume. Separate anthologies of each poet have long existed, of course: Shigeyoshi Obata's. The Worlds of Li Po (1922), William Hung's Tu Fu (1952), David Hawkes' A Little Primer 0} Tu Fu (1967), to name only a few.


The maintenance of fire facilities in a building is inadequate in some areas.This paper suggests some measures to improve the maintenance of fire facilities in terms of fire managementmodel,the quality of fire products,building workforce management,the function of fire intermediaries and fire technology.