A study is made of transient motions of an initially isothermal, contained fluid in response to an impulsively imposed vertical temperature gradient at the boundaries. Finite-difference numerical solutions have been obtained for a Boussinesq fluid in a circular cylinder with the final state temperature profile linear in the vertical coordinate, with large Rayleigh numbers. New details of the transient flow and the development of temperature field are presented. Descriptions are given for the fundamental mechanism of meridional circulation driven by buoyant boundary layer pumping. A propagating front divides the temperature field into two regions; ahead of the front, the fluid remains to be non-stratified, and behind the front the fluid is being stratified. The flow evolution in the core behaves in a decaying oscillatory manner. The oscillatory nature is due to the presence of internal waves. The temperature evolution in the core is less oscillatory. The temperature adjustment process is governed primarily...


We propose a convenient method for generating partial Poincare beams of light having space-variant polarization. The beams can be constructed from the incidence of the fundamental Gaussian beam with circular or linear polarization to a wavelength-mismatched vortex plate. The polarization state covers only a small portion of the surface of the Poincare sphere, particularly, being visualized by some interesting close curves. We demonstrate that the partial Poincare beam can be decomposed into different spatial modes with orthogonal polarizations. Numerical analyses of the vortex vector beam and the polarization distribution are consistent with experimental results. The partial Poincare beams could supplement the concept and application of Full Poincare beams.


WHEREAS, Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia requires that all those convicted of a felony be deprived of their civil right to vote unless they have their civil rights restored by the Governor or other appropriate authority; and WHEREAS, it is estimated that approximately 206,000 Virginians are permanently disenfranchised from participating in political life due to prior felony convictions even after completing their court-ordered sentences; and WHEREAS, such disenfranchisement disproportionately affects racial minorities and economically disadvantaged Virginians; and WHEREAS, Virginians have increasingly advanced the ideals of equality of all races and peoples, while rejecting the indefinite and unforgiving stigmatization of persons who have committed past criminal acts; and WHEREAS, the Governor is empowered by Article V, Section 12 of the Constitution of Virginia " to remove political disabilities consequent upon conviction, " thus to restore the political rights of any persons disqualified by Article II, Section 1; and WHEREAS, the power granted to the Governor under Article V, Section 12 to remove political disabilities is absolute and without any limitation not expressly stated within the Constitution of Virginia; and WHEREAS, all individuals who have served the terms of their incarceration and any periods of supervised release deserve to re-enter society on fair and just terms, including to participate in the political and economic advancement of Virginia; and WHEREAS, the restoration of civil rights has been noted to achieve substantial benefits for those individuals who have felt long-exiled from mainstream life; and WHEREAS, democracy is strengthened by having more citizens involved in the political process;


As an architectural consultant, the author spends a great deal of time helping organizations fully utilize software architecture to create better products and be more competitive. Here, he explains some of the mistakes he's made and the key lessons learned over the past 10 years working with architects primarily in the consumer electronics and embedded software industries.


Enterprise is the main body to implement cleaner production auditing.The necessity of cleaner production auditing of paper industrial enterprise was introduced,the several working key points in auditing process were discussed.In order to hold a mirror to paper industrial enterprise in cleaner production auditing,what we should pay attention in cleaner production auditing was discussed.


Battery remaining useful life (RUL) estimation is critical to battery management and performance optimization of electric vehicles (EVs). In this paper, we present an effective way to estimate RUL online by using the support vector machine (SVM) algorithm. By studying the characteristics of the battery degradation process, the rising of the terminal voltage and changing characteristics of the voltage derivative (DV) during the charging process are introduced as the training variables of the SVM algorithm to determine the battery RUL. The SVM is then applied to build the battery degradation model and predict the battery real cycle numbers. Experimental results prove that the built battery degradation model shows higher accuracy and less computation time compared with those of the neural network (NN) method, thereby making it a potential candidate for realizing online RUL estimation in a battery management system (BMS).


In Afghanistan and Iraq in 2008 the daily surgical workload can be enormous with the surgical case-mix involving skills out with those of the normal NHS Consultant [1-8]. The historical priorities of the Defence Medical Education and Training Agency (DMETA) now the Joint Medical Command (JMC) have been of elective secondary care provision to the predeployment military force. This imperative may not now be compatible with the acquisition and maintenance of the necessary deployed trauma skills for asymmetric war. Table 1 outlines the suggested skills that the deployed team should possess [9]. It is probably impossible now for a single surgeon to possess every surgical skill required: Two surgeons are a minimum requirement but three may now be optimal. The question remains however as to how best to train our surgeons for the application of these skill sets, given that they may be breast surgeons no longer on a general surgical on-call rota or a hand or plastic surgeon. Surgical training courses such as the Definitive Surgical Trauma Skills Course (DSTS) run by the Royal College of Surgeons of England are vital. These are now seen as an almost mandatory part of pre-deployment training, but it is unclear whether these two to three day intensive courses are effective – and if they are, for how long the skill sets are retained. Between 2003 and 2006, 38 surgical teams from 21 hospitals have participated in a total of ten 'Damage Control Surgery' courses in Norway. Surgeons, anaesthetists and operating room nurses from each hospital performed as single teams throughout the interactive lectures and operative sessions. Although surgical skills were taught, there was also considerable emphasis on communication, collaboration and team-based problem solving. Ninety nine percent of participants reported a dramatic increase in their proficiency with damage control techniques, particularly the vital military skills of extra-peritoneal pelvic packing and emergency thoracotomy; 94% felt that this teambased approach was crucial to improving patient outcomes. Importantly, a later telephone survey revealed twelve cases of lifesaving damage control surgeries in a rural setting, subsequently performed by course participants. Taking overall course costs into consideration, this equated to $15,075 per life saved [10]. Motor skill learning principles are founded mostly in the domains of psychology and athletics. There is good evidence that 'distributed practice' – that is practice interspersed with periods of rest leads to both better acquisition and retention of skill when compared to 'massed practice' – that is practice delivered in a continuous block with little or no rest in between [11]. In tests in animal vascular labs, surgical trainees improved immediately in both learning groups with identical time spent on the learning process. Retention testing at one-month showed the massed group produced significantly worse results in all domains (global rating, checklist score, final product analysis and most worryingly – operating theatre competency). In the 'massed group' who performed an aortic anastomosis, 3/19 tore the vessel beyond repair and were unable to complete the anastomosis, whereas the entire 'distributed group' completed the task. This difference although not statistically significant, has obvious clinical implications. The reason is probably due to 'Consolidation of Learning' [11]. Two phases occur during the learning of a new skill or behaviour – within the session and afterwards. In each phase, different brain regions become activated, each considered necessary for relative permanent retention of that skill. Distributed practice multiplies this cycle. It also allows for repeated cognitive preparation and mental rehearsal. These are both considered key factors in the performance of surgical procedures. Having to retrieve from memory (multiple times) key aspects of any skill, more deeply encodes that particular skill into memory. Top-up courses are therefore necessary when the learnt skill is not used routinely. Hardwiring of skills, that is permanent competent skill retention is often claimed to eliminate skill-fade, manifest as a flawed personal belief that even if a long period has ensued between performing a motor task and repeating it , that this skill is usefully retained. There is little evidence to support this, and aviation regulations strongly reject this supposition. A recent report from the Canadian Air Force showed that there was a relatively strong relationship between decreasing flying hours and what were euphemistically called 'increasing personnel-related cause-factor rates' [12]. This was especially worrying as C-130 transport aircraft pilots were among those most specifically implicated in near/accident causation. This decrease in proficiency became most apparent after 1996 when it was clear that flying hours had fallen below a certain ('safe') critical skill retention threshold. Surgeon volume, and by direct inference – task repetition, should then be a viable marker of proficiency when matched against operative mortality. A study of 474,108 patients undergoing one of eight major cardiovascular procedures or cancer resections between 1998 and 1999 showed a clear and highly significant inverse relation between volume and mortality [13], but the numbers of procedures involved do not need to be high. For pancreatic cancer resection, low volume was defined as 11 per year; however the difference in the adjusted odds ratio for operative death was highly significant between the groups: A 3.61 times higher chance of death when operated on by a low volume surgeon. This effect was seen regardless of the surgical volume of the hospital in which the surgery took place. Surgeon volume is similarly important in trauma where the odds ratio of dying when taken to a Level II Trauma Centre are 1.14 times EDITORIAL


A slot turnstile antenna proposed by the authors has a circular pattern in a horizontal plane with a horizontal polarization of the radiation field. The antenna construction is simple. Voltage standing-wave ratio (VSWR) of the antenna model is less 1.2 in 60% frequency band relative to the mean frequency. It is able to transmit a high power.


A case-based reasoning (CBR) knowledge base has been incorporated into a Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) design tool that uses a multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) to synthesize and optimize conceptual designs. CBR utilizes previously successful MEMS designs and sub-assemblies as building blocks stored in an indexed case library, which serves as the knowledge base for the synthesis process. Designs in the case library are represented in a parameterized object-oriented format, incorporating MEMS domain knowledge into the design synthesis loop as well as restrictions for the genetic operations of mutation and crossover for MOGA optimization. Reasoning tools locate cases in the design library with solved problems similar to the current design problem and suggest promising conceptual designs which have the potential to be starting design populations for a MOGA evolutionary optimization process, to further generate more MEMS designs concepts. Surface micro-machined resonators are used as an example to introduce this integrated MEMS design synthesis process. The results of testing on resonator case studies demonstrate how the combination of CBR and MOGA synthesis tools can help increase the number of optimal design concepts presented to MEMS designers.


Integrated rate equations (for constant reaction volume) may be given in terms of relative reactant concentration, C (= concentration/initial concentration) and relative time, T (= time/half-life); in these forms, the equations are independent of rate constants and initial concentrations.


In this paper the objective is to study the state of the art of ontologies and to synthesize it. We make a synthesis of definitions, languages, ontology classifications, ontological engineering, ontological platforms and application fields of ontologies. We present an example of application of ontology which is the project. The architecture of such a memory is presented together with the relation teeing the ontology and the project memory. The objective of this study is to present a new vision of the ontological concepts through the proposition of a number of cartographies related to these concepts.


According to several studies, many students perceive History as rigid, static, and boring because of its reliance on narration pedagogy, limiting their ability to develop critical-thinking abilities. To address the issue, the researchers applied utilization of Self-made mini-lecture Tiktok videos as intervention to enhance the knowledge of thirty-three (33) second year Education students in selected topics in their history course subject. After 5 weeks duration of implementation phase, results unveiled that students' knowledge in selected history topics were improved as data showed that the knowledge gained by students were analysed as comprehensive and reflective, compared to their knowledge in pre-intervention that were categorized as general and lack of knowledge. In this regard, students demonstrated that using self-made mini-lecture Tiktok video has positive influence on students' learning behavior by triggering their desire to learn in order to gain confidence in educating their audience while making learning history fun and entertaining.


Abstract We have solved the nuclear Schrodinger radial equation to derive wavefunctions and rovibrational energy levels of the carbon monoxide molecule 12 C 16 O in its ground electronic state X 1 Σ + at a spectroscopic accuracy. We then calculated the dipole matrix elements for transitions involving vibrational quantum numbers up to v = 15 and rotational quantum numbers up to J = 200. Calculations were carried out for the fundamental (Δ v = 1) and the three first overtone (Δ v = 2, 3, 4) bands. For the transition matrix elements there is typically a 10% difference from previous results due to recent values of the dipole moment function. This gives a significant 20% difference for the absorption oscillator strengths which are computed for this set of 21 600 lines.


High quality proofreading is essential to a smooth-running legislature. Currently the Tennessee Office of Legal Services (TOLS) hires proofreaders based on incomplete and unvalidated tests. The present study reports the findings of a forty-nine state survey concerning how state officials test prospective legislative proofreaders for specific job-related skills. Of the forty-four responding states, thirty-nine either did not use such tests or they tested but had no supporting validity studies. The five remaining states declined to send copies of their tests and/or supporting validity scores. Based on these findings, the present study concludes that few if any states use thorough procedures for selecting such employees. The discussion closes by suggesting that TOLS will have to develop and validate its own proofreading examination if it wants to employ proper employee placement practices.


In a photovoltaic DC microgrid, the intermittent power supply of the distributed generation and the fluctuation of the load power will cause the instability of the bus voltage. An improved super-twisting sliding mode control method based on the super-twisting algorithm is proposed to solve this problem. In this paper, a bidirectional half-bridge buck–boost converter was selected as the research topic. The proposed control method replaces the sign function with the saturation function to further mitigate the chattering effect. The stability of the proposed control method was proven to be finite-time convergent using the Lyapunov theory control. Compared with PI control, linear sliding mode control, and terminal sliding mode control, the proposed control method reduces the system overshoot by up to 33% and greatly improves the response speed; compared with the traditional super-twisting sliding mode control method, the system overshoot is reduced by 6.8%, and the response speed is increased by 38%. The experimental results show that the proposed control method can reduce the fluctuation range of the bus voltage, shorten the time of bus voltage stability, effectively stabilize the bus voltage of the photovoltaic DC microgrid, and maintain strong robustness.


The inverse problem of identification of the memory kernel in the linear constitutive stress-strain-relation of Boltzmann type is reduced to an optimal control problem for an initial-boundary-value problem of the related wave equation for the displacement.

For the control problem the existence of an optimal control is proved, where both classical and generalized solutions of the equation are dealt with. Further the existence and an expression for the gradient of the cost functional are derived.


Wavelet thresholding of spectra has to be handled with care when the spectra are the predictors of a regression problem. Indeed, a blind thresholding of the signal followed by a regression method often leads to deteriorated predictions. The scope of this article is to show that sparse regression methods, applied in the wavelet domain, perform an automatic thresholding: the most relevant wavelet coefficients are selected to optimize the prediction of a given target of interest. This approach can be seen as a joint thresholding designed for a predictive purpose. The method is illustrated on a real world problem where metabolomic data are linked to poison ingestion. This example proves the usefulness of wavelet expansion and the good behavior of sparse and regularized methods. A comparison study is performed between the two-steps approach (wavelet thresholding and regression) and the one-step approach (selection of wavelet coefficients with a sparse regression). The comparison includes two types of wavelet bases, various thresholding methods, and various regression methods and is evaluated by calculating prediction performances. Information about the location of the most important features on the spectra was also obtained and used to identify the most relevant metabolites involved in the mice poisoning.


This article was previously published with errors in data. ► In the 'Primary outcome' section, there's a typo: it says "as they hadve content relation to:"; it should instead read "as they have content relation to:" ► In the 'Sample size' section, – The last sentence in the first paragraph is missing the second part. It should read: 'projected smallest clinically important difference of 0.5 of the within-patient SD, which is recommended by the developer as a moderate effect size.' – The second paragraph should start with 'The required sample size is considered feasible as it is estimated that a pool of about 250 patients are readily identifiable for recruitment at CCKO sites.'


>A method for the reduction of uranium tetranuoride and vacuum refining of crude uranium was developed. On the basis of experimental results, an apparatus for calciothermic reduction of UF/sub 4/ under reducer pressure was constructed. Reduction tests on a larger scale (with a charge of 11 kg UF/sub 4/ ) confirmed anticipated advantages of the method. (auth)


Although there is a robust literature examining normative discrepancies for drinking, less is known related to normative discrepancies related to alcohol-posting behavior on social networking sites (SNS). Given that SNS are posited to be an important risk factor for adolescent and young adult alcohol use, the aims of the present study were to: (1) document descriptive and injunctive normative discrepancies for number of alcohol-related posts on SNS, (2) examine associations between frequency of using SNS platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat) and descriptive and injunctive normative discrepancies, and (3) to examine whether descriptive and injunctive normative discrepancies are associated with willingness to use alcohol and drinking among adolescents and young adults. Data were drawn from the baseline assessment of a larger longitudinal experimental study (N= 306, age 15-20). Overall, participants perceived that their peers are more approving of and post about alcohol use more often than they do themselves, thus indicating significant descriptive and injunctive normative discrepancies. More frequent use of Facebook was associated with having greater descriptive normative discrepancies, whereas frequency of both Facebook and Instagram use were associated with greater injunctive normative discrepancies. Results further indicated that controlling for frequency of SNS use, descriptive normative discrepancies, but not injunctive, were associated with greater willingness to drink and drinks per week. Results provide evidence that in particular, descriptive normative discrepancies for SNS use may be important to target when planning intervention programs to reduce the impact of SNS use on adolescent and young adult alcohol use.


The Z method is a popular atomistic simulation method for determining the melting temperature where a sequence of molecular dynamics runs are carried out to target the lowest system energy where the solid always melts. Homogeneous melting at the limit of critical superheating, Th, is accompanied by a drop in temperature as kinetic energy is converted to potential energy and the equilibrium melting temperature, Tm, can be calculated directly from the liquid state. Implementation of the Z method interfaced with modern ab initio electronic structure packages use Hellmann-Feynman forces to propagate the ions in the microcanonical(NVE) ensemble where the Mermin free energy plus the ionic kinetic energy is conserved. The electronic temperature, Tel, is kept fixed along the trajectory which may introduce some spurious ion-electron interactions in MD runs with large temperature changes such as often seen in homogeneous melting and freezing processes in the NVE ensemble. We estimate systematic errors in the calculated melting temperature to choice of Tel for two main mantle components, SiO2 and CaSiO3 at high pressure. Comparison of the calculated melting temperature from runs where the Tel=Th and Tel=Tm representing reasonable upper and lower boundaries respectively to choice of Tel shows that the difference in melting temperature is 200-300 K for our two test systems. The melting temperature decreases with increasing Tel due to the increasing entropic stabilisation of the liquid and the systems melts typically about 3 times faster in MD runs with Tel = Th compared to runs where Tel = Tm. A careful choice of electron temperature in BOMD simulations where the ions are propagated using Hellmann-Feynamn forces with the Mermin free energy + the ionic kinetic energy being conserved is therefore essential for the critical evaluation of the Z method and in particular at very high temperatures.


Abstract: In this paper, mainly three machine learning algorithms are discussed in detail and how they work is shown, their pseudo codes are shown and a comparison is done among them, and their performance is analyzed. Keywords: Machine Learning, pseudo code, algorithms, data


Ever since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, it has been a generally accepted judgement that Turkey is in the Middle East, but not fully part of it. Culturally and politically, Turkey and the other Middle Eastern countries have tended to follow separate paths. By the I99os, and in comparison with the rest of Eastern Europe and the Middle East, Turkey has become economically successful, democratic and stable. Hence, its position has sometimes been compared to that of Japan-as a potentially powerful actor which prefers not to play a commensurate regional role and stays on the edge of a regional subsystem. The events of the last three years have undermined some of the assumptions on which this policy of aloofness was based. On one hand, the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union have made it possible for Turkey, like other former Soviet neighbours, to consider more flexible regional policies. On the other hand, the Gulf crisis of I99o-9I demonstrated that, even if the superpower conflict has ended, the Middle East is still a prime source of global instability. During the last two years, Turkey has also emerged as an important actor in the politics of Transcaucasia, Central Asia, the Black Sea region and the Balkans. A full discussion of Turkish policy in all these areas would require far more space than is available here. This article therefore restricts itself to examining Turkey's relations with its Middle Eastern neighbours, by considering first some of the factors which shaped Turkish regional policy in the postwar era, and then the implications of Turkey's experiences during the Gulf crisis of I990-9I.


The application of the finite element method to establish affixed with a piezoelectric cantilever drive model and control based on the objective function LQR of the law,the use of Matlab simulation to study the cantilever vibration control and suppression.Finally,to provide a numerical example to illustrate that the method can effectively control the vibration of the cantilever.


Most microbial life on Earth is found in localized microenvironments that collectively exert a crucial role in maintaining ecosystem health and influencing global biogeochemical cycles. In many habitats such as biofilms in aquatic systems, bacterial flocs in activated sludge, periphyton mats, or particles sinking in the ocean, these microenvironments experience sporadic or continuous flow. Depending on their microscale structure, pores and channels through the microenvironments permit localized flow that shifts the relative importance of diffusive and advective mass transport. How this flow alters nutrient supply, facilitates waste removal, drives the emergence of different microbial niches, and impacts the overall function of the microenvironments remains unclear. Here, we quantify how pores through microenvironments that permit flow can elevate nutrient supply to the resident bacterial community using a microfluidic experimental system and gain further insights from coupled population-based and computational fluid dynamics simulations. We find that the microscale structure determines the relative contribution of advection versus diffusion, and even a modest flow through a pore in the range of 10 µm s−1 can increase the carrying capacity of a microenvironment by 10%. Recognizing the fundamental role that microbial hotspots play in the Earth system, developing frameworks that predict how their heterogeneous morphology and potential interstitial flows change microbial function and collectively alter global scale fluxes is critical.


This article outlines the discursive construction of the refugee situation in Ethiopia's Tigray region by examining photographs found on the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHRC) United Kingdom website. The purpose is to discern humanitarian aid communication discourse not simply for its informational value, but also in its performative force of narrative to frame the refugee crisis as one that merits support (Chouliaraky 2017).
Multimodal CDA and social semiotics (Kress and van Leeuwen 1999; Kress and van Leeuwen 2017) were employed in order to break down visual communication into elements, and to systematically reveal the performative practice of meaning in relation to the categories of settings, the represented participants, actions, angles, and proxemics. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses were conducted in order to determine the number of photos with a given feature.
By highlighting the plight of those forcibly displaced and emphasising their uniqueness and personal experiences - in contrast to the dehumanised massified representation found in western media (Chouliaraky 2017; Adi and Cheregi 2015) -, the phenomenon of their forced fleeing from Tigray is humanised. In line with Bellander (2021), the UNHRC is constructed as being trustworthy and actionable, and refugees are clearly depicted as being in urgent need of support. Visitors to the UK website are invited to feel they are involved with the life of the refugees and morally engaged in "the work performed by the organization" (Bellander 2021: 310). By means of the combination of specific affection drawing on discourses of morality, solidarity and ethical equality, the overall images provide "the symbolic conditions under which we are invited to imagine the predicament of these sufferers" (Chouliaraky 2017: 5) and in so doing to appeal to a force that will work towards a practical push towards action.


Autonomous robots for the battlefield offer a tantalizing alternative to manned warfare. These systems rely upon many well established technological areas. Near term applications of autonomous battlefield robots (ABRs) are possible in such mission areas as surveillance and communications support. Such more advanced applications as weapons and countermeasures control await at least the development of fault tolerant information processing resources. Several open research issues still limit the current realizable performance of ARBs. In spite of these limitations, ABRs should be implemented for near term applications to gain the systems experience necessary to construct more capable ABR systems.


Electrical contacts (22) comprises a knurled pattern disposed along at least a portion of the interior surface of the electrical contacts (22) (36) (44). This portion receives a lead wire cable (10) (18) along the longitudinal axis to form a crimp connection (46) attached thereto. Increments pattern (44) includes a plurality of recessed elements (54), each recess element (54) has a rhombic shape including interior angle. Orientation of the first pair of generally axial interior angles opposite (56) defines a shorter distance of axial direction between them, the alignment of the second pair of opposed internal angle, between them to define a longer distance. The shorter distance of the axial direction is shorter than the longer distance. Increments recessed elements of the pattern (44) (54) engages with the aluminum wire cable (10), is particularly suitable for forming a crimp connection (46). .The


From repairing damaged hearts to curing HIV infection to growing replacement organs, human embryonic stem cell research has made many promises and will probably yet keep some of them. But it has also been among the most ethically charged of research techniques, since it begins with the destruction of an early-stage human embryo—a cluster of 100 or so cells. In 2001, George Bush, firmly committed to the idea that human life begins at conception, made the Solomonic decision that federal dollars could not support research on new embryonic stem cell lines. Research using existing stem cell lines, created from embryos that had already been rendered nonviable, could, however, move forward. While this did not shut down embryonic stem cell research, it slowed it considerably and led several U.S. states to develop their own financial support for research on new stem cell lines. Notably, in 2004 Californians approved Proposition 71, which provided three billion dollars for stem cell research over the next ten years. By 2009, the landscape had changed considerably. Scientists had developed the ability to induce pluripotency, stem cells' distinctive characteristic of having the potential to form almost any type of human cell, without destroying an embryo. On the political front, Barack Obama overturned the Bush restrictions on federal funding for new embryonic stem cell lines. By 2011, stem cell ethical debates had become relatively stable, with rules in place about how science would be conducted and well-established lines along which ethical disagreement would take place. Good Science: The Ethical Choreography of Stem Cell Research follows these hotly debated issues, as well as less-discussed ethical choices implicit in human embryonic stem cell research, throughout this period. Focusing at different moments on conversations in the United States as a whole, California, Singapore, and South Korea, its core argument is that ''a high level of political attention to the ethics of the life sciences and biomedicine, like the attention given to stem cell research in this period, is a good thing for science and democracy'' (p. 5). Author Charis Thompson places her work at the intersection of science and technology studies and transnational feminisms. Though these fields overlap with sociology (and, indeed, Thompson is a professor of sociology at the London School of Economics), this is not a book aimed at sociologists. It does, however, address many themes of concern to sociologists, including bioscience ethics, democratic participation, and social and health inequalities. Thompson calls her method ''triage'': drawing on documents, field observations, and interviews, she looked for specific actors, sites, and transcripts that seemed most fruitful for following which ethical issues came to the fore and which fell by the wayside as debate evolved. The book is organized into six chapters, which follow stem cell debates across time and space. After an introductory chapter, Chapter Two identifies what Thompson calls the ''pro-curial'' frame—one that sees stem cell ethics as a problem of procurement, in need of ''curatorial protocols'' to manage this procurement problem, and with a procures (for injury or disease) rhetoric—that quickly came to dominate. This framing edged out other possible ways of talking about the ethics of stem cell research, including a social justice and health framing, one focused on disability rights, one oriented toward research subjects and body part donors, and one emphasizing stem cells' potential as a destructive or defense technology. Chapter Three compares the U.S. stem cell debate in three key periods—that around 2001, when Bush issued his executive order; 2004, when California's Proposition 71 became law; and 2009, when Obama revised national stem cell policy. It looks at how rhetoric differed across political parties and how it evolved and at the range of ethical issues that were essentially excluded from discussion. Chapter Four follows these conversations to Korea and Singapore, which were Reviews 861


Proximal humerus fractures are a common fragility fracture in older adults. A variety of treatment options exist, yet longer term outcomes of newer surgical treatments have not been extensively researched. Additionally, intermediate term outcomes following both surgical and non-surgical initial treatment of these injuries have not been evaluated at a population level. The purpose of this study was to utilise administrative data from Ontario, Canada to evaluate intermediate term outcomes following initial treatment of proximal humerus fractures. We used data from the Canadian Institute for Health Information to identify all patients aged 50 and older who presented to an ambulatory care facility with a "main diagnosis" of proximal humerus fracture from April 1, 2004 to March 31, 2013. Intervention codes from the Discharge Abstract Database were used to categorise patients into fixation, replacement, reduction or non-surgically treated groups. We used intervention codes to identify instances of complication-related operations following initial treatment (including fixation, replacement, hardware removal, rotator cuff repair and irrigation and debridement [I&D]) at one year post initial treatment. The majority of patients (28,369, 86.6%, 95% confidence interval [95% CI] 86.2–87.0%) were initially treated non-surgically, while 2835 (8.7%, 95% CI 8.4–9.0%) underwent initial fixation, 1280 (3.9%, 95% CI 3.7–4.1%) received primary joint replacement, and 276 (0.8%, 95% CI 0.8–1.0%) were initially treated with a reduction procedure. In the year following the initial treatment period, 127 (0.4%, 95%CI 0.4–0.5%) non-surgically treated patients underwent a replacement surgery, 292 (1.0%, 95%CI 0.9–1.2%) underwent fixation, and 12 (0.04%, 95% CI 0.02–0.07%) underwent a reduction procedure. Of the 2835 patients who received initial fixation, 57 (2.0%, 95% CI 1.6–2.6%) returned for a shoulder replacement, 80 received secondary fixation (2.8%, 95% CI 2.3–3.5%), 57 (2.0%, 95%CI 1.6–2.6%) underwent rotator cuff repair, 300 (10.6%, 95% CI 9.5–11.8%) had their implants removed, and 16 (0.6%, 95% CI 0.4–0.9%) returned for I&D. Of the 1280 patients who underwent initial replacement surgeries, 30 (2.3%, 95% CI 1.7–3.3%) returned for a secondary replacement, nine (0.7%, 95% CI 0.4–1.3%) underwent rotator cuff repair, and seven (0.6%, 95% CI 0.3–1.1%) had their implant removed. In the group who received initial reduction, eight (2.9%, 95% CI 1.5–5.6%) underwent a fixation procedure, six (2.2%, 95% CI 1.0–4.7%) received replacement surgeries, and five (1.8%, 95% CI 0.8–4.2%) each received rotator cuff repair and I&D in the year following initial treatment. The majority of proximal humerus fractures in patients 50 and older in Ontario, Canada are treated non-surgically. Complication-related operations in the year following initial non-operative treatment are relatively low. The most commonly observed procedure following initial fixation surgery is hardware removal.


An efficient method for minimising real power losses and improving the voltage profile of large scale power systems is presented. The problem is solved through optimal adjustments of reactive power generation in the system by changing generator voltages, shunt capacitors, and tap setting of tap changing transformers. It is formulated in a linearised form suitable for the linear programming technique and decomposition methods. The power system planning and corresponding problems with the addition of new reactive power sources have been integrated with the operational characteristic of the system, and results have been presented. The proposed method does not require the inversion of the Jacobian matrix, and its superiority lies in the reduction of the computation time and memory space, as well as a fast convergence for the solution of large scale systems.


BACKGROUND
Thymic cysts are usually located in the neck or anterior mediastinal compartment. Thymic cysts arising in the middle mediastinum are extremely rare, with only 2 previously reported cases. We herein describe the third case of a thymic cyst in the middle mediastinum.

CASE
A 41-year-old female was referred to our department because of an incidental mediastinal mass detected on chest X-ray. Computed tomography showed a well-defined 7 cm mass located in the retroinnominate vein area. Magnetic resonance imaging showed a cystic lesion without any soft tissue density in the circumference. The border of the tumor was clear, without any invasion and continuity with the surrounding tissue. We performed thoracoscopic surgery. After aspiration of the serous contents in an end-pouch, the tumor was removed from the thoracic cavity. A pathological examination showed a fibrotic cyst wall containing the thymic cyst, which diagnosed it as thymic cyst.

CONCLUSION
Thymic cysts in the middle mediastinum are extremely rare. A surgical resection provided the histological diagnosis of a thymic cyst in the present case.


Abstract Objective The purpose of this empirical study was to investigate the evaluation indexes of nursing research results and to provide references for the optimization of nursing research results and their clinical applications. Methods A total of 150 clinical nursing studies were randomly selected, the clinical applications of their results were investigated, and the results were evaluated using the evaluation indexes of nursing research achievements. Results The results of 101 clinical nursing studies were promoted through their application, accounting for 82.79%, but they were mostly promoted and applied in small areas. When the evaluation indexes of nursing research results were used to evaluate the results, the scores for the applied results were higher than those of unapplied results, and the difference was statistically significant (P< 0.05). Considering the levels of the results, the scores of the results of studies at the national level were higher than those of studies at the municipal and hospital levels; the scores of the results of studies at the provincial level were higher than those at the hospital level; and the scores of the results of originally innovative studies were higher than those of partially innovative studies. The differences were statistically significant (P < 0.05). In terms of overall scores, the scores of the results at the provincial level were higher than those at the hospital level, and the difference was statistically significant (P < 0.05). Conclusions The evaluation indexes of nursing research results in this study can scientifically and effectively evaluate the level, value, and effectiveness of the nursing research results and can promote the clinical application of the optimized results.


Existence and stability analysis of the Kantowski-Sachs type inflationary universe in a higher derivative scalar-tensor gravity theory is studied in details. Isotropic de Sitter background solution is shown to be stable against any anisotropic perturbation during the inflationary era. Stability of the de Sitter space in the post inflationary era can also be realized with proper choice of coupling constants.


Fossil fuel subsides are estimated to between 523‐1900 billion USD per year, depending on how subsidies are defined. Phasing out fossil fuel subsides is therefore considered a first best solution towards more sustainable energy systems and making progress on fossil fuel subsidy reform has a big potential for climate change mitigation. Also in Sweden that has among the highest environmental taxes in the world there are subsides to fossil fuels, according to OECD, mostly in the form of tax exemptions from the energy and CO2 tax. In this thesis, barriers to, and ways forward for fossil fuel subsidy reform in Sweden will be explored. As Sweden is taking on the challenge to live up to its commitments within the UNFCCC process, phasing out fossil fuel subsidies could be one of many important instruments. But there are a number of barriers related to the political economy of fossil fuel subsidies that needs to be addressed for reform to be successful. For overcoming the barriers, we can learn a few lessons from the introduction of the CO2 tax in Sweden. Today, the supply of fossil fuel subsidies is mainly justified with regard to economic competitiveness and distributional concerns. Each subsidy therefore needs to be assessed in more detail to see if it still delivers on the initial objective. Other barriers are lack of information about the effects of subsidies and lack of problem awareness. For the policy process to move forward, these barriers need to be addressed, but there also needs to be a call for action, opposing views and new information that drives the process forward. Based on a number of interviews, observations and analysis of secondary sources it is suggested in this thesis that there is a call for action to phase out individual subsidies, but also a broad consensus environmental policy needs to be cost‐efficient. (Less)


Spermatogenesis is dependent upon Sertoli cells, which relay hormonal signals and provide factors required for the differentiation and proliferation of germ cells. NF-κB transcription factors are constitutively expressed in the nuclei of Sertoli cells in rodent testis. Electrophoretic mobility shift assays demonstrated that Sertoli NF-κB proteins specifically bind to κB enhancer motifs within the promoter of the cAMP-response element-binding protein (CREB) gene, an important mediator of hormonal signals that control spermatogenesis. Overexpression of NF-κB proteins in primary Sertoli and NIH 3T3 fibroblast cells induced the CREB promoter in transient transfection assays. Stimulation of Sertoli cells with tumor necrosis factor-α, an NF-κB-activating cytokine produced by round spermatids located adjacent to Sertoli cells, stimulated the elimination of IκB, the translocation of additional NF-κB to the nucleus, and increased NF-κB binding to CREB promoter κB enhancer elements. Tumor necrosis factor-α also stimulated transcription from the CREB promoter. These data demonstrate that NF-κB contributes to the up-regulation of CREB expression in Sertoli cells and raises the possibility that NF-κB may induce other Sertoli genes required for spermatogenesis. Furthermore, the CREB promoter is also inducible by NF-κB in NIH 3T3 cells suggesting that NF-κB may be a general regulator of CREB in non-testis tissues.


Abstract In humanitarian actions, people respond to crisis and disaster situations in which victims are unable to recover on their own and in which their vulnerability puts them at further risk. Individuals involved in humanitarian work are driven by strong motivation which source can be identified using an ethics-based approach. Moral motivation is the basis for the commitment to the moral course of the human agent's action. Humanitarian ethics shows us it is important to renew the discussion on the role of moral motivation in ethical decision-making. Some of the moral sources of motivation will be critically examined in this study—namely, the partiality, the popularity of ethics, the value declaration, and moral motivation based on moral obligation (according to the ethics of social consequences).


Although a number of diverse edge detection techniques can be found in many image processing publications, there is no single detection method that performs well in every possible image context. Information that could be missed by one detector may be captured by another. The purpose of this paper is to describe a new framework which allows us to quantitatively combine the methods of different edge detection operators in order to yield improved results for edge detection in an image. The so called receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis is employed in a novel fashion to form an optimum edge map that matches the outcomes of a preselected set of edge detectors. The results of applying the above ROC analysis technique are demonstrated and compared with individual edge detection methods.


This paper describes the research design of a mixed method information and communicat ion technology for development (ICT4D) study using design science research (DSR) and case study research in the pragmatic tradition. The study participants are a group of women working as domestic workers in Johannesburg, South Africa and a selected group of organisations. The organisations are included to gain an understanding of their approach to information inclusivity and to evaluate the resulting artefact. The novelty of this study is the combination of DSR with ICT4D, the use of journals as a self-documentation technique to collect data, followed by a design thinking workshop and interviews. The problem that the study addresses is how should the information needs that are meaningful to women working as domestic workers, be effectively translated through the use of ICT in order to enhance their experience of the good life as defined by Sen's capability approach (1999) and to contribute to the success and social value of ICT4D projects.


The aim of the present paper is to investigate the behaviour of the kinematic viscosity, mean-square displacement and free volume of glycerol in order to theoretically and experimentally evaluate the fragility degree. Starting from the dependence of viscosity on temperature, the behaviour of the mean-square displacement and free volume of glycerol is analysed in order to point out the linear relationships between the logarithm of viscosity and the excess mean-square displacement and the excess free volume. As a conclusion, two fragility definitions, based on the observed links, are discussed.


Let k be a positive integer. Locally graded groups G for which one of the sets {γk(H)| H ≤ G} and {γk(H)| H ≤G, H infinite} is finite are classified.


This paper presents Always Encrypted, a recently released feature of Microsoft SQL Server that uses column granularity encryption to provide cryptographic data protection guarantees. Always Encrypted can be used to outsource database administration while keeping the data confidential from an administrator, including cloud operators. The first version of Always Encrypted was released in Azure SQL Database and as part of SQL Server 2016, and supported equality operations over deterministically encrypted columns. The second version, released as part of SQL Server 2019, uses an enclave running within a trusted execution environment to provide richer functionality that includes comparison and string pattern matching for an IND-CPA-secure (randomized) encryption scheme. We present the security, functionality, and design of Always Encrypted, and provide a performance evaluation using the TPC-C benchmark.


This research is a serious attempt to shed lights on the stereotyping Western perception of Islam and Muslims and the reflections of that on Islam-West relations. The researcher tackles the topic from different sides and dimensions covering the importance, objectives and methodology. The research also throws lights on Western Orientalist thoughts that draw a negative image of Islam and Arabism. It covers the fundamentalist idea in the context of the concept itself, the content and the reasons responsible for the rise of political Islam especially after the 1967 debacle and Iranian Revolution, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Accurate studies were conducted about the Western perception of Islamic fundamentalism and how these Western interpretations and comments developed to the extent of making phobia around Islam and Islamism especially after September 11 th , 2001.The importance of this research lies in rationally assessing the relationship between Islam and the West in three successive stages. In the first one, the Western Orietalism stereotyped Islam in a very defaming manner to the extent of equating it with backwardness and inability to develop. In the second stage, Islam was connected with fundamentalism and extremist thought, especially after the rise of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Islamists' bad intention to confront secular regimes in the Arab World. In the third stage, Islam turned to be a real fear, threat and phobia, in the time of Holy Jihad and "suicide bombing" and due to the direct confrontation with the US in Iraq and Afghanistan.


This paper first presents some facts about the cultural background of young Italian people, showing subsequently a selection of the well-established characters of spoken and written juvenile Italian. Then it moves over to discuss the technological situation of Italy, also presenting a choice of widely recognized peculiarities of the language of Italian Computer- Mediated Communication (CMC) and showing that many of them are linked to a juvenile linguistic background. The paper then discusses the influence that computers and computer- mediated knowledge might have on the juvenile cultural world, presenting also some opin- ions about these two types of language (juvenile language and CMC), considered by some as marginal or even dangerous for the "integrity" of the Italian language. Regarding this is- sue, the author states—recalling a well-established scientific tradition—thatthe most mature behavior would be to consider every variety of Italian—even the humblest—as equally rele- vant and linguistically interesting, although it is pivotal to use it in the right way and in the correct context.


Elastic depth trends are an integral component of reservoir characterization whether explicitly or implicitly constructed. Applications for seismic data include migration velocity model building, pore pressure prediction, inversion and AVO prospecting. In practice, workflows often involve fitting well logs with smooth curves, without reference to known lithology-dependent templates that could provide realistic constraints. We construct porosity-depth trends for shales and sandstones with reference to reliable measurements that span both mechanical compaction and chemical diagenesis domains. These porosity trends are then used as inputs to well-established rock physics models to estimate the median and bounding trends for acoustic and shear impedance. The resulting modeling has shown an important sensitivity to the pore pressure regime (notably in shales) and the onset of cementation (in sands), among other variables. AVO predictions made from these trends provide a useful reference frame for anomaly prediction with depth, which is critical in frontier exploration.


A method for preparation of 3-bromo-4-hydroxybenzaldehyde using p-hydroxybenzaldehyde as the raw material,H2O2/HBr as the bromination agent was developed.Under the optimum conditions including a ratio of n(p-HBA)∶n(H2O2)∶n(HBr)=1∶1.2∶1.8,a reaction temperature of 20 ℃,and a reaction time of 140 min,the product yield was up to 70.04%.The process is simple and convenient in operation and can cause less environmental pollution.


In 2000, world leaders adopted the United Nations Millennium Declaration in which they pledged to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the world's people earning less than a dollar a day, suffering from hunger and unable to obtain safe drinking water. This paper argues that meeting these targets will entail concerted efforts to raise economic productivity in the developing world and to redirect research and development (RD emerging trends in innovation systems; incentive measures for technological innovation; and how to make technology work for developing countries. The paper examines two categories of measures needed to promote the application of science and technology to development. The first includes measures adopted by developing countries themselves to promote scientific research and technological innovation as a key element in economic development policy. The second includes measures that can be adopted in the industrialised countries to contribute to solving problems in developing countries.


The factors affecting the extracting rhein from Rhubarb were investgated systematically. Taken rhein yeild as index, the effect of the concentration of sulfuric acid(A), liquid material ratio(B), extraction time(C), extraction temperature(D) on rhein yield were invesgated separately by single factor test. Orthogonal test were designed according to the single-factor test results. The factors affecting rhein yeild is in the order of extraction temperature, extraction time, concentration of sulfuric acid and liquid material ratio. The rhein was best extracted in 15% sulfuric acid, the liquid ratio of 5∶1, heated at 55 ℃for 2.5 h. The method is simple. Process conditions are optimized, which form the scientific and reasonable bases for developing the Purge active parts from Rhubarb.


Objective To compare the preservation effectiveness of Celsior and UW solution to liver donors in liver transplantation.Methods Sixty patients waiting for liver transplantation were chosen and divided into two groups randomly(Cel=30,UW=30).Donors in each group were perfused and stored in Celsior or UW solution respectively.On the aspects of age,gender,Child class,primary diseases and surgical technique,there were no significant differences between the two groups. Histological changes of grafts,donor function in the early postoperative period and the incidence of non-anastomotic biliary strictures three months after transplantation were compared.Results The graft cold ischemic time was(8.83±1.53)h in Celsior group and(9.08±1.85)h in UW group.No statistical differences were found between Celsior group and UW group in biochemical parameters in- cluding ALT,AST,γ-GT,serum total bilirubin,PT and bile production in the early postoperative period.The incidence of non-anastomotic biliary strictures was 6.7% in Celsior group and 13.3% in UW group (P0.05)respectively.Histological changes of donor biopsy before implantation and 30 min after reperfusion were similar in two groups.Conclusion Within the cold ischemic time considered,Celsior and UW solution are equal in effectiveness for clinical use in liver transplantation.


The scale and intensity of the fighting in Korea have been such as Americans have, before 1950, associated only with full-fledged war. How such a conflict could fail to develop into World War III they only dimly understand. They had assumed that in the twentieth century war, or at least wars involving great powers, had to be total. To the extent that this assumption is incorporated in the expectations of the ruling elite of either of two or more contending powers, it is likely to be true; to the extent that war is made an end in itself, is conceptually divorced from the political ends it in fact seeks to achieve, the organized violence of warring great powers must be not only totally organized, but totally applied, while the consequences go hang. The weapons and techniques of the last war when handled non-politically produced, therefore, as might have been anticipated, conditions singularly unpropitious to the realization of what were professed to have been the aims for which the war was fought.


The study was conducted in the environments of the School of Accounting
Sciences of the National University of Callao, whose aim was to
demonstrate the influence of the use of Geogebra software in learning Real
Functions students in the first cycle. It was a quasi 024experimenstatu| dy with
two groups (experimental group and control group), quantitative,
longitudinal and analytical with a population of 59 students enrolled in the
control group and 71 enrolled in the experimental group, who were applied
previously validated and reliable questionnaires according to trial of an
expert,


Due to rapid increase in international competitiveness in recent years, discussions about competitiveness at firm, industry and country level have become a current issue in literature of economics and politics. Many new approaches are put forward on determinants and measurement methods of competitiveness. However, the number and the content of these studies are not sufficient for a sectoral examination of competitiveness in different countries. Main aim of this study is to examine the competitiveness of Turkish manufacturing industry at European Union market at both country and industry levels by using the methodology developed by Balassa and Donges


To study the structural performance of resin mineral composites part with metal embedded, a series of finite element analysis for mechanical parts made of different materials such as cast iron, resin mineral composites (RMC), and metal embedded resin mineral composites (MRMC) are conducted respectively in this article. Different performances of these three kinds of materials are acquired by static and modal analysis. It is proved that mechanical part made of MRMC has advantages of static and dynamic performance, to meet the requirement of vibration reduction.


At present,problems exist in the cultural construction of some universities of science and technology: the construction is not scientific or systematic and is deficient in contents;the positioning of spiritual culture is inadequate;the cultivation of humanistic spirit in faculty is lacking;insufficient cultivation and dissemination of ecological culture and lacking immunity to harmful ideas in society.To solve these problems,universities should pay attention to the cultivation of university spirit,actively cultivate and disseminate ecological culture and reinforce the sense of responsibility of faculty and students in the construction of campus culture.


H2 matrices provide efficient representations for compressible kernels such as those encountered in low-frequency electromagnetic modeling applications. It has recently been observed that H2 matrices obtained using matrix sampling techniques can be rendered translationally invariant using an iterative procedure. For some applications the computational costs associated with the previously reported procedure are high. This presentation will report strategies to reduce these costs for the kernels encountered in low-frequency electromagnetic modeling applications.


This research paper builds on the analytical work conducted by the Doctoral Candidate, initiated on November 2021, during the International PhD Workshop between Polis and Ferrara Universities as well as based on his previous experience with Renewable Energy projects and Evaluation of Ecosystem Services conducted by the candidate under the "Green Lungs for Our Cities" project (link), supported by the EU Delegation in Albania. Given the climate and ecological disturbed balance in urban areas, future planning exercises shall be oriented towards climate neutral and decarbonized cities. Urban and territorial strategies nowadays seek to explore and determine the appropriate instruments for that Nature Based Solutions NBS and Ecosystem Based Solution EBS are enabled to decrease the deterioration of human impact on all the ecological networks.
Moreover the Sofia Declaration (Regional Cooperation Council, 2020), an instrument that factorizes the EU Green Deal for Western Balkans indicates precisely that one of 5 key development sectors should be Biodiversity preservation and joint management.
Ecological networks including here the hydrology, green areas, geography, climatic conditions, energy metabolisms, transport infrastructure and industrial interactions can coexist in harmony if they are extracted form the ideology of approaching them as separate networks within a linear approach. One can always affect the other therefore "Between them there is no contradiction, but only profound opposition: to be resolved projectually" (Dardi, 2009) .
Main objective of this research is to initially seek and determine an adequate relationship between ecosystem services provided by Green, Blue and Natural networks within the urban areas of Koder Marlekaj, Lezhe-Shengjin axis to further connecting them throughout a potential Ecological Corridor that would allow the terrestrial biodiversity of Kune-Vain-Tale protected area access high territory in cases of wildfire, flooding or other extreme-climatic events.
Such intervention will pose a new systemic approach towards problems and issues, which are caused mainly by a rigid and linear approach from nowadays Urban Planning and Decision- making practices at a local and national leve. The purpose of this research paper is threefold: (i) to verify the biodiversity preservation potential of a new ecological corridor between high- land and lagoon,
(ii) in terlink the mix of urban-energy-ecology nexus within a specific case study whereas ne urban planning tools,
(iii) propose relevant measures to increase the resilience of the Lezha-Shengjin territory with regard to Climate Change implications.


Basically, humans need a number of essentials to survive. One of that is food. It can generate physical growth, mental health and spiritual strength. In Islamic law, we are stresses on the important of aspect in taking foods from Halal sources and strictly avoid from haram sources. Every halal and haram foods will give an impact in developing Muslim's individual personality. This specificity was getting an intention and has been explained by the most of classical and the contemporary of Muslim scholars. This research focused on the contribution of Syeikh Muhammad Arshad b. Abdullah al-Banjari in Fiqh al-At'imah (Food) in the book of Sabil al-Muhtadin. He has discussed plenty of topics regarding to aquatic animals issue, the haram of amphibians animal, Istitobah (taste), the quarantine process


Liaojing, 9, authorized by Liaoning Provincial Variety Authorization Committee in 2003, is a new rice variety bred by Rice Institute of Liaoning. This variety gets great welcome from rice farmers for its high yield, good qualityl, idsease resistance, good integrated traits, large adaptability, etc. Liaojing 9's planting areas increased rapidly in 2004 and it has become a dominating varioety in Liaoning province. High yield cultivation methods based on the analysis of the high yield traits of Liaojing 9 were introduced.


Redundancy polygons and spots appeared in the classification result when using object-oriented approach to classify remote sensing images.To overcome the shortcoming,a texture-based segmentation approach was proposed.Firstly,pretreatment to original image was taken to obtain texture character image,which includes texture enhancement,principal component analysis,low pass and slice segmentation and so on.Secondly,taking the character image as single band to combine with other bands and obtain texture-enhanced image,and then carry out multi-scale segmentation and fuzzy classification.Two approaches were tried to extract the paddy field of Pukou district in Nanjing with SPOT image in September 2002.The result indicates that:compared to the original approach,the proposed approach improves the classification quality.It avoids the phenomenon of massive redundant polygons and many spots appearing in the classification image.As a result of fewer polygons,the difficulty of determining an accurate fuzzy interval is reduced and the classifying precision increased to a great certain.


Wet condition roads has been one of the contributing factor of accidents, this is especially critical for countries such as Malaysia that receives rain all year round. The decrease on friction resistance, increase possibility of hydroplaning and reduce of sight visibility due to splashing ultimately increases the hazard of road users. In order to mitigate this problem, porous asphalt was introduced in Malaysia. The term porous asphalt represents high amount of air voids or percentage of voids in total mix (VTM) which was designed to drain off excessive runoff from pavement surface during storm. However, the application of porous asphalt is not very popular in Malaysia due to its costly mixed necessary to achieve required water drainage at the expense of higher ratio of coarse aggregates and lower binder viscosity. Thus, Hydropave asphalt mixture is developed in this study to overcome the said problem by implementing an effective drainage on road pavement. This technique is achieved by categorizing rainfall depths into different zones and by proposing a suitable cross fall as well as required air voids content in asphalt mixtures. Based on the Malaysia annual rainfall data for year 2000 to 2009, three different zones were categorized ranging from high to low. In order to achieve the optimum efficiency in terms of performance and cost for Hydropave asphalt mixture, the recommended VTM and cross fall established is then assigned to each zone. Laboratory experiments which included rainfall simulation on hydropave mixture slabs at different design VTM was conducted to obtain the relationship of variables in this study. Five hyropave asphalt slabs were designed based on five different air voids at 10%, 15%, 20%, 25% and 30%. Results for high rainfall zone found that the VTM required were from 20% to 23% as recommended cross fall for a maximum of 6% to a minimum of 2.5% inclination respectively in order to sufficiently drainoff the surface runoff. During moderate rainfall intensity, the required air voids to eliminate water ponding condition was lower when compared to high rainfall intensity zone which was 18% to 20% with corresponding flow rate of 230.3 to 389.5 cm3/s when applied on minimal cross slope of 2.5%, while asphalt mixture slab containing lower percentage of air voids at 14% to 18% would be sufficient when cross slopes of 3.0% to 6.0% is allowed. For lowest rainfall intensity zone, results shown that asphalt mixtures with air voids contents ranging 14% to 18% has no water ponding condition with fulfilling minimal cross slope requirement at 2.5% during rainfall simulation test.


Types, compositions, and application of reinforced plastic grids in coal mines were described. Their flammability and toxic hazard indexes were evaluated.


Based on the workers'experiences and integrated with the technology used in site,the computer intellectual control program and technology have been adopted in process control of roasting and computer intellectual control scheme has been formulated with the aim of controlling roasting temperature,improving roasting quality and reducing gas consumption.


Within the past two years, since the autumn of 1950, scattered outbreaks of unknown etiologic polyradiculoneuritis, "Landry-Guillain-Barre's syndrome" occurred in these parts bordering the Inland Sea of Japan.I. During the summer of 1952, the neutralizing antibodies of 9 sera of patients with Landry-Guillain-Barre's syndrome and 10 sera of poliomyelitis patients (spinal form) were examined for the Lansing strain of poliomyelitis virus. Five sera of Landry-Guillain-Barre's syndrome were positive; 3 sera of them were equivocal; only one serum was negative. But in the cases of poliomyelitis only 2 sera were positive; all other sera were negative.On the other hand, the average age of Landry-Guillain-Barre's patients was 6 years and that of poliomyelitis patients was 2 years.Serum antibodies capable of neutralizing the Lansing type become more frequent with increasing age during childhood, and therefore, our results seem to be insufficient to show what relationship this type of virus bears to the etiology of Landry-Guillain-Barre's syndrome.II. During the summer of 1952, the hemagglutination inhibition antibodies of 8 Landry-Guillain-Barre sera and 5 poliomyelitis sera were examined on the hemagglutination of O-type human erythrocytes caused by New Castle disease virus.But in all tested sera hemagglutination inhibition antibodies were negative.Therefore it seems that there is no etiologic relationship between Landry-Guillain-Barre's syndrome and New Castle disease virus. (See page 27-31.)


The simple route of synthesizing gold nanoparticles via chemical reduction technique was implemented. The main focus of this study is to achieve enhanced properties of gold nanoparticles by regulating the process parameters of the synthesis. The correlation of the process parameters and resultant size of gold nanoparticles has been deliberated. The gold nanoparticles were reduced with monosodium glutamate (MSG) and further capped with chitosan to prevent agglomeration between particles. The samples were characterized with several characterization techniques. The TEM micrograph showed dispersed particles with narrow size distribution of capped gold nanoparticles with the most probable particles size distributed in the range of 16 to 18 nm. The most stable gold nanoparticles occurred after reduced with 100 mM of MSG and capped with 1g of chitosan where the SPR peaks were blue shifted as the concentration of reducing agent increases and decreasing pattern of FWHM was recorded. Gold nanoparticles capped with chitosan remain small in size after aged for 1 month compared to uncapped gold nanoparticles. Gold nanoparticles exhibit sharper absorbance peak at longer relaxation time. The Gibbs free energy (GFE) of
chitosan-capped gold nanoparticles reduced with 50 mM of MSG calculated as 12.22
KJ/mol and the equilibrium constant, Keq was computed to be 0.0219 mol L-1. The ability
of chitosan capped gold nanoparticles to uptake analytes was studied by employing
amorphous carbon nanotubes (α- CNT), copper oxide (Cu2O) and zinc sulphate (Zn SO4) as
the target materials. The absorption spectra showed dramatic peak intensity increased and
red shifted SPR peak once the analytes were added to the chitosan capped gold
nanoparticles.


A survey was conducted on the 2,556 patients who attempted suicide and were transported via ambulance during the period from 2003 to 2004 in 3 prefectures in the northern Tohoku area. The mean age of the patients was 47.2 (plus or minus) 19.1 years (49.3 (plus or minus) 17.8 for males and 44.8(plus or minus)20.3 for females). The most common method of suicide was by hanging (261 cases in Akita, 229 in Aomori, and 312 in Iwate), followed by overdosing and self harm by means of cutting or stabbing. Depression was the most common underlying mental disorder (116 cases in Akita, 95 in Aomori, and 91 in Iwate), followed by schizophrenia, neurosis, and psychogenic reaction. The method of suicide resulting in the highest death rate was by hanging (74.9% in Akita, 68.8% in Aomori, and 68.8% in Iwate). Public education and other actions in society at large are essential for the prevention of suicide. Considering the need for detecting a depressive state foreboding suicide attempts and also for preventing repeated attempts, both psychiatrists and primary physicians in the community should be proactively involved in the issue of suicide.


We report the results of the measurements of the performance parameters of the transversely excited atmospheric‐pressure (TEA) copper‐vapor laser (CVL). A specific laser energy density of 36 μJ/cm3 was achieved in an excited volume of 0.6×1×20 cm3. This corresponds to a specific power density of 3.6 kW/cm3 for a 10‐ns pulse. Because of the high buffer gas pressure that can be used in the TEA‐CVL, containment of the copper vapor in the heated zone can be maintained for an extended period, making a sealed system possible.


We measured XAFS spectra near the Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu and Zn K‐edges in Al2SiO5 polymorphs to reveal the local structure around these elements in the minerals. XANES spectra show that the valence of Fe and Cr is different depending on the crystal structure and formation environments. The spectra of kyanite, a high pressure mineral, shift to high energy side. The Fe–O bond length of kyanite determined by EXAFS data analyses is the shortest of all samples.


10062 Background: The impact of treatment intensity on QoL of osteosarcoma patients is becoming increasingly important to assess. At present, no studies reflect QoL of osteosarcoma patients at diagnosis prior to surgery. EURAMOS-1 is an international randomized controlled trial to improve outcomes in osteosarcoma therapy. Concurrent with treatment, QoL is assessed as a secondary outcome measure across all participating countries through four oncology groups (COG, COSS, EOI, and SSG). Methods: For serial QoL assessment comparable QoL tools are used depending on group practice and patients' age. Questionnaires are the EORTC QLQ-C30 (self-rating) for all patients aged >=16y and the PedsQL or PEDQOL for patients aged <16y (self- and proxy). QoL is assessed 5 ±1 week after start of chemotherapy (T1), 10 weeks post surgery, 72 weeks and 142 weeks after diagnosis, respectively. T1 data was used to reflect QoL at diagnosis and analyzed in respect to age / gender and the instruments used. Results: As of October 20...


The teaching of ceramics is a topic that has been much discussed in pedagogical discourse throughout the entire second half of the twentieth century and until today. The present study deals with the topic of third-level education in the field of ceramics at Palacký University Olomouc, Czech Republic. The incorporation of ceramics into the education of future art teachers in Olomouc was not always a matter of course as it is today. It underwent many changes during the second half of the twentieth century. Several personalities played an important role in the process of the gradual consolidation of its position in pedagogical education. The most important of these are presented in this study. It describes their main contribution to the field, deals with their attitudes to teaching ceramics, and above all analyses the interconnection of their own art or scientific research theoretical work with the content of teaching. The historical-methodological study connects its theme with historical socio-political events, as well as with the development of fine arts in the second half of the twentieth century. Thus, it contributes to the formation of a comprehensive picture of the topic "artists as art teachers" in the Europe-wide context.


The management of non-functional goals, or Service Level Agreements (SLA), in the development of business processes in a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) often requires much manual and error-prone effort by all parties throughout the entire lifecycle of the processes. The formal specification of SLAs into development tools can simplify some of this effort. In particular, the runtime provisioning and monitoring of processes can be achieved by an autonomic system that adapts to changing conditions to maintain the SLA's goals. SOA supports partitioning a system into services that are running in a distributed execution environment. When coupled with an associated cost model, a process can be both executed and monitored in an optimal manner, based on a declarative, user-specified optimality function.


Portable thermal imagers are being utilized with great success in many new and emerging applications, and the law enforcement field in particular is benefiting from thermal imagery. It is quickly becoming common practice for enforcement agencies to apply night-vision technology in such activities as search and rescue, surveillance and stakeout, and suspect pursuit. Thermal cameras, however, do not typically provide an intrinsic means for video recording or for visible imaging. Such capabilities could significantly expand and improve the uses of thermal imaging by law enforcement personnel. For example, surveying the scene of a crime or traffic accident with a thermal sensor offers potential for revealing and documenting clues that otherwise go unnoticed. This paper presents a system that integrates an IR micro-camera with a visible camcorder. The system can display and record live visible and thermal imagery and also capture single-frame snapshots on removable media. This paper also explores the utility of such an integrated camera in various law enforcement scenarios.


(75) Inventor Gordon J. Taylor, Hinckley. Ohio FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS 73) Assignee: Union Carbide Corporation, New 2004.855 4/1979 United Kingdom ............... 264/29.5 York, N.Y. 21 Appl. No.: 53,535 Primary Examiner-Michael W. Ball www. Attorney, Agent, or Firm--John R. Doherty 22 Filed: Jun. 29, 1979 51 Int. Cl. ......................... B29C 25/00; B29D 3/02 ABSTRACT 52 U.S. Cl. ................................... 264/295; 156/169; Carbon-carbon fiber composites suitable for use in air 156/184; 264/29.7; 264/108 craft brake discs are made by extruding an aqueous 58) Field of Search ..................... 264/108, 29.1, 29.5, gelled mixture containing chopped carbon fibers and a 264/29.3, 29.2, 29.4, 29.7, 103; 427/228; binder-thickening agent into the form of an elongated 156/175, 185, 184, 187, 181, 172, 169, 166,245, ribbon wherein the fibers are aligned in the direction of 89; 188/251 A; 423/447.2, 448; 428/367, 408; fluid flow. The ribbon is then arranged into a spiral 162/102, 152, 153, 156 configuration to form a flat disc shaped article with the 56 References Cited fibers oriented in the circumferential direction. The disc


Work is devoted new aspects of researches of monthly biological rhythms in clinic of such diseases as a stomach ulcer, a bronchial asthma, a rickets at children and infringements of brain blood circulation, and also unmotivated aggression of adults. The technique of chronoprognose and chrono preventive maintenance of these diseases and also a hypothesis about communication family biorythmical asynchronosis with changes in calcium metabolism is offered.


In wireless system design and planning, one has to deal with two main problems , coverage and capacity. Coverage designs include, among other parameters, the selection of the number of base station sites, locations, heights, antenna orientation , and transmit power required to provide service in a given geographic area. When the system is first deployed, the number of subscribers is low and the aim is to maximize the coverage area of each site. As the number of network users grows, the number of users per site and sector also grows. As more users are added to a sector, the base station transmit power as well as the total power transmitted by those users increases, which effectively increases the interference on both the forward and reverse links. The system then becomes capacity or interference limited. One of the most common ways to deal with this interference problem is sectorization. In base stations employing omnidirectional antennas, the transmit power is equally radiated in all directions. The equal distribution leads to a portion of the power being transmitted throughout the cell but not received by the user. This wasted power then becomes forward link interference to other base stations or users in other cells. Similarly, each new user added to a cell increases the interference and noise levels on the reverse link. This results in a reduction in the signal to noise ratio, which in turn degrades the performance of the detection and demodulation operations. One way to reduce interference is to divide the cell 83


Some causes effects and possible policy responses for 3 international air pollution issues--stratospheric ozone changes acid rain and increased carbon dioxide--are basically the same yet they do vary in geographic extent and in other details. Fuel burning of the supersonic transport aircraft and release of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) cause reduction and vertical redistribution of stratospheric ozone. Fossil fuel burning and other activities which release oxides of nitrogen and of sulfur cause acid rain. Fossil fuel burning and some land use practices contribute to rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leading to global warming. Development of an ozone policy involves issues of scientific validity value judgments and regulatory control. A key potential action to counter acid rain is distribution of a buffering material in those areas that tend to receive acid rain called liming. Other options to control acid rain deposition are quite expensive which included scrubbing or washing coal switching power plants to low sulfur coal and limiting nitrogen oxide emissions from vehicles. Since the effect of increased carbon dioxide is a global problem any efforts to control carbon dioxide releases may depend on a hierarchy of individual business national and international policy responses. Mitigation adaptation and prevention are basic responses to these atmospheric problems. Mitigation strategies involve controlling consequences of emissions and not the emissions themselves. 1 suggested mitigation strategy is pumping carbon dioxide from industrial plants into the deep ocean. Adaptation requires humans to adjust to the changes such as applying effective ultraviolet blocking chemicals to our skin. Preventive strategies are those that control harmful emissions e.g. some countries have already taken some action to minimize ozone depletion by placing restrictions on CFC use. Institutions must work toward a consensus on physical biological and social aspects of atmospheric pollution.


During the early stages of conceptual design, the ability to predict reliability is very limited. Without a prototype to test in a lab environment or field data, component failure rates and system reliability performance are usually unknown. A popular method for early reliability prediction is to develop a computer model for the system. However, most of these models are extremely specific to an individual system or industry. In this paper, a generic simulation model is presented for predicting system reliability without knowing the exact failure rate for the components in the system. The simulation model estimates mission reliability, average time to failure for the system and average mission cost. The estimates are based on the number of series subsystems and active or stand-by components for each mini subsystem, known component failure rates, triangular distribution parameters for components with unknown failure rates, mission length and component and mission costs. The result is a tool that engineers can use to predict system reliability performance early in the system design process.


