Abstract In this study, we determined the causal relationship between some of the predictors and outcomes of sports tourists' satisfaction using structural equation modeling. Motivation and involvement as predictors and behavioral intentions (WOM and intention to revisit) were considered as outcomes. The results indicated the significant mediating role of destination image in the relationship between involvement and satisfaction. So, Event organizers need to pay special attention to the psychological characteristics of tourists, such as their motivations and involvement. As a result, they can take some benefits in behavioral outcomes, such as word of mouths and intention to revisit.


The work we present is a qualitative study of the school experience and its repercussions on the current lives of ex-students from Mallorca. The work has two purposes: (a) to learn about the school's influence on the identity development of the students and (b) to incorporate the voices of former students regarding their reflection on the present and with a look towards the future and the challenges they face. The study is part of the movement known as Student Voice, which considers students to be valuable experts whose opinions should be sought for the betterment of school. For this study, the interpretations of ex-students were collected through in-depth interviews. The findings reveal information regarding what the participants felt was most important to learn at school, the conditions that favour learning and the teaching strategies that enhance it. In this sense, these opinions are indicators for assessing long-term educational goals and school practices.


Now there are a few researches on XML schemas and DTDs normalization design. Existing researches are still in the beginning. W. Provost proposes the idea applying the theory of relational database to XML schemas normalization design. This idea is not put into practice. The paper presents hierarchical schemas for representing XML schemas and DTDs and the procedure of hierarchical schemas design for XML schemas and DTDs normalization design, and analyzes produced hierarchical schemas. The set of full and embedded MVDs in hierarchical schemas produced by the algorithms are implied by the given set of MVDs.


Loskyll, M., Heckmann, D., & Glahn, C. (2009). Visualization of Spatial Knowledge with Ontology Trees and Adaptable Search Result Grids in the Era of Web3.0. In K. Tochtermann & H. Maurer (Eds.), Proceedings of the I-Know'09, 9th International Conference on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Technologies (pp. 385-390). Graz, Austria: Verlag der Technischen Universitat Graz.


TO THE EDITOR: Astin and colleagues' literature review on distant healing (1) was disappointing. While the authors admit that methodologic limitations in the research they reviewed make it difficult to draw definitive conclusions about the efficacy of distant healing, they assert that because 57% (n = 13) of these flawed studies showed some positive response to at least one measured variable, the interventions must warrant further study. The studies they reviewed, however, do not support such a conclusion. Only two of the five reviewed studies on prayer claimed positive results that reached significance. Harris and colleagues' study measured 33 different variables and found no significant difference between the prayer group and the control group. The prayed-for patients in Byrd's study had a higher percentage of readmissions to the coronary care unit and needed four times the number of temporary pacemakers and three times the number of permanent pacemakers compared with the control group. When taken as a group, the Therapeutic Touch studies reviewed by Astin and colleagues present a clear picture of the randomness of results one would expect to achieve by chance or placebo response alone. The two anxiety studies by Quinn contradict each other; Meehan's pain study contradicts Keller and Bzdek's; Simington and Laing showed no significant treatment response; and Wirth and associates' series of five studies run the gamut of significant response to treatment, no response to treatment, and significant response to placebo. When one takes into account the numerous flaws in methods, the strength of the response to placebo, the wide variations in results even from the same researcher, and negative physical outcomes consistently associated with reported positive findings, it becomes clear that this genre of studies has not borne fruit despite repeated attempts by committed researchers. We should decline to dedicate further scarce research funds to these endeavors.


The information hiding property states a clean distinction between external visibility and internal perspective of an object. The external world has reduced visibility of the inside of an object: normally only an interface constitued by operation names is visible. Within any object, instead, there is the full visibility, in particular of the object state. This makes possible thateach object decides its internal policies independently of any environment decision. Object communications produce the global computation in object-based systems. An object can communicate with another if and only if knows it via a reference [Lis79]. In object systems, a communication implies that client objects request operations defined in the interface of server objects. These requests are exchanged by using message-passing mechanisms. Dynamicity of communications means that an object can change its visibility, i.e. the objects it can refer. Classification and factorization by inheritance gives object environments the possibility of applying reusability and extensibility. On the one hand, object applications can be designed and programmed by reusing already developed software. On the other hand, applications based on objectscan evolve to follow changes of specification. In the case of dynamic changes, the possibility of updating classes at run-time constitutes an useful tool.


Compounds [Rb(18-crown-6)]4As14.6NH3 (1) and [Li(NH3)4]4P14.NH3 (2) were prepared by the reaction of Rb4As6 with SbPh3 and 18-crown-6 and by the reduction of white phosphorus with elemental lithium in liquid ammonia, respectively. Both were characterized by low-temperature single-crystal X-ray structure analysis. They were found to contain the Ci symmetrical Pn14(4-) anion (Pn = P, As), which consists of two nortricyclane-like Pn7-cages connected by a single bond. Molecular complexes of [Rb(18-crown-6)(NH3)]2[Rb(18-crown-6)]2As14 are formed in 1, which are connected to fanfold sheets via N-H...O bonds. The anion is isolated in 2, and N-H...N bonds result in the formation of {[Li(NH3)4](mu-NH3)2[Li(NH3)4]}2+ cationic complexes.


