In order to investigate the characteristics of arsenic(As) in indoor and outdoor air in the coal-burning pollution arseniasis area in the south of Shaanxi province,total air As concentrations were observed by sampling with total suspended particulate matter samplers. Meanwhile,As concentrations in different particle sizes were observed by sampling with Andersen ambient particle sizing samplers.Then,the relationship between air As concentrations and As content in burned coal and distribution of air As in different particle sizes were analyzed.The results showed that the total As contents in both indoor and outdoor air correlated significantly and positively with the As content in the burned coal((R=)0.80 and R=0.97,respectively,P0.01).High As concentration in indoor air appeared three hours after adding coal into stoves,with a positive correlation between air As and dust contents(R = 0.74,P 0.05).In addition,As concentration in indoor air was found to closely relate to house construction structure.In comparison with civil structure,masonry structure can prevent As diffusion among different rooms.Differences in As concentrations between indoor air in different rooms,between different locations outside,or between indoor and outdoor air appeared mainly when particle sizes were less than 2.1 μm.Weather conditions showed little effect on distribution of As concentration against particle sizes.


Facial expression transfer from a single image is a challenging task and has drawn sustained attention in the fields of computer vision and computer graphics. Recently, generative adversarial nets (GANs) have provided a new approach to facial expression transfer from a single image toward target facial expressions. However, it is still difficult to obtain a sequence of smoothly changed facial expressions. We present a novel GAN‐based method for generating emotional facial expression animations given a single image and several facial landmarks for the in‐between stages. In particular, landmarks of other subjects are incorporated into a GAN model to control the generated facial expression from a latent space. With the trained model, high‐quality face images and a smoothly changed facial expression sequence can be effectively obtained, which are showed qualitatively and quantitatively in our experiments on the Multi‐PIE and CK+ data sets.


Research on individual and team creativity in organizations puts a premium on understanding the factors influencing creativity at work. There is growing evidence showing that a better understanding of creativity can be achieved by simultaneously considering the influence of both individual differences and the context in which the individual is embedded. To advance this body of literature, this symposium consists of four papers that use the interactionist perspective to investigate personal and team characteristics and context as antecedents to a variety of creativity-related outcomes (e.g., individual creativity, team creativity, incremental creativity, and radical creativity. These studies are conducted using different research methods in a number of diverse settings, including a multi-wave field study in the food manufacturing industry, teams of University employees engaged in a gingerbread house building competition, lab studies evaluating lone and collaborative creator narratives, and qualitative fiel...


The present invention relates to a compounding method of rehabilitation powder for treating aregenerative anemia and its process. It is made from Chinese herbal medicines, Chinese patent medicines and animal medicines, and can be made into a powder preparation to be taken being infused in boiling water and various pills through dispensing, mixed compounding, drying and packaging, and has functions of reinforcing the kidney, moistening the lung, nourishing vital energy and supplementing blood and regulating hematopoietic function. In particular, it has obvious therapeutic effect for anematopoiesis and aregenerative anemia.


An infrared heterodyne radiometer with a spectral resolution of 0.04 reciprocal centimeters has been used to remotely detect samples of ozone, sulfur dioxide, ammonia, and ethylene at room temperature, and samples of nitric oxide at 390K. Each gas was observed in a background of nitrogen or oxygen at atmospheric pressure. Sensitivities to some of these gases are adequate for detection of ambient concentrations as low as a few parts per billion.


In this chapter a finite capacity single server Markovian queuing system with reneging and retention of reneged customers is considered. It is envisaged that a reneging customer may be convinced to stay for his service if some customer retention mechanism is employed. Thus, there is a probability that a reneging customer may be retained. Steady-state balance equations of the model are derived using Markov chain theory. The steady-state probabilities of system size are obtained explicitly by using iterative method. The performance measures like expected system size, expected rate of reneging, and expected rate of retention are obtained. The effect of probability of retaining a reneging customer on the performance measures is studied. The economic analysis of the model is performed by developing a cost model. The optimum service rate and optimum system capacity are obtained using classical optimization and pattern search techniques. The optimization carried out helps to identify the optimum customer retention strategy from among many.


This study was designed to explore new antibacterial agent(s) from the defatted methanol and water extracts of Ficus capensis. The extracts were obtained using various solvents, namely, cyclohexane, dichloromethane, methanol, and water by serial exhaustive extraction, after which both extracts were challenged with pure clinical isolates of Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Staphylococcus aureus, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Burkolderia cepacia viz-a-viz standard antibiotics of chloramphenicol, gentamicin, and amoxicillin at 25 μg/ml, 50 μg/ml, and 100 μg/ml concentrations using spectrophotometric method. Using the zone of inhibition as an inhibitory parameter, both extracts of F. capensis showed promising antimicrobial activity in a concentration-dependent manner comparable to the standard antibiotics for all tested microorganisms. This research holds promise for the exploration of various potentially active secondary metabolites which would help in developing pharmaceuticals, especially antibacterial drugs, for combating common microbial infections. This validates the use of the plant leaves in the treatment of broad-spectrum microbial infections in ethnomedicine.


The utility model discloses a full-automatic terminal crimping machine comprising a rack and a working table. The working table is provided with a rotatable rotary table. The rotary table is provided with a pair of wire feeding wheels. A wire cutting and stripping mechanism is arranged in front of the pair of wire feeding wheels. The right side of the wire cutting and stripping mechanism is provided with a wire twisting mechanism. The left side of the wire cutting and stripping mechanism is provided with a waterproof plug wearing mechanism. The left side of the waterproof plug wearing mechanism is provided with a stamping mechanism. A wire stripping and clamping mechanical arm is arranged in front of the wire cutting and stripping mechanism. A waterproof plug wearing wire clamping mechanical arm is arranged in front of the waterproof plug wearing mechanism. A stamping wire clamping mechanical arm is arranged in front of the stamping mechanism. The working table is further provided with a first transfer mechanical arm and a second transfer mechanical arm. The full-automatic terminal crimping machine of the utility model has the following advantages that by adopting the structure, the cable machining automation can be realized, and the production efficiency can be greatly improved.


Family planning is the ability of couples and individuals to plan the number and spacing of their children, [1]. Many young people need contraceptives to delay pregnancy. Ideally, young women and men should wait until at least 18 years or have finished studies and are ready before having children, [2]. An institution-based cross-sectional descriptive study was done to an assessment of family planning methods knowledge, attitudes, and practices among Kordofan University students, Sudan, (Jun 2017 to Jan 2018). A simple random sampling (SRS) technique was implemented. This is the most basic scheme of random sampling and the sample size taken was (376). Data were collected using structured questionnaires. Data were entered and analyzed using the Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) version (26.0) and Microsoft Excel software. The findings showed that nearly all (95%) undergraduate students had heard about family planning. nearly all (97.1%) of undergraduate students have a misconception about contraceptives, of them (58%) female and (39.1%) males; (X2= 7.274, p-value = 0.007). Only (8.5%) of students had sexual intercourse before marriage, (62.5%) of students who had a history of sexual intercourse used contraceptives. There was a significant correlation relationship between undergraduates' practices and gender; (P-value = 0.000). There was a significant correlation relationship between undergraduates' knowledge of family planning methods and gender. (X2= 12.846, P-value = 0.000). This study recommended that encouraging the students to the uptake of FBMs services through educational programs should be done among students.


Human performance and supervisory control strategies were examined using the RoboFlag simulation environment. In an emulation of a multiple unmanned vehicle mission, a single operator supervised a team of six robots using automated modes or "plays" as well as manual control. Simplified form of a delegation type interface, Playbook, was used. Effects on user performance of two factors, opponent "posture" (offensive, defensive, or mixed) and environmental uncertainty (visual range of the robots: low, medium, or high), were examined in 18 participants who completed five mission trials in each of the nine combinations of these factors. Objective performance measures and subjective assessments of mental workload and situation awareness were obtained from each participant. Opponent posture had a significant effect on the percent of missions successfully completed and the duration of the games. Both opponent posture and visual range also significantly affected the use of manual and automated control strategies. Operator strategy selection and implementation are discussed with regard to performance data and the design of supervisory control interfaces that support flexible task delegation.


Guilin has its characteristics with earlier historical origin, earlier cultural development, more and higher quality of culture and has become one of the first national famous cities approved by the State Council with its history and culture in South China. In the development of China changing her politics into economy construction in modern society, Guilin won bright tourism for its famous water and mountains. Thus, Guilin has been formed an idea-realizing of tourist development from human being. The developing Guilin tourism experiences a gradually-cleared process from landscape tour to tourist industry of recognizing urban historical and cultural resource. This article conclusions in an all-round way that Guilin has its success and failure in the 30-year tourism projects with its history and culture, forms a Guilin history and culture system matching with its famous city and greets the new high tide of Guilin tourism developing in an all-round way.


In this paper, we give an alternative proof to the global existence result, which is originally owing to the pioneering work of Klainerman and Christodoulou, for the Cauchy problem of quasilinear wave equations with null condition in three space dimensions. The proof can display the following three features simultaneously: the Lorentz boost operator is not employed in the generalized energy estimates; the generalized energy of the solution will be always small, which was first observed by Alinhac; and the initial data are not assumed to have a compact support. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Abstract Exposure to violence and fear of violence in relation to hopefulness and anger were investigated for 30 teenage Black girls 14 to 19 years of age. Information from focus groups was included to provide a context for the empirical data. Results indicated that overall the girls were hopeful, with a mean score of 135 (SD = 18.2) out of a possible score of 168. Correlation and regression procedures revealed a statistically significant negative relationship between hopefulness and exposure to violence. No significant relationship was found between anger and hopefulness. Fear of violence was positively related to exposure to violence but did not appear related to anger or hopefulness. The findings were mixed and did not capture the kind of hopelessness and anger which often appear in the literature describing children growing up in urban environments. Through the use of focus groups the teenage girls provided contextual information which seemed to indicate that many of them shared the values of mainstre...


Being familiar with all the benefits of e-Health and the strategic plan for the Slovenian health sector's informatization, Telekom Slovenia and the Faculty of Medicine from the University of Maribor, along with other partners, have initiated an e-Health project. The project group is developing various e-Health services that are based on modern ICT (information and communications technology) solutions and will be available on several screens. In order to meet the users' needs and expectations and, consequently, achieve the high acceptance of e-Health services, the user-centered design (UCD) approach was employed in the e-Health project. However, during the research it was found that conventional UCD methods are not completely appropriate for older adults: the target population of the e-Health services. That is why the selected UCD methods were modified and adapted for older adults. The modified UCD methods used in the research study are presented in this paper. Using the results of the adapted UCD methods, a prototype for a service named MedReminder was developed. The prototype was evaluated by a group of 12 study participants. The study participants evaluated the MedReminder service as acceptable with a good potential for a high adoption rate among its target population, i.e., older adults.


We treat natural language documents as we treat strongly-typed functional programming languages by introducing semantic categories as types. We use axioms to define primitive semantic categories and inference rules to capture the meaningful relationships among the primitive semantic categories. Primitive categories are nodes of a sense type decision tree. Axioms and inference rules are used to construct compound categories, validate category hypotheses, and eliminate ambiguities. The same categorization is obtained when this approach is applied to a text in a given natural language or to its translation into another language if a one-to-one mapping can be defined between the axioms and inference rules associated to the initial language and the axioms and inference rules associated to the other language.


Objective To verify and assess ARCHITECT Toxo IgG Avidity Reagent kit.Methods Ten human IgG antibodies positive serum and national reference serum for IgG against Toxoplasma were used for the evaluation on three batches of kits and controls by chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay method,their coincidence rate,precision and accelerated stability were calculated.Results The coincidence rate of the kit was 100%,coefficient variation (CV) of precision was less than or equal to 14%.In accelerated stability test,coincidence rate and precision were no change.Conclusion ARCHITECT Toxo IgG Avidity Reagent kit shows good performance in coincidence rate,precision and accelerated stability test.It can be used for clinical detection.

Key words:
Toxoplasma gondii;  Avidity;  Chemiluminescent microparticle immunoassay


This paper represents a design and implementation of a digital control of variable frequency interleaved DC-DC converter using a digital signal processor (DSP). The digital PWM generation, current and voltage sensing, user interface and the new period and pulse width value calculation with DSP STM32F407VGT6 are considered. Typically, the multiphase interleaved DC - DC converters require a current control loop in each phase to avoid imbalanced current between phases. This increases system costs and control complexity. In this paper the converter which operates in discontinuous conduction mode is designed in order to reduce costs and remove the current control loop in each phase. High current ripples associated with this mode operation are then alleviated by interleaving. Pulse width modulation (PWM) is one of the most conventional modulation techniques for switching DC - DC converters. It compares the error signal with the sawtooth wave to generate the control pulse. This paper shows how six PWM signals phase-shifted by 60 degrees can be generated from calculated values. To ensure that the measured values do not contain disturbances and in order to improve the system stability the digital signal is filtered. The analog to digital converter's (ADC) sampling time must not coincide with the power transistor's switching time, therefore the sampling time must be calculated correctly as well. Digital control of the DC-DC converter makes it easy and quickly to configure. It is possible for this device to communicate with other devices in a simple way, to realize data input by using buttons and keyboard, and to display information on LED, LCD displays, etc.


Objective To probe the effect of laser treatment on ischemic type of center retinal vein occlusion.Methods Ischemic type of center retinal vein occlusion in 102 eyes treated with American COHERENT Krypton laser panretinal photocoagulation in ocular clinic of our hospital,were analysed clinically and retropectively.Results Ischemic type of central retinal vein occlusion,visual acuity were improved in 73 eyes efficiently(71.56%);20 eyes were improved(19.60%);visual acuity in 9 eyes was not changed(8.84%)because of vitreous hemorrhage,secondary glaucoma or complicated cataract.Conclusions The panretial photocoagulation appears to be the first choice for ischemic type of central retinal vein occlusion.The eartly photocogulation is,the betther the effect is.Their apeutic positio and vollume of laser burn is of extreme importance in success of laser panretinal phtotocoagulation.


The rapid solidification microstructures of FeSn alloys at deep undercooling were studied by using 3 m drop tube facility. The results show that the disperse microstructures of coupled growth of two phases are obtained in hypomonotectic, monotectic and hypermonotectic alloys under deep undercooling condition. It indicates that there is a monotectic coupled growth zone in monotectic phase diagram at deep undercooling condition, which is similar to that in eutectic phase diagram. Snrich liquid phase forms and grows firstly in hypermonotectic alloy, which grows in way of spinodal. The Fe solution forms firstly in hypomonotectic alloys, which grows in way of nucleation and growth. The absolute stable monophase microstructure with planar interface was obtained at first time in Fe26.2%Sn hypomonotectic alloy with the real distributive coefficient of solute, kV, is close to 1. It is calculated that the critical undercooling of the alloy in growth way of absolute stable planar interface is 588K and its growth velocity is 38m/s. The critical undercooling is 0.4 times of the melt temperature of the alloy.


Reaction of TiCl4 or TiBr4 with a variety of cyclic ethers gives, predominantly, products resulting from simple ring-opening or from ring-opening with simultaneous condensation to dimeric species. The variations in yields of these two kinds of products might be correlated qualitatively with an initial formation of the complex TiX4·2E (X = Cl or Br; E = cyclic ether) in which the ethers were held in a cis or trans relationship. Although such a correlation might suggest that TiCl4 but not TiBr4 exerts a template effect on the condensation, stereochemical considerations of the reaction products indicate otherwise. TiCl3 and VCl3 do not give similar results and TiF4 gives no reaction.


Tourism can serve as a vehicle for sustainable community development by contributing to equity and social justice. This happens as tourists learn about marginal groups through educational tourism, engage in development projects with host-area residents, undertake pilgrimages that bring greater meaning and cohesiveness to an ethnic identity, or encounter stories that transform their view of social injustice and spur further action to reduce inequities. Tourism planning can produce a sense of reconciliation when it brings historically divided groups together. An example is found in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi, where a group of white and African American residents are collaborating to develop tourism projects designed around a narrative of reconciliation, while they use the process of tourism planning to work towards racial reconciliation within their community. This case illustrates strategies tourism planners employ and challenges they face when they envision tourism as more than merely a means of economic growth.


This paper deals with the computability of sequences of reals and sequences of functions within the framework of Grzegorczyk's hierarchy, which is in the Number 1 of the addendum to open problems in [4]. We combine the two concepts, computability of sequences of real valued functions and Grzegorczyk's hierarchy of recursive number theoretic functions, together, and examine the computability on real valued functions restricted to primitive recursion and below. Related approaches taken in the literature are the study of primitively recursive reals and real valued functions, and the study of polynomial time computable functions. The notions of (e r ) primitive computability for sequences of reals and real valued functions are introduced; relations between (e r ) primitive computabilities of sequences of reals and sequences of real valued functions are mathematically proved; some basic properties are studied.


F. oxysporum f.sp. cucumarimum Owen is the important soil-borne diseases of ground vegetables. In the present paper, antifungal activities against Fusarium oxysporum of six kinds of plants were studied by using methods of mycelia growth inhibition. The results showed that the bacteriostatic effects of different extracts were different. And the antifungal activities of garlic extracts was the strongest, then that of the following plant extracts were Albizzia julibrissin, chinaberry, sweet-scented osmanthus, onion, cactus. The concentration of plant extracts was higher, then the inhibition was higher.


A developing embryo, consisting initially of identical cells, transforms itself into a spatially organized structure made of distinct tissues with clear boundaries. This process, known as pattern formation, is studied in the eld of developmental biology. Cell interaction plays a key role in pattern formation, and the community e ect is an example of such an interaction. A population of cells in an embryo is said to exhibit a community e ect when they form a cell community with a common identity by virtue of exchanging di usible signalling molecules (morphogens). This e ect helps the cell community to maintain a common gene expression pro le over an extended period of time, and to eventually di erentiate co-ordinately into a functional tissue, such as muscle. Self-organizing processes like community e ects are di cult to understand intuitively. Instead, a satisfactory description can be given in the form of a formal model. Several computational models of community e ects were given in the literature. However, the concept of space was not explicitly included in these models, making it di cult to understand how community e ects participate in pattern formation. In this work, we study the behaviour of a community e ect in space and investigate its roles in other pattern formation processes, using computational modelling. Main contributions of this thesis are the following: * A model reduction method is developed for stochastic analysis, and using it we have shown how the model of the community e ect in Xenopus is in uenced by stochastic noise. * Using the simplest possible spatial community e ect model, we show that the community e ect must eventually spread across the entire population of cells which respond to the morphogen. This is con rmed in a more detailed model. ˆ* Two models demonstrating how this expansion can be controlled are presented. First, if the community e ect is augmented with a negative feedback mechanism, it forms a reaction-di usion system which self-organizes and forms a stable, localized area of activation. Second, when a simple cross-repression gene circuitry is combined with a community e ect loop, a gene expression pattern with a well-demarcated boundary appears in response to a transient morphogen gradient. The pattern remains stable even after the gradient disappears, which shows that the gene network has the memory of morphogen dynamics.


Mixed deuterium–nitrogen ion-driven permeation experiments through tungsten were performed as a function of temperature (600 < T < 1000 K). The influence of nitrogen resulted in a strong increase in the permeation flux at T < 900 K with decreasing temperature. An order of magnitude increase was observed at T = 650 K. A simple transport model was used to determine order of magnitude estimates of the nitrogen-induced changes to deuterium surface recombination coefficient and diffusivity.


Objective:To explore the significane of changes in the quantity of platelet α-granule menbrane protein-140(GMP-140) in patients with rheumatoid arthritis(RA).Methods:The quantity of platelet GMP-140 in plasma were detected by ELISA in 42 cases of RA and 15 normal controls. The blood platelet count(BPC) and erythrocyte sedimentation rate(ESR) were measure too.Results:The quantity of plasma platelet GMP-140 (58 32±8 18ug/L, n=24) in active RA group was significantly higher than that in remissive RA group (17 18±2 58ug/L, n=18) and normal controls (15.74±2.33ug/L,n=15), (P0 001 and 0 001). There was no significancy difference between remissive RA group and normal controls (P0 05). The level of plasma platelet GMP-140 in 15 cases of active RA was obsered before or after treatment. After treatment, the plasma platelet GMP-140 had obviously reduced. There was a correlation between a level of plasma platelet GMP-140 and BPC(r=0.797, P0 01), and also acorretation between a level of plasma platelet GNP-140 and ESR(r=0 459,P0 05).Conclusion:The patients of RA had not only changes of platelet quantify, but also platelet activation.There was correlation between paltelet activation and activty of disease,and may be a second change.In clinic,the treatment of RA is key the preventing platelet activation and thrombosis formation.


The triangulations of a surface Σ with a prescribed set of vertices can be endowed with a graph structure F(Σ). Its edges connect two triangulations that differ by a single arc. It is known that, when Σ is a convex polygon or a topological surface, the subgraph Fε(Σ) induced in F(Σ) by the triangulations that contain a given arc ε is strongly convex in the sense that all the geodesic paths between two such triangulations remain in that subgraph. Here, we provide a related result that involves a triangle instead of an arc, in the case when Σ is a convex polygon. We show that, when the three edges of a triangle τ appear in (possibly distinct) triangulations along a geodesic path, τ must belong to a triangulation in that path. More generally, we prove that certain 3-dimensional triangulations related to the geodesics in F(Σ) are flag when Σ is a convex polygon with flat vertices, and provide two consequences. The first is that Fε(Σ) is not always strongly convex when Σ is a convex polygon with either two flat vertices or two punctures. The second is that the number of arc crossings between two triangulations of a topological surface Σ does not allow to approximate their distance in F(Σ) by a factor of less than 3/2.


The combination of new airframes with electric and hybrid-electric propulsion is a potential solution to decarbonize aviation. In this context, recent studies have proven that the box-wing airframe, if integrated on a hybrid-electric aircraft belonging to the regional category, can provide significant reductions in fuel consumption. In light of these promising results, this paper aims to present a broader comparison between the box-wing aircraft and the conventional tube-and-wing aircraft, in the context of regional hybrid-electric air transport. An economic analysis is assessed, and the effects deriving from the box-wing introduction, in terms of direct operating costs, are quantitatively evaluated by applying cost models that consider the integration of hybrid-electric propulsion. In parallel, a comparative analysis of greenhouse emissions is proposed, considering both flight- and production-related emissions. The environmental, economic, and operating improvements that the introduction of the box-wing configuration may provide in the context of future regional hybrid-electric aviation are critically detailed. In this regard, the proposed results show that a box-wing hybrid-electric aircraft can reduce cost and emission without affecting compliance with current airport aprons. Finally, a general summary is presented, providing a solution that represents a practical, incremental, and technological step in the path of commercial aviation decarbonization.


This article begins with an introduction to the concepts and terminology frequently used in the literature of assessment, especially as it applies to the assessment of information literacy by academic librarians. The article then describes the benefits and drawbacks of various techniques used to assess information literacy, with the recommendation that a comprehensive assessment plan must include multiple forms of assessment to balance the drawbacks of individual techniques. After a discussion of information literacy efforts Azusa Pacific University, the author offers advice to librarians just beginning the process of developing an information literacy assessment plan.


Although most aortic surgery is now routinely performed without any complication, major venous anomalies, which are rarely encountered in patients undergoing aortic surgery, can cause unexpected bleeding. Unexpected venous injuries complicate the operation for aortic surgery if no attention is given in preoperative imaging. Here we present a patient who has inferior vena cava lying anteriorly and an abdominal aortic aneurysm. We recommend the routine use of CT scanning for preoperative work-up to avoid risk in unexpected bleeding during abdominal aortic surgery.


Methods are provided for inhibiting cell death or inflammation in a mammal concurrent with or after the onset of a condition expected to lead to cell death or inflammation. The methods each include the step of administering to a mammal a Bcl protein in an amount sufficient to inhibit cell death or inflammation in the mammal. Methods are also provided for identifying a Bcl protein that inhibits cell death or inflammation when administered to a mammal concurrent with or after the onset of a condition expected to lead to cell death or inflammation.


Efficient and reliable computer control of different autonomous vehicles has become one of the high priority tasks of global technological development. So far, research of Autonomous Surface Vessels (ASVs) has been 4-6 times less intensive compared research of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) but interest in research of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) but interest in watercraft modelling has shown an accelerating trend in recent methodology of a realistic and practical mathematical model of catamaran catamaran ASV "Nymo" of 200 kg weight class developed in Tallinn University of Technology. Applicability of vessel model is maneuvers where ASV is controlled by a PID controller. The maneuvers where ASV is controlled by a PID controller. The coefficients are discussed.


The model fungus Podospora anserina exhibits Crippled Growth (CG), a cell degeneration process linked to the spreading of a prion‐like hereditary element. Previous work has shown that the PaMpk1 MAP kinase and the PaNox1 NADPH oxidase are key player in setting up CG. Here, we identified PDC1, a new gene that negatively regulates the PaMpk1 pathway, by identifying the gene mutated in the PDC2205 mutant. This mutant exhibits strong CG in conditions where the wild‐type does not. PDC1 encodes a small protein conserved in other Pezizomycotina. The protein contains four evolutionary‐conserved cysteines, a tryptophan and a histidine; all six amino‐acid are essential for function. PDC1 is located in the cytosol and is present in lower amounts in stationary hyphae in accordance with its role as a repressor. Epistasis analyses place PDC1 between PaMpk1 and PaNox1.


Turin baroque palaces, at the end of the seventeenth century, develop a new type of representative hall with a single covering: a vaulted space, masonry structured, whose radiocentric star-shaped matrix evolves and changes, over a period of less than a century, in double axial orthogonal schemes, particularly through the work of Plantery. Star-shaped and planterian vaults are generated by a wide mail vault, that cover the entire hall, combined, through intersections and cuts, with secondary radiocentric vaults (in star-shaped vaults) or axial and angular vaults (in planterian vaults). The study of treatises and manuals bring out interesting considerations on formal conception and construction techniques of these vauls that are reflected in 3D digital modeling and survey


A detailed analytical investigation of the circular ferrite circulator is provided in this paper. The ferrite is assumed to be radially inhomogeneous as a result of an azimuthally invariant demagnetization field. The cavity model of Bosma and the stratified ferrite model of Krowne and Neidert are used to construct a compact recursive Green's function in terms of wave impedances and azimuthal modes. The Green's function logarithmic singularity is treated separately and extracted to improve the convergence characteristics of the modal series. The impedance parameters of the circulator are obtained via an integration of the Green's function and its singular term; to obtain the scattering parameters, various matrix manipulations of the impedance parameters are invoked. Data are provided and compared with independent sources to demonstrate the veracity of the Green's function approach. Finally, a circulator design is offered using the Green's function method and scattering-parameter data associated with that design are compared with data from a three-dimensional finite-element electromagnetic simulation of a microstrip circulator. The correlation between both data sets further supports the validity of the inhomogeneous cavity model and the Green's function approach.


306 Background: Pancreatobiliary tract cancers are the most aggressive of human cancers. Histone deacetylase (HDAC) is well known to be associated with tumori-genesis through epigenetic regulation, and its inhibitors (HDACIs) induce differentiation and apoptosis of tumor cells. We are conducting a clinical trial of combination therapy using valproic acid (VPA, a HDACI) and S-1, that is an oral fluoropyrimidine derivative consisting of 5-fluorouracil. Methods: Patients with advanced pancreatobiliary tract cancers were eligible for this clinical trial. The 12 patients, in whom a curative operation was not feasible, were enrolled in this study. Patients received S-1 orally at 80 mg/m2 total daily dose on days 1 to 28, followed by a 14 day recovery period. They also received VPA orally at 15 mg/m2 total daily dose, twice daily. Results: One patient had partial response (PR); ten patients were recorded as stable disease (SD); and one patient showed progressive disease (PD). Eight patients had clinically signif...


The cooperation of static electromagnetic attractive force and spring force characteristics is important to ensure the electromagnetic relay can operate reliably. In order to resolve problems in the traditional testing methods of electromagnetic relay's static attractive force and spring force characteristics, a new test method based on a cantilever force sensor and a beeline raster displacement sensor was presented. Through analyzing some type managetic latching relay, the selecting method for the force sensor and displacement sensor was given.


Electronic medical record and telephone triage systems should be updated to reflect the unique risks of immune-related side effects faced by patients undergoing cancer immunotherapies.


TNF signals through two distinct receptors, designated TNFR1 and TNFR2, which initiate diverse cellular effects that include cell survival, activation, differentiation, and proliferation and cell death. These cellular responses can promote immunological and inflammatory responses that eradicate infectious agents, but can also lead to local tissue injury at sites of infection and harmful systemic effects. Defining the molecular mechanisms involved in TNF responses, the effects of natural and experimental genetic diversity in TNF signalling and the effects of therapeutic blockade of TNF has increased our understanding of the key role that TNF plays in infectious disease. Copyright © 2013 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Aim of the paper is to analyze the issues and challenges faced by the transportation sector under supply chain. Optimization of the distance and reduction of transportation cost is one of the major challenge for the Retail Industries. The experiment aims at analyzing the minimum distance required for transporting the products from one or more warehouse to number of costumers. Experiment is based on the execution of Travelling salesman problem (TSP) using branch and bound and dynamic algorithms. Cost and time complexity are analyzed for varied number of costumers. This paper also predicts the Transportation cost using Regression Algorithm, which helps Retail sector to predict the cost incurred for logistics. Also Hypothesis for multiple regression coefficients are conducted to determine statistical evidence is sufficient for given parameters.


Through more than ten years development,the technology and equipments of railway hump automation are perfected progressively in china and bring about immense progress for railway shunting operation.On the base of synthetic testing of system operation for more than ten automation hump constructed newly and renovated recently years in china, this paper analyses the operation effect of hump automation and problems reflected through testing, renovating and development direction of automation hump are explored.


This paper describes the agents which Ri-one developed for RoboCup Rescue Simulation (RCRS) in 2012. RCRS is one of the multi-agent systems to sim- ulate disaster reliefs. RCRS generates models of humans, buildings, roads, commu- nications, re and blockades, and reproduce virtually. The agents which we have to develop are called Ambulance Team Agent, Fire Brigade Agent and Police Force Agent. They have skills to use in rescue works. Therefore, we have to deal with the virtual situation by developing agents implemented ecient logic and algorithms. The main idea of our rescue agents is determining priorities to entities. These agents act according to the priorities. The information for determining priority is given as the visual eld from server, and the agents share with other agents using communication through the voice and the radio. The information which the agents having is managed as consolidated model called World Model. We must develop the World Model to make agents more ecient. Most of our changes in this year are related to the World Model. The rst is the graph structure composed of lines and joining to calculate route. It also makes possible to reduce blockades that Police Forces clean. The second is partitions of the areas. It is used to generate ecient positions for Fire brigades. The third is a rough estimate of inuence res. This paper describes these and the application of these models to each our agent.


International Law — Relation to Municipal Law — Incorporation of Treaty into Municipal Statute — Whether Text of Treaty may be Consulted in Interpreting Statute. Treaties — Interpretation of — Bilingual Treaties. Treaties — Interpretation of — Principles of — Convention Incorporated in Municipal Statute — Whether then to be Interpreted in Light of English Law — Whether Original Text of Convention may be Consulted — Hague Rules on Carriage of Goods by Sea — Carriage of Goods by Sea Act, 1924.


Introduction Allergic Disorders Contact Dermatitis The Photodermatoses Disorders of Keratinization Pigmentary Disorders Papulosquamous Disorders Bullous Eruptions Chromosomal Disorders and Developmental Defects The Genodermatoses The Phakomatoses Genetic and Degenerative Connective Tissue Disorders Connective Tissue Diseases Blood Vessels Disorders Vasculitis and Necrobiotic Disorders Granulomatous Diseases Diseases of Metabolism Endocrine Disorders Epidermal Skin Tumors Soft-Tissue Tumors Hematologic Disorders Joint Diseases Diseases of the Gastrointestinal Tract Miscellaneous Systemic Diseases Diseases of the Hair Bacterial Infections Chlamydial Infections Rickettsial Infections Viral Infections Fungal Infections Parasitic Infections Diseases Caused by Arthropods and Other Noxious Agents Nutritional Disorders Appendix: Nomenclature and Glossary Suggested Readings Subject Index


The invention relates to a device (10) torsional damping with first torsion damping means which comprise a radial phasing washer (38) and two guide washers (20A, 20B) of the elastic members (36); the damping device being provided with second torsion damping means which comprise two pendulum weights (54A, 54B) which are mounted oscillating on a support member (56) which is integral in rotation with the washer phasing (38) ; characterized in that the support member (56) is offset axially with respect to the guide washers (20A, 20B) so that the two pendulum weights (54A, 54B) are offset axially from the same side of the guide washers ( 20A, 20B).


In our current Social media (SM) driven environment, it has become vital for start-up businesses to get acquainted with social networks in order to support the growth of their business. SM use has arguably become a key factor for nearly all start-ups and young enterprises growth and success (Matyka, 2012, p. 5).
However, some start-ups have chosen not to use SM for their business activities and have managed to grow without it. This is considered particularly strange in the current digital era where SM is considered an obligatory technology to be capitalised. Therefore, an investigation of their perceptions and attitudes towards SM are assessed and their main contributors towards their success are identified.
This study explores whether SM can influence start-up businesses and what its significance might be for their business activities. Furthermore, the study investigates what factors make a start-up business successful and how SM can contribute to those start-up activities. A literature review and ten interviews examine how some start-ups in Portsmouth are using SM and what benefits and drawbacks they have experienced. Finally, a summary of whether SM is a prerequisite for start-up success is revealed and what the main contributors to their success are.


Tagged by the resistance to Rif.(300 g/mL) and inoculated by seed dipping, leaf daubing and root watering, the endophytic bacteria BS_1 and BS_2 strains, isolated from Capsicum annuum leaf and stem respectively, had been proved that they could live in many plants, such as capsicum, tomato, eggplant, cabbage, cucumber, muskmelon, watermelon, loofah goard etc., and BS_2 also colonized in rice, wheat, and cowpea. The two strains were identified as Bacillus subtilis subsp. endophyticus based on the basic properties tests, Biolog analysis and their 16S rRNA sequences phylogenetic relation.


Compaction characteristics of granular materials subjected to axial loading are investigated for both sphere and non-sphere granular assemblies. The computational study is based on the discrete element method (DEM). The compressive stress–strain relation obtained from three-dimensional DEM simulations is compared with that of an idealized two-dimensional plane-strain compression test and physical experiments using a bronze sphere assembly. We observed good agreement between the experimental and three-dimensional DEM simulation results, while two-dimensional simulations significantly underestimate the stiffness of particulate bed, particularly at large strains. This demonstrates that two-dimensional analysis is generally inadequate to model the compaction characteristics of granular systems. We performed a detailed analysis on the force–transmission characteristics of granular materials at microscopic level and present a connection between the directional orientation of force-networks and the invariants of the macroscopic stress tensor: the non-sphere systems were able to build up a strongly anisotropic network of heavily loaded contacts. Several complex phenomena, both geometric and kinematic, that are operative in sphere and non-sphere assemblies due to inter-particle interactions during compression are presented here. It is often assumed that the ratio of invariants of the stress tensor is uniform and constant in uni-axial compression tests. Our results show that the ratio of invariants of the stress tensor is non-uniform and non-constant even when the granular assemblies are subjected to the so-called uni-axial compressive loading, which is in agreement with other recent studies (e.g. Gu et al 2001 Int. J. Plasticity 17 147) performed using the finite element method. The non-homogeneous characteristics that are reported at the particulate scale need to be accounted in considering possible continuum models for the granular systems.


What is the actual practice of school people who perform the functions of a general supervisor? This question is the subject of much theoretical writing and educational discussion at the present time. Any system of instruction can be no better than its guidance. The activities of those who direct or guide the everyday instructional procedure of the schools can be made more effective if a body of comparative knowledge can be collected concerning the actual procedure of such school officers. The study here reported was made with a view to securing a body of such material from a number of supervisors actually at work in the schools. The specific questions which this study attempts to answer are: What is the status of general supervisors of grade work in city schools? What are the activities of such supervisors? The general supervisor is differentiated from the superintendent of schools. No data have been secured from persons known as superintendents. This may not be altogether just, as many superintendents are real supervisors in effect. The effort, however, has been to make a study of the general supervisor who works under the direction of the superintendent. For the purposes of this report, the general supervisor is one who directs the teaching activities in the common branches-reading, language, spelling, arithmetic, etc. Supervisors of the so-called "special subjects," such as music, art, manual training, and home economics, are not included. The questionnaire method was used. The form of the questionnaire, which is here reproduced, was determined after conferences with a few supervisors. Space was left for the insertion of additional activities by the persons checking.


Paper is devoted to development of structural and rheological model for investigation of peculiarities of deformation and fracture of metal-ceramic composites in the framework of movable cellular automaton method (one of the representatives of discrete element methods in computational mechanics). Developed model takes into account main features of internal structure of metalceramic composites, such as wide size distribution of reinforcing ceramic inclusions, presence of wide transition zones between inclusions and metallic binder, etc. Using this model influence of width of interphase boundaries on the strength, the value of the ultimate strain and fracture energy of metal-ceramic composites was theoretically investigated. It is shown that the formation in the material of relatively wide interphase boundaries, characterized by a smooth change of the mechanical properties during the transition from the surface of ceramic inclusions into the volume of the binder, can significantly improve the mechanical properties (strength and fracture energy) of the metal-ceramic composite. This effect is connected with a significant decrease in stress gradient on the wide interphase boundaries. © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Department of Structural Engineering.


A precision camera system was designed and constructed for use with the Lick 92-cm refractor telescope on various astrometric investigations. The camera equipment features photoelectric guiding, and it accepts photographic plates of dimensions up to 20- by 25.4-cm size. Key words: astrometry - astrometric camera - photoelectric guidance


The war site of the Battle of Maling is focused on the course of war,and whether Wei ever passed Waihuang town,overran Qi and annexed Ju state,and how Pang Juan died in the narrow pass,and which state did Tan and Ju state belong to before the year 341 BC,and the illogical absence of generals of Qi recorded in history texts from the war,and Prince Shen and his troop annihilated,etc.The writer is hereby to strategically analyze these disputes about the site of war,from the perspective of the attempt and aim of war,the course of war,the tactics of Sun Tzu and Sun Bin and the strategic application of geographical and tactical terrain,hemce the conclusion can be made that the war site of Mading is in Tan County.


This paper discussed the use of Visual Basic in automatically developing survey programs.Based on the experience of the authors,the methods and techniques of communications between com-puter and Total-Station,automatic measurement,the creating and using of Dynamic Link Libraries,the design of interface with database,database-creatating,the change of data styles,etc,are detailed in this paper.


Thin films of nickel sulfide (NiS 1.03 , NiS 2 ,α-Ni 7 S 6 , or mixtures thereof) and palladium sulfide (PdS, Pd 16 S 7 , Pd 4 S, or mixtures thereof) have been prepared by aerosol-assisted (AA)CVD using dithiocarbamate precursors of the type M(S 2 CNRR') 2 (M = Ni, Pd; RR' = Et 2 , MeEt, Me n Bu, or Me n Hex). The solid-state structure of Ni(S 2 CNMe n Bu) 2 , was determined by X-ray single-crystal diffraction and is characteristic of known nickel dithiocarbamates. Films were grown on glass substrates at temperatures of 400-525 °C and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive analysis of X-rays (EDAX), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM).


A real-time continuous speech recognition system based on the Inmos transputer is developed. The recognition algorithm is described in detail, and the hardware architecture of the system (which incorporates the AT&T DSP32-C and Inmos T800 transputers) is also described. The implementation of the hidden Markov model recognition algorithm in parallel form is presented. The system has been built using readily available hardware, and it operates using an IBM-PC host, providing real-time speaker-dependent recognition for aircraft movement and spreadsheet control applications.<<ETX>>


Current relational crises in the global village and the damaging treatment of Mother Earth challenge religious educators to be leaders who will not shrink back from the responsibility of helping to create a better world. There is an intensifying call for these educators to carry out vocations that contribute to a sustainable communal and earth environment in which peace, love, justice, reconciliation, and the care of the environment reside. Religious educators are called on to dare to lead in ways that also kindle similar leadership in others. This address invites religious educators into a self-reflection process on their identity and vocation and proposes practices of hopefilled leadership that center on a quest for a better world.


Recovery concepts have always run through the fabric of the addiction profession, the members of its workforce, and the services they provide, albeit with varying strength over time. The addiction profession, founded by individuals in recovery, laid the groundwork to provide addiction services within a recovery orientation.


An analysis of the electric family car's performance, its potential for introduction into the automobile market, and an evaluation of the economic suitability of electric car sharing have been conducted. Two options, car purchase and car sharing, are compared using the operating cost/km. The work forecasts the car fleet's trend from 2001-2020 for the city of Palermo and analyzes the known data from 1985-2000. The vehicle fleet's internal turnover was simulated using a comprehensive model. This research evaluated the environmental pollution's decrease as determined by the introduction of electric cars in urban mobility. A simulation was created to estimate the reduction of polluting emissions taking into consideration 2 different market penetration rate's scenarios (high and low).


Subject
 Composition and agenda of a likely unity government.

 Significance
 De facto opposition leader Benny Gantz on March 26 agreed to enter a coalition with incumbent Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The government, terms for which have yet to be finalised, would end the political deadlock that three back-to-back elections failed to break. Although the prospective coalition will enjoy a Knesset majority of at least 75 seats, it will also cover a wide and awkward ideological spectrum.

 Impacts
 Netanyahu will remain the dominant figure on the political scene for another 18 months, if not beyond.
 Equal division of portfolios between Blue and White and religious-right parties will mean a more moderate government than the previous one.
 Gantz's decision has split his party and leaves the centre-left weaker and more divided than ever.
 The new coalition will address issues that have been put on hold during the extended interregnum and restore normal government functioning.


Abstract A space–finite element method (STFEM) for elastoplastic dynamic analysis is proposed in this paper. A weak form of the governing equation which corresponds to the conservation of impulse-momentum (the shock-momentum equation) is established, based on which STFEM equations are derived. A family of linear temporal shape functions is studied, which for linear elasticity, the ensuing STFEM algorithm is equivalent to the Newmark algorithm with γ=0·5. Rate-dependent plasticity is incorporated into the model. As a numerical example, a cantilever beam under shock loading is analyzed. The results show that the propagation of shock waves is drastically slowed down by the presence of plasticity. Also, because the plastic deformation tends to be localized in the vicinity of the impact, a full transient analysis is essential, in order to accurately determine the locations of the plastic hinges.


InN is a promising semiconductor material because of its wide energy band gap (2 eV). This characteristic makes the material, in concert with analogous group III metal nitrides, suitable for the production of electromagnetic sources and detectors tuned to cover the visible part of the optical spectrum. In order to make the appropriate electronic devices thin films of InN of good quality material have to be produced. This is so far the issue preventing the utilization of this material for device applications. Several techniques of film deposition have been and continue to be investigated in order to obtain device quality material. Among them, reactive magnetron sputtering offers to be a promising deposition technique. Crystalline films produced by reactive magnetron sputtering and other deposition techniques exhibit columnar microstructure. The structure consists of a network of low density material or voids that surrounds an array of parallel rod-shaped columnar regions of higher density. The formation of those columns are known to depend on the deposition parameters. Among them are the nature of the substrate [1], the rate of deposition [2], the pressure and composition of the gas phase [3], the film thickness and the ratio between the substrate temperature Ts and the film material melting point Tm [4,5]. The presence of microscopic voids within the grains contributes to the degradation of the surface flatness and to the formation of surface porosity [6].


To enhance the utility of meta-analysis as an integrative tool for marketing research, heteroscedastic MLE (HMLE), a maximum-likelihood-based estimation procedure, is proposed as a method that overcomes heteroscedasticity, a problem known to impair OLS estimates and threaten the validity of meta-analytic findings. The results of a Monté Carlo simulation experiment reveal that, under a wide range of heteroscedastic conditions, HMLE is more efficient and powerful than OLS and achieves these performance advantages without inflating type I error. Further, the relative performance of HMLE increases as heteroscedasticity becomes more severe. An empirical analysis of a meta-analytic dataset in marketing confirmed and extended these findings by illustrating how the enhanced efficiency and power of HMLE improve the ability to detect moderator variables and by demonstrating how the theoretical generalizations emerging from a meta-analysis are affected by the choice of the analytic procedure.


The subject of this paper is an analysis of the educational structure of the efficient population in the Republic of Macedonia, analysis of the educational structure of the employed and the unemployed according to their totality and gender, as well as according to their educational level. After determination of the current conditions and the changes during the observed period (2002-2012) the relation between the education of the workforce and the economic development of the country is presented. The goal of this paper is to give comprehensive analysis of the current situation and the changes in the educational structure of the workforce in the Republic of Macedonia, and to percieve its importance for the economic development. A questionnaire for the workforce for the period of 2002, 2006 and 2012 form the State Statistical Office of the Republic of Macedonia as well as home and foreign literature are used as sources of information.


A study was conducted on three dairy and one swine farms to determine the labor, equipment and energy requirements of manure handling from collection through land application of liquid dairy and swine manure management systems using above-ground steel storage. Time-motion studies were conducted on manure scraping and collection at dairy facilities with open lot and free stall enclosed barn arrangements. Slurry agitation and removal activities were also observed using the standard agitation pump systems in the steel storage and either a 12.4 m3 (3,300 gal) liquid tank wagon with injectors or a sprinkler irrigation system. Frequency of manure collection and transfer into storage was dependent upon weather conditions, manure volume and moisture of the manure on the open lot facilities. For the three dairies, manure collection activities were more costly than removal activities with 55 to 77% of the operating costs due to energy and labor. For both collection and removal, labor was the greatest expense. Between 58 to 75% of the total fuel usage of all manure system activities was required for manure removal with agitation requiring more fuel than hauling and land application. Distance to the application site was the most important variable in manure removal and a major influence on both time requirements and costs.


This volume of ten chapters, 20 figures, and 34 tables includes directions on how to plan and carry out a scientifically valid preliminary survey when an environmentally related health problem is suspected. A relatively complete questionnaire and instructions for use in a descriptive epidemiologic study are included. The author's thesis is that any educated lay person can, with careful planning, develop a core group of like-minded concerned persons to carry out a scientifically valuable preliminary study to determine if a problem exists. If the data from the survey confirm their suspicion, then having pertinent, high-quality data to use in requesting and supporting the need for additional analytic studies or some remedial action can and should make their concerns and requests more believable and forceful. The book also provides background information about and examples of the causes of disease in a variety of tables and figures included in both the text


The susceptibility of rat molar teeth to the development of carious lesions under proper experimental conditions of diet' and presence of oral floral2 is an accepted fact. It has been shown that fracture by mastication' is not necessary for the production of carious lesions in the enamel.4' Anticaries agents can be administered in the food or water or can be applied topically with a swab or brush. To test systemic anticaries effects, agents have been injected intraperitoneally or subcutaneously. Application of materials by the method of stomach tubing is a technique that has also been used. All these methods have certain advantages and certain drawbacks and care must be used in interpreting the results.6 Comprehensive reviews have been written on the early work concerning the relation of fluorine compounds to dental caries experience in man7 and animals.6' 7 The effect of administering a wide spectrum of caries inhibiting agents by a variety of methods has recently been reviewed by Shaw.8 9 The objectives of this paper are as follows: (1) to determine the anticaries effectiveness of stannous chloride, sodium fluoride, and stannous fluoride; (2) to compare the above compounds by the administration in the drinking water and by application topically; (3) to determine the effect of frequency of application of anticaries agents; and (4) to relate the caries incidence in the first, second, and third molars to systemic versus topical effects of tin and fluoride salts.


The endogenous border formation model of Alesina and Spolaore (1997) has received a lot of attention in the economics community. In a nutshell, one of its central messages is that in a democratic world in equilibrium there is an inefficiently large number of nation states. This result, however, is obtained under very specific assumptions like a uniform population distribution and no population mobility. In this paper, I generalize the AS model allowing for population distributions other than the uniform distribution. Since this generalization is accompanied by forfeiting the tractability in closed form, I calculate the equilibria by means of numerical computation. It shows that the above-mentioned result is highly sensitive to the choice of population distribution and that the model shows four different regimes depending on the chosen distribution. The behaviour implied by the AS model with uniform population distribution is rather the exception than the rule.


The microstructure and mechanical properties of 1Cr17Ni1 ferrite-martensite dual-phase stainless steel with different Si-Al content were investigated by OM,SEM,resistivity test and unidirectional tensile test.The results show that a small amount of Si(1%) can improve the strength dramatically due to the role of solution strengthening.However the strength of the stainless steel decreases notably when the amount of Si increases to 2%,the temperature of ferrite-martensite dual-phase increases and the room-temperature microstructure is single phase ferrite at 1000℃ for 1h cooling in oil.The tensile strength of 1%Al alloy sample reduces a lot due to the decrease of martensite content and the inconspicuous solution strengthening effect.Si-Al alloy steel has excellent plasticity and low strength compared with Si alloy or Al alloy steel.The room-temperature resistivity increases with the increase of total amount of Si and Al.The resistivity is increased by 62.3% when adding 2%Si.


The invention discloses a method for extracting vanadium from vanadium-containing ore by an oxidation acid-leaching wet method. In the method, a vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) product is produced from vanadium ore by the processes of crushing, ball-milling and screening, adding an oxidant for performing oxidation acid-leaching, performing deep oxidation by using sodium chlorate, performing ion exchange, performing vanadium precipitation, calcining and the like. In the method for producing the V2O5, the leaching rate of the vanadium reaches over 96 percent, the recovery rate is over 80 percent, and the leaching rate of the vanadium is improved by 15 to 30 percent compared with a conventional vanadium extraction process. By the method, an ore roasting process is saved; environmental pollution caused by gases such as Cl2 and HCl is eliminated; a process flow is simplified; the production cost is reduced; and the recovery rate of the vanadium is greatly improved.


An evaluation of the optimum method of planting along with «Well-Bloom», a growth regulator containing triacontanol, on lemongrass var. OD-19 was under-taken at the Aromatic and Medicinal Plants Research Station, Odakkali, Kerala during 1988-89. Transplanting slips/seedlings gave significantly higher herb yield. However, the growth regulator did not show any significant effect on the oil yield and oil quality


SECTIONING HARD WOODY TISSUES In preparing hard or refractory woods for sectioning it has been customary to soften in hydrofluoric acid and imbed in either celloidin or gelatin, the latter process being favored in the sectioning of partly disorganized material. In connection with certain anatomical problems, a method of imbedding in paraffin after the demineralization of the woody tissues by means of hydrofluoric acid has been developed, and has proved most successful in dealing with either hard woody tissues or non-homogeneous objects, possessing both soft delicate tissues and hard dignified structures. More uniform results are assured with this method, and it is also possible thus to secure an unbroken series of sections without the tedious and complicated process involved in the celloidin method. PREPARATION OF MATERIAL.-The woody material is first cut into blocks of a convenient size for sectioning. In the case of hard stems and roots a fine sharp hacksaw should be used to prevent the tearing or jamming of the tissues in the vicinity of the cut surfaces. More delicate material, such as small roots, seedlings, herbaceous stems, etc., may be cut into smaller portions by means of a sharp knife, preferably a Gillette razor blade. If the material to be examined is dead and dry, it should be repeatedly boiled in water and cooled to remove all air from the tissues, as in the celloidin method. If living, it should be well fixed in some suitable reagent. A mixture of formalin, alcohol, and glacial acetic acid has proven satisfactory for most anatomical work: 50 per cent alcohol, ioo cc.; formalin (commercial), 6 cc.; glacial acetic acid, 3 cc. Fix 24-48 hours and rinse thoroughly in running water. DEMINERALIZATION.-The blocks of material thus prepared are ready for the next step in the process, which is the demineralization and general softening of the dignified structures of the stem by means of hydrofluoric acid. The blocks are transferred directly from water to either 50 per cent aqueous solution of commercial hydrofluoric acid or hydrofluoric acid full strength. The strength of the acid and the length of time in the reagent depend, of course, upon the nature of the material. Cubes of very hard woods of a comparatively homogeneous structure, such as the oak, require 3-4 weeks in 50 per cent hydrofluoric


Title of dissertation: Using Domain-Specific Information in Image Processing Brianna R. Cash, Doctor of Philosophy, 2014 Dissertation directed by: Professor Dianne O'Leary Department of Computer Science & Institute for Advanced Computer Studies With the increasing availability of high resolution imaging tools, even in our pockets (i.e. smartphones), everyday users can do far more than simply digitally capturing a family moment. The ease of new applications available in these portable forms, linked with users who have expert knowledge about the images and tasks, opens the door to new possibilities. With this in mind we propose two new approaches that utilize the user's knowledge for improved results. We apply these approaches to real life problems in medical and scientific image applications. In the first approach, we introduce a class of linear and nonlinear methods which we call Domain-Specific Grayscale (DSGS) methods. A DSGS method transforms a color image into an image analogous to a grayscale image, where userspecified information is used to optimize a specified image processing task and reduce the computational complexity. We introduce new methods based on projection into the space of single-coordinate images, and we adapt support vector machines by using their scores to create a DSGS image. We apply these methods to applications in dermatology, analyzing images of skin tests and skin lesions, and demonstrate their usefulness. In the second approach, we introduce a tool for improved image deblurring that safeguards against bias that can easily be introduced by a user favoring a particular result. This is particularly important in scientific and medical applications used for discovery or diagnosis. We provide real-time results of choices of regularization methods and parameter selection, and we check the statistical plausibility of the results, using three statistical diagnostics, allowing a user to see the results of the choices. Our work demonstrates the utility of domain-specific information, supplied by the user, in improving the results of image processing algorithms. Using Domain-Specific Information in Image Processing Applied Mathematics Scientific Computing (AMSC) by Brianna R. Cash Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2014 Advisory Committee: Professor Dianne O'Leary, Chair/Advisor Professor Radu Balan Professor David W. Jacobs Professor Wolfgang Losert Professor Laurent Montesi Dedicated to my husband, Jason


Abstract A reflectivity and triple-Doppler radar study of the development of several cells and their successive union within a nonsevere thunderstorm is presented. Two characteristic separations were found between the newly formed cells and the parent thunderstorm, with the closer cells forming in response to the collapse of an active cell and the more distant cells forming in a previously existing storm-modified area characterized by mesoscale convergence and rain cooled air. The manner in which these cells evolved appeared to be partially related to differences in the environment in which they formed. As suggested by Peterson, the cells that formed closer to the main storm resembled the "weakly evolving" cells of Foote and Frank. The updraft of the "weakly evolving" cell analyzed here merged with the updraft in a cell in the main storm as one cell was decreasing in intensity and the other was increasing. Later in the life cycle of the storm, two cells which initially formed further away from the main st...


To the Editor—We agree that the issue of whether microbial translocation (MT) is a cause or consequence of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) disease progression is an important question that can only be addressed through longitudinal analyses of natural history cohorts such as the study by Redd et al [1]. A timely and definitive answer to this question will depend on the availability of archived specimens that have been well characterized and properly stored. Specimen banks of this nature are relatively rare in Africa.

However, there are issues of equal importance, namely, whether microbe-associated immune activation persists during highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) and whether this has an adverse effect on therapeutic outcome. There is already a growing body of evidence indicating that HAART-treated patients have elevated levels of bacterial DNA and plasma lipopolysaccharide (LPS) for at least 2 years after starting therapy [2], with one North American study showing decreased levels of LPS and CD4 T cell cycling after >5 years of maximally suppressive HAART [3]. There is also increasing evidence that elevated levels of LPS are associated with monocyte-macrophage activation and disease pathology, not only in HIV-1-infected patients with dementia [4] and hepatitis C–related liver disease [5], but also in HIV-1–negative patients with tuberculosis [6] and inflammatory bowel disease [7]. LPS has also been linked to T cell activation and proliferation [3], presumably via secretion of proinflammatory mediators by monocyte-macrophages.

However, as emphasized by Redd et al, MT does not account for all aspects of immune activation in patients with late-stage disease. We examined the relationship between plasma LPS, HIV-1 viral load, and immune activation, before and after 1 year of nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor/non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor-based antiretroviral therapy (ART), in Africans with advanced HIV-1 disease and CD4 counts <200 cells/μL [8]. We found that some aspects of monocyte activation (CCL2, CXCL10, the frequency of CD14+CD16+ monocytes) were associated with high levels of HIV-1 RNA, whereas others (tumor necrosis factor [TNF], soluble CD14 [sCD14]) were more closely linked to plasma concentrations of LPS or the presence of opportunistic co-infections (interleukin 6). In addition to being independent of HIV-1 replication, LPS-associated activation, as measured by sCD14 and TNF, was independent of T cell activation and was only partially curtailed after 1 year of successful ART.

These findings may help explain the results of Rempel et al [9]. Similar to our study, these investigators found that LPS and sCD14 remained elevated in HAART-treated patients. They also found that monocytes isolated from patients with high levels of residual viremia exhibited different patterns of gene expression after in vitro stimulation with LPS and interferon (IFN)–α. IFN-α activation resembled that observed in patients, while the LPS pattern differed from that normally induced following activation with whole bacteria (interleukin 10) or Fc/complement receptor–mediated phagocytosis (interleukin 6, interleukin 1β), leading to the conclusion that these monocytes were not responsive to LPS. However, LPS induced the up-regulation of a large number of genes (n = 992), a finding that is consistent with the ability of LPS to induce 5 different signaling cascades [10]. Whether these altered LPS patterns are due to a superimposed (or counterbalancing) effect of HIV-1 on monocyte activation or a defect in endotoxin tolerance remains to be determined. Additional studies should include HAART-treated patients with undetectable viremia and be performed using whole bacteria and LPS/LPS-binding protein (LBP) in addition to monomeric LPS. To rule out activation during positive selection with anti-CD14 antibodies, monocytes should be isolated using negative as well as positive selection methods.

Additional studies are also needed to unravel the relationships between LPS, sCD14, and immune activation. CD14 binds and presents LBP-bound LPS to its signaling complex, lymphocyte antigen 96 (MD-2)/toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), triggering monocyte-macrophage activation and the release of sCD14 [11]. sCD14 contributes to cell activation by transferring monomeric LPS to membrane CD14 (mCD14), or directly to the MD-2/TLR4 complex in cells that lack mCD14. However, sCD14 can also induce endotoxin tolerance by removing LPS from mCD14 and diverting it to plasma lipoproteins [11], a process that may decrease CD14 shedding. This is further complicated by studies showing that HIV-1 RNA can enhance TLR4-mediated response to LPS, causing dysregulation of endotoxin tolerance [12].

The complex relationships between HIV-1, MT, and immune activation are likely to depend on the integrity of gastrointestinal epithelium, the level of HIV-1 replication, plasma concentrations of LPS-binding protein and endotoxin core antibody, and the presence/absence and type of opportunistic co-infections, as well as the combined effects of these infections on TLR signaling cascades. Understanding these interactions may be critical to the design of strategies aimed at enhancing therapeutic efficacy in Africa where treatment is often delayed until CD4 counts drop to <200 cells/μL.


EXPERIMENTAL. Enzyme preparation. The enzyme was prepared by extracting 200 g. of the finely ground meal of the ungerminated seed of Dolichos lab lab with 600 cc. of distilled water in presence of toluene for three days at room temperature. After filtering through paper pulp the extract (containing a large quantity of protein) was dialysed under slight pressure in collodion bags against flowing distilled water for a week when all the proteins were precipitated and the solution was then centrifuged to remove suspended matter, the resulting brown liquid being clear. The enzyme thus prepared is very stable in aqueous solution for many weeks at 0°. As source of ultra-violet rays two lamps have been used in this investigation. A 110 v. D.c. atmospheric type lamp was used in the earlier experiments. A Hanovia " Homesun " 220 v.vacuum type arc was used in the later experiments. Both gave accelerations. The distance of the silica flask containing the enzyme solution was 15 cm. from the lamp and irradiation was done in presence of air. The experimental arrangement was very similar to that described by Narayanamurti and Ramaswami [1929] and the activity was estimated by the method of Raper and Wormall [1923]. Irradiation of dialysed extracts. The effect of exposing the dialysed extracts as such to the rays was first investigated. The results taken from the previous paper by Narayanamurti and Ramaswami [1929] are given in Table I. Fresh experiments were conducted with two different extracts: (A) 3 or 4 months old, dialysed for over a month and colourless, (B) fresh and dialysed for 10 days. The effect of having a water-jacket of silica to absorb the heat rays


A hierarchical approach for the abstraction of digital VLSICs is presented. Circuit layout is hierarchically abstracted into logical constructs of binary tree structures, which may be manipulated to extract circuit functionality for the purpose of verifying design correctness. VLSIC design specification in the form of HDL is hierarchically decomposed to generate logical formulae for the given specification. By comparing the above, a verification report is obtained


Preliminaries Approximate innerness for subfactors Central freeness for subfactors More on central freeness: the type $\text{III}_1$ case The main classification result Applications Appendix References.


Key Points Inotuzumab was an effective treatment of B-ALL relapse post-blinatumomab regardless of CD19 expression status. Outcomes of R/R B-ALL patients relapsing after treatment with both blinatumomab and inotuzumab were poor, with high relapse and mortality.


Global online retail sales are on the rise and are predicted to experience a double digit growth annually over the next three years. Given little marginal cost involved in adding new products and brands to their catalogues, online retailers tend to increase product and brand offerings to increase sales by selling products that could not have been sold due to space constraints in physical stores. Frank Urbanowski, Director of MIT Press, attributed the 12% increase in sales of backlist titles directly to increased accessibility to these titles through the Internet. For consumers, the ability to buy products that they would not have otherwise bought increases their consumer surplus. Despite preferring a large assortment of products in online retail stores due to product variety and diversity in brand choices, this poses a problem to consumers as the number of alternatives and attributes reduces their confidence in the selection of a product to purchase; product comparison and evaluation also becomes a difficult task. Thus, an online retail store that does not facilitate easy product information search, comparison, and evaluation would cause consumers to make poor purchase decisions. In this thesis, I investigate how the design parameters of online stores such as the presentation of product information, product comparisons, consumer reviews, and recommendations influence consumers' information seeking and decision-making


The material presented covers the general topic of C-band radars and their use throughout the GEOS-2 C-band Radar System Project and has direct application to the general problem of gathering accurate radar tracking data. The material is hardware oriented and all analyses and evaluations described pertain to the gathering of accurate data rather than to the application of the gathered data. The radar oriented investigations formed a basic and necessary part of the overall C-band experiment. The successful completion of these efforts led to the definition of how the radars were to be operated and calibrated. These hardware decisions directly affected the quality of the radar data and therefore played a large part in the successful application of these data to geodetic research.


Mental health impairment after breast cancer diagnosis may persist for months or years. The present work leverages on novel machine learning techniques to identify distinct trajectories of mental health progression in an 18-month period following BC diagnosis and develop an explainable predictive model of mental health progression using a large list of clinical, sociodemographic and psychological variables. The modelling process was conducted in two phases. The first modeling step included an unsupervised clustering to define the number of trajectory clusters, by means of a longitudinal K-means algorithm. In the second modeling step an explainable ML framework was developed, on the basis of Extreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) model and SHAP values, in order to identify the most prominent variables that can discriminate between good and unfavorable mental health progression and to explain how they contribute to model's decisions. The trajectory analysis revealed 5 distinct trajectory groups with the majority of patients following stable good (56%) or improving (21%) trends, while for others mental health levels either deteriorated (12%) or remained at unsatisfactory levels (11%). The model's performance for classifying patient mental health into good and unfavorable progression achieved an AUC of $0.82\pm 0.04$. The top ranking predictors driving the classification task were the higher number of sick leave days, aggressive cancer type (triple-negative) and higher levels of negative affect, anxious preoccupation, helplessness, arm and breast symptoms, as well as lower values of optimism, social and emotional support and lower age.


Although Latvia can be justifiably proud of its many cultural achievements, there are still problems for people with disabilities to exercise their right to access culture both inside and outside the capital city. The purpose of the research paper is to assess and evaluate the effectiveness of the cultural policy of Latvia with a scope on social inclusion. Various documents regulating cultural policy mention the need to ensure access to the cultural environment and to foster cultural diversity. However, those responsible for implementing cultural policy seem to either misinterpret the documents or are unable to implement the planned improvements due to other circumstances. Hence the article will first briefly outline the scope of cultural diversity in order to show that a cultural product created by people with disabilities is part of cultural diversity. The article will focus on the concept of "cultural education", analysing the most common present usage of it by cultural policy actors, and considering whether this concept should not be used on a much broader sense. This would raise the awareness of the necessity of cultural education and thus of the necessity for accessibility to cultural education for people with disabilities in cultural institutions both in cities and in the countryside. The research paper provides an overview of the data collected from surveying cultural institutions of Latvia in 2017 and 2020, with a regard to the availability of cultural processes and cultural education in Latvia. The author strives to emphasize that participation in cultural activities has to be perceived as cultural education in a broader sense, as the participation process brings new cultural knowledge to people. Probably the reason for the unsatisfactory environment and human resource accessibility is the fact that accessibility has not been emphasized in the currently most significant documents regulating cultural education. The environment accessibility in the cultural institutions of Latvia is insufficient and does not stimulate the availability of cultural education opportunities for people with disabilities.


In recent years major companies such as Philips, H&M and Google have adopted a circular economy agenda to promote sustainability. Design consultancies such as IDEO has developed and promoted a circular design guide to help companies in this endeavour. However, designing for a circular economy often require design and reconfiguration of entire value chains – making the transition towards a circular economy rather difficult. In this paper we analyse a development project from the Danish island of Bornholm to investigate how to align diverse actors across the value chain in a process of co-creating systems for a circular economy. We combine design, value chain considerations and circular economy mindsets to informing negotiations of concerns among actors in the value chain.Such strategical navigation might involve:Staging initial spaces for dialogue with central actors from the value chain and initiates a process of mapping out their concernsStaging a re-alignment space where the diverse actors can meet and interact to discuss and negotiate their concerns and their roles in the networkDesign and enactment of a number of objects to faciliate negotiations


This article looks into the effects of population decline on local public expenditure. It starts with a theoretical explanation of so-called residual costs, i.e. cost curves of shrinking communities lying above those of growing. Data at the community level of the state Styria (Austria) on expenditure categories which have natural monopoly characteristics from 1997-2007 provides empirical support that expenditure per capita grew significantly stronger in shrinking communities than in growing communities. These results provide evidence that at least some of the public expenditures cannot be adjusted to the population decline in the medium term.

Keywords: residual costs • local public expenditure • population decline • infrastructure • Austria • fiscal federalism


The invention relates to a data loading device (1) and a corresponding data loading process for loading software in aircraft systems (2), wherein the data loading device (1) comprises a portable computer (3) and a data memory (4). The data loading device (1) comprises a switching device (5), wherein the switching device (5) having an external data terminal (6). The switching device (5) between the computer (3), data memory (4) and data terminal (6) Compounds (7, 17, 27) switch, wherein the switching device (5) has a first switching state of a connection (7, 27) between the computer (3) and data memory (4). Furthermore, the switching device (5) to a second switching state, which comprises a connection (17, 27) between data memory (4) and data terminal (6).


A new Erythrina alkaloid designated as dihydroerysovine was isolated from Cocculus trilobus DC. (Menispermaceae). From chemical and spectroscopic studies, especially INDOR and NOE techniquse, the structure (III) was assigned to this alkaloid. The utility of INDOR and NOE methodes for the determination of substituent pattern on an aromatic ring of Erythrina alkaloids was ascertained.


Diabetic kidney disease (DKD) is a growing health problem that affects a significant portion of the global population. With a rising global patient number of over 135 million and a yearly incident case of over 2 million, the burden of DKD is rising. Glomerular fibrosis is tissue damage that occurs within the kidney of DKD patients for which effective therapeutic treatments are lacking. One of the reasons for the lack of therapeutic efficacy is glycemic memory where even after blood glucose within diabetic patients is regulated, glomerular fibrosis due to the initial high blood glucose continues to progress. This phenomenon is readily observed in diabetic patients who receive pancreatic transplant for blood glucose regulation where the glomerular fibrosis takes 10 years for full recovery to be observed. In pursuit of determining why it takes a long time for glomerular fibrosis to be reversed, we developed a mechanistic systems biology model of glomerular fibrosis in diabetes from a previous model of interstitial fibrosis. The adapted model consists of a system of ordinary differential equations that models the complex disease etiology and progression of glomerular fibrosis in diabetes. Within the scope of the mechanism we incorporated, we found that advanced glycation end products, which are matrix proteins that are modified due to high blood glucose, are the reason for the delay in the recovery of glomerular fibrosis. The idea that advanced glycation end products are one of the key mediators of glycemic memory is well known in the broad scope of diabetes and its many complications. The mechanism for how advanced glycation end products cause a delay in the recovery of glomerular fibrosis, however, is less established. Following that, the mechanism for why therapeutics targeting glycemic memory such as aminoguanidine, and alagebrium lack efficacy is also not well established. Using our model, we postulate that glucose control, and aminoguanidine are not effective because they do not remove accumulated advanced glycation end products. Further, our model predicts that treatments breaking down advanced glycation end products, such as alagebrium, would be the most efficacious at reversing glomerular fibrosis. Our model helps explain the lack of efficacy of alagebrium at treating advanced glomerular fibrosis due to the inability of alagebrium to reduce TGF-β. There is a well-known therapeutic treatment efficacy reduction when treatment is applied to advanced glomerular fibrosis compared to early glomerular fibrosis. We postulate that two different mechanisms associated with short lived advanced glycation end products and long-lived advanced glycation end products can explain the difference in the response to treatment of glomerular fibrosis when treatment is applied to early glomerular fibrosis vs advanced glomerular fibrosis. Using our systems biology model, we illuminate mechanistic understanding of disease etiology of glomerular fibrosis in diabetes, and then we provide mechanistic explanations for the lack of efficacy of different pharmacological agents at treating glomerular fibrosis. This understanding can enable the development of therapeutics that are more efficacious at treating kidney damage in diabetes.


The regularities of the modification of the surface of silicon crystals under microwave plasma microprocessing in various chemically active gas media are studied. It is shown that the modification is due to the formation of built-in surface potentials, which, depending on the type of conductivity of semiconductors, affect the field emission properties and near-surface electronic transport in devices made on their basis.


The subjective influence of the center frequency of bandpass filtered speech samples on preference was investigated. Test stimuli were derived from a single speech sample (male voice). The signal bandwidth was varied utilizing all possible combinations of the lower cutoff frequencies 250, 350, 500 Hz, and the upper cutoff frequencies 3, 4.2, and 6 kHz. The signal was also reverberated with reverberation times of 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 sec. Listening experiments were conducted with 11 subjects employing a forced‐choice paired‐comparison method [G. M. Sessler and J. E. West, Proc. Int. Congr. Acoust., 6th, 1968, Paper C‐5‐8]. A factor analytic technique was used for analyzing the data. It was found that for constant bandwidth (in octaves) and constant reverberation time, the subjective preference was higher for stimuli with low center frequency. For example, stimuli filtered with a 250‐Hz to 3‐kHz bandpass (bandwith 2.75 kHz) are generally preferred to stimuli with equal reverberation time filtered with a 500‐Hz...


This article first introduce a new government initiative emerging after the US presidential election in 2008. Comparing to the more descriptive definitions of e-government, supporters of these new government initiatives emphasize the transformative and normative aspect of the newest generation of Information and Communication Technology (ICTs). They argue that the new initiative redefines how government should operate and transform state-citizen relationships. To understand the core of this initiative and whether it offers new opportunities to solve public problems, we collected and analyzed research papers published in the e-governance area between 2008 and 2017. Our analysis demonstrates that the use of new generation of ICTs has promoted the government information infrastructure. In other words, the application of new ICTs enables the government to accumulate and use a large amount of data, so that the government makes better decisions. The advancement of open data, the wide use of social media, and the potential of data analytics have also generated pressure to address challenging questions and issues in e-democracy. However, the analysis leads us to deliberate on whether the use of new generation of ICTs worldwide have actually achieved their goal. In the conclusion, we present challenges to be addressed before new innovative ICTs realize their potential towards better public governance.


Eighty two cemented femoral revision hip arthroplasties were reviewed to assess the incidence of intraoperative perforation of the femur and subsequent periprosthetic fracture using a high speed pneumatic burr for the removal of acrylic bone cement with an extensile exposure. There was one case of intraoperative femoral perforation; this patient did not go onto fracture postoperatively. There were no cases of intraoperative femoral fracture. There were 3 cases of periprosthetic femoral fracture all of which occurred more than 12 months after their impaction grafted femoral revision arthroplasty using a standard length cemented stem. The pneumatic high speed burr was extremely effective in the removal of acrylic bone cement in femoral revision arthroplasty. The incidence of subsequent femoral fracture in the impaction grafted revised population was low and did not appear to be related to intraoperative femoral perforation.


The Scientific Geographic Information Systems Lab (SGISL) at the University of Montana was recently formed to support a number of related environmental and ecological research projects. Each of these projects requires access to large information and computational resources, in addition to sharing "modeling expertise" contained in the form of various computerized data transformations and simulations. Historically, the modus operurdi for such projects was for a small group of researchers to work in relative isolation, familar to some extent with the nature of work being conducted by other groups but primarily interested in constructing a stand-alone information system suited specifically to the needs of their own application, With a few small projects this computational environment can be effective in producing application-specific results, but as the size and number of projects increases this decentralized structure ignores the potential benefits that can be achieved with a structure that promotes sharing of information system costs and resourcqs. SGISL combines modern data modeling techniques and networking technology to provide a conceptual form of information system centralization, while allowing the information system components and users to continue to work in the distributed. decentralized environment.