In recent years, riparian buffers have become known as one of the most effective best management practices for nonpoint-source pollution. However, establishment of riparian buffer systems with respect to plant species and their position in the buffer zone has not been investigated due to lack of efficient evaluation methods for the analysis of water quality improvement with established riparian buffers. To solve this problem, the SWAT-REMM prototype version was developed by researchers in Canada. In the SWAT-REMM prototype version, many riparian-related input parameters are not directly read from the local input data. Thus, a SWAT-REMM enhancement was developed by improving three major limitations of the prototype version of SWAT-REMM: (1) riparian buffers at designated reaches in the watersheds, (2) riparian buffers using local soil properties at the riparian buffer zone along reaches, and (3) multiple weather stations in a larger-scale watershed. The enhanced SWAT-REMM version was applied to the Bonggok watershed in Korea. This study investigated riparian buffers with different widths (10 m, 5 m, and 1 m) along the slope. Total nitrogen reduction ranged from 14.8% to 54.0% in each catchment for 10 m widths. Total nitrogen reduction ranged from 6.9% to 31.6% in each catchment for 1 m widths. The reduction efficiency was not simply proportional to the width of buffers. This study evaluated the enhanced SWAT-REMM simulation of water quality improvement. Based on this research, the enhanced SWAT-REMM can be used to evaluate water quality improvement by riparian buffers at various watersheds worldwide using local data. In particular, simulation of riparian buffers at user-designated reaches in a watershed enables simulation of riparian buffers in watersheds experiencing frequent flooding where no riparian buffers can be established. It is expected that the enhanced SWAT-REMM can be used to determine economical and environmentally optimum riparian buffer scenarios.


The main aim of this bachelor thesis is to analyze the marketing mix of services. The first part is focused on theoretical interpretation of basic expressions of marketing services and hotel marketing. The second part is focused on analysis of marketing tools of marketing mix of services. Based on executed analysis there are stated recommendations to improve tools of marketing mix of services.


Satellite mobile communications always require LOS environments. If the LOS path is obstructed, the signal strength can be much lower than the SNR threshold for normal communication, so a coming call will not reach the user. In this case, an enhanced paging is needed to tell the user to move out of the shadow to receive the call. In this paper, a enhanced paging design is proposed for LTE-based satellite mobile communications. Basic design issues are discussed, including the information to transmit, the resource allocation for in LTE framework, techniques for reliable transmissions and energy saving for un-targeted uses. Two implementation schemes of the enhanced paging are simulated to show the performance improvement relative to the normal paging in LTE systems.


Aiming at the impossibility of social selection, Amartyasen offered a solution by extending information. By way of practice, the expanding exchanges of information can increase the rational knowledge, improve the identity of value, effectively reduce the differences and realize social selection. With a case study of the change of premise of an auto-parts market in the Northeast of China, the present paper makes a distinction between linear extension and community extension in the specific social selecting process. The writer then discusses the effects of these two different ways, and makes an exploration of the social selecting behavior and results in the field.


Objective To explore feasibility and practicality of application of improved central venous catheter in drainage in obstruction of biliary tract in carcinoma of head of pancreas,provid a salvage therapy for patients with financial straits or tumor cause can impossiblely accept putting biliary tract bracket.Methods Use ultralong central venous catheter with poly-lateral aperture we make on to replace pigtail-like catheter as long-term biliary tract internal and external drainage.Results Eight patients with biliary tract in carcinoma of head of pancreas were successfully putin improved central venous catheter to the asceding part of dodecadactylon,external drainages are all easy and smooth.4 cases(completely internal drainage)only used internal drainage,1 case jaundice appears again three months after internal drainage,and jaundice disappear after changing to external drainage,3 cases always used internal and external drainage,all cases follow up to life terminal bouton,survival time range 18 months to 3 months,median survival time was 6.3 months.Conclusion Improved central venous catheter can be used as material in drainage in obstruction of biliary tract in carcinoma of head of pancreas,and as a salvage therapy for patients can impossiblely accept putting biliary tract bracket.


It has long been believed that the patients with thyrotoxic hypokalemic periodic paralysis (THPP) may harbor genetic mutations commonly found in familial hypokalemic periodic paralysis. Despite extensive testing, such a mutation has escaped detection until now.


The base station communicates with the mobile station data related to the packet switched session in which the mobile station is involved. Depending on the handover request from the mobile station, the base station accesses the information provided for the mobile station, the mobile station determines whether the subject of mobility limitations. Based on the accessed information, the base station determines whether to permit a handover of the mobile station. When the base station decides that the requested handover is not allowed, a message indicating that the handover request is not allowed is transmitted to the mobile station.


This paper presents a new tool for SystemVerilog RTL modifications with on-the-fly validation of local RTL changes. The tool, SV-rewrite, imports an initial version of SystemVerilog RTL and elaborates it into a hierarchical design description visualized as structural diagrams. From the design cockpit the user can select any set of visualized components, open a favorite text editor, modify then validate the new RTL description, and finally substitute this new rewritten RTL into the larger model to replace the originally selected components. This process of local validated rewrites can be repeated until the entire RTL is safely rewritten. We studied RTL abstraction using SV-rewrite to abstract the Pentium 80602 (P54CS) integer execution unit and register file. We have produced a significantly more readable RTL that is 2 to 3 times smaller than the original one. The abstracted RTL was validated by booting Linux on an FPGA-based emulation platform.


In need of preparing Beijiao, Mumian and Shuixiang STATCOM first-stage projects in China Southern Power Grid in 2013 for operation, we studied the effect of STATCOM on power system, and established a model of the STATCOM in the RTDS real-time simulation system to analyze the influences of multi-STATCOM on voltage recovery and(U) HVDC power fault recovery. The results show that the system operating with multi-STATCOM greatly improves in the bus voltage recovery of inverter stations, decreasing the commutation failure duration under serious failure, and improves the DC power recovery. The improvement is obvious for some fault conditions such as circuit breaker rejection fault, but quite limited for commutation failure conditions at the fault moments.


Background: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the correlations between the nutritional status, nutritional habits, and physical activity in the representative population of 18-year-old students. Methods: A total of 1,631 participants aged 18 years, originating from secondary schools/senior high schools in the city of Bialystok, Szpitalna, Bialystok, Poland were enrolled. Participants completed anonymous questionnaires, and their body mass index was assessed. Data were analyzed using standard statistical procedures with Statistical PL 12.0. Results: The analysis showed that consumption of only one to two or three meals was associated with an increased risk of overweight and obesity—in case of one or two meals among girls, OR=1.78 (P<0.05), in case of one or two meals among boys, OR=2.325 (P<0.01), and in case of three meals, OR=1.771 (P<0.05). First breakfast was consumed by 82.1% of boys with normal BMI and 73.1% overweight and obesity (OR=0.593; P<0.05). 24.5% of the eutrophic compared to only 20.3% of adolescents with elevated BMI reported attending all PE classes. Physical activity undertaken after school was associated with a 35.9% decrease risk of overweight and obesity among girls and 57.7% among boys. Conclusion: A specific pattern of nutritional habits, that is, decreased meal frequency in adolescents, skipping meals, appear the most frequent nutritional mistakes associated with overweight and obesity. Insufficient physical activity and exposure to sedentary behaviors among adolescents are disturbing. The obesity problem requires monitoring, prevention and the change of nutritional habits and physical activity early in childhood.


Almost 3000 women who had breast augmentation surgery done privately with implants made by the discredited French manufacturer Poly Implant Prosthese (PIP) have been seen by the NHS, more than a third have been investigated, and a small group of women have already had the implants removed, figures from the Department of Health for England show.

The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons estimates that the NHS has already spent hundreds of thousands of pounds seeing and treating private patients who had come forward, who represent only a small proportion of the number of women who have received these implants privately. The association has accused private clinics of failing in their "moral obligation" and "ethical duty" to treat patients.

The health department figures show that 2860 women who had their implant surgery done privately have been referred to NHS specialists by their GPs. More than 1100 of these women have undergone scans, 67 women have decided to have their PIP implants removed, and 12 of these procedures have been carried out so far.

But these figures could escalate substantially because only …


Magnesium batteries, like lithium-ion batteries, with higher abundance and similar efficiency, have drawn great interest to large-scale applications such as electric vehicles, grid energy storage etc. On the other hand, the use of organic electrode materials allows high energy-performance, metal-free, environmentally friendly, versatile, lightweight, and economic-efficient magnesium storage devices. In particular, the structural diversity and the simple activity of organic molecules make redox properties and hence battery efficiency easy to monitor. While organic magnesium batteries still in their infancy, this field become more and more promising because significant results were reported in this field. To summarize the achievements in studies on organic cathodes for magnesium systems, we discuss the molecular development, and the combination with electrode design provides the basis for controlling the electrochemical properties. Moreover, the techniques to synthesize organic materials with high-yield are mentioned. Finally, potential problems and prospects are explored to further improve organic cathodes.


The first three chapters of this book deal with the earlier part of Sertorius' life. His career from his birth in Nursia (a town famous for turnips S(pann) tells us) until his final departure for Spain is here sketched. His childhood is skilfully evoked and the difficulties facing the novus homo are clearly brought out. I doubt, however, if Sertorius' defeat at the tribunician elections took place in 89. The next year seems more probable because it was precisely then that Sulla had a motive for acting as he did. In the military sphere, S. seems to be unaware that Sertorius' spying mission for Marius in the Cimbric war may have been part of an overall plan conceived by that general with a view to winning some of the tribes to his side. Nor, so far as I know, was there any insurgent relief force at Asculum in November 89. On a more general note, I confess to some unease at S.'s adherence to the 'faction-thesis' of Roman history. Was there ever such a thing as the Metellan factiol If there was, then I think it requires a more elaborate defence than S. gives it here. Again I wonder how many people would accept that the Roman high command in the Social war was organised along factional lines? S. seems to have yielded to an obvious temptation: where the sources are thin recourse is had to prosopography because it appears to offer a supplement to our knowledge.