According to model experiment, the distribution of gas concentration in utility tunnel is predicted (using) numerial simulation; and the situation of gas concentration distribuation is analysed. Comparison with experiment results, it is found that the gas concentration can be simulated by standard k-e turbulence model; and numerical accuracy is satisfactory in engineering, within certain distances nearby gas getting out point. The numerical simulations show that the case of engineering can be simulated (using) standard k-e turbulence model.


With growing concerns about traffic demand management practices in the large-scale metro networks, there is consensus that differential pricing performs effectively in dealing with crowding during commuting peaks. Instead of taking mandatory measures to suspend passengers flooding onto the platforms, the superiority of differential pricing lies in incentivising commuters to shift to peak-avoidance choice spontaneously. To provide both practical and theoretical implications, a comprehensive framework for developing differential pricing strategies is presented in this work. Specifically, a stated preference survey regarding commuters' response to a newly implemented strategy is conducted in support of modelling departure time and mode shift joint choice behaviour. The proposed bi-level programming model specifies a multi-objective optimisation model in the upper level and a nested logit based stochastic user equilibrium model in the lower level. Based on an empirical case in Beijing, off-peak discount, extra peak charge and both above strategies are thoroughly evaluated in terms of metro ridership variations, mode share patterns, ticket revenue and generalised travel cost of commuters. The results of price sensitivity analysis highlight the universal features and application conditions of different strategies from a practical point of view. Furthermore, six optimal differential pricing strategies tailored by typical decision-making priorities are successfully developed, with the optimal off-peak discount of up to 70% and extra peak charge working best at 60%.


A detailed examination of the texture evolution occurring within a friction stir weld inAA2195 reveals features that are not consistent with current models of material ow in frictionstir welds. While the deposited weld is dominated by a B ideal shear texture component, thistexture periodically alternates with a B texture, indicating a reversal in the sense of the sheardeformation. In addition, the observed rotation of the orientation of these shear textures, andtheir replacement by a distinct, new shear texture orientation to correct for the misorientationthat develops, reveals a heretofore unobserved characteristic of friction stir welds that providesfurther details about material ow during friction stir welding.


With the continuous development of computer and communication technology, it is difficult to meet the application requirements of high concurrency and low latency of IO such as high-performance computing and big data analysis in terms of transmission bandwidth and communication delay based on Socket protocol. In this paper, through the research on Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) protocol, including RDMA development status, RDMA key technologies, and RDMA communication principal concept, a RDMA communication method based on FPGA to implement Roce V2 architecture is proposed. Through software simulation and verification, the scheme proposed in this paper achieves the design expectation and has strong practicability.


The power consumption of FPGA is larger than that of ASIC to perform the same function in the same scaling. In this paper, we propose a Power Control Hard Macro (PCHM) based coarse-grained power gating FPGA architecture to dynamically reduce the power consumption. The algorithm of the placement based on sleep region is presented. After enhancing the CAD framework, a detailed study is given under different region size supported by the new FPGA architecture. As a result, the proposed architecture and the placement algorithm can reduce 51% power consumption on average compared with normal architecture.


With the general practice of the administrative system of prefecture ruling county in each state during the Warring States Period, each monarch in each state exercised control over the whole state level by level from top to bottom through prefecture, county, and such grassroot districts and organizations as village, ting and li. The new bureaucratic system facilitated the monarch to select, examine, appoint, and remove local officials. The inspection of local administration by the central authorities had the functions of examining the local civil administration, selecting talents, and seeking opinions on the policies in practice. The system of touring the county play an active role in bring into close political ties between the central authorities at all levels, and between the local authorities and the grassroot organizations, thus strengthening the centralization of the dynastic power. The establishment of supervision system was an important expression of strengthening the autocratic rule by the feudal dynasty. The monopoly of legislative and judicial powers by the monarch was inevitable to the establishment of centralized state power. Registration of households, distribution of tax and labor, establishment of state financial institutions such as Nei Shi and Shao Fu, etc. marked the reinforcement of the single and direct control of finance by the state authorities over the localities. The system of deploying military forces by tally gave the monarch the sole power to dispatch armies both central and local.


A System designed to patch Single and multiple casing leaks that occur in an injection well annulus where there is direct communication from the outermost casing String to the original open-hole wellbore and the adjacent earth Strata. This System utilizes a four-stage process which consists of four Separate types of fluids. The first injection Stage is a CaCl Solution in water. The Second injection stage utilizes H2SiO, Na in a Solution of water to create Sodium meta silicate NaSiO in water. These two react in a double replacement chemical reaction to yield an aqueous phase and a Solid phase. The third injection Stage is then implemented, the same including a bentonite/attapulgite/ diatomaceous earth Slurry with large plugging materials Suspended therein. The fourth Stage utilizes covalently bonded N2 in a gaseous State. After injection of the first three Stages N. pressure is applied and the staged patching mate rial migrates to the casing hole(s), thread leak, packer leak, or perforation. Upon restriction, the materials then combine and a filtration process beings. Filtration continues until the contents of the third Stage have completed their plating action and a tight impermeable Seal is in place at the problem


AIM: To observe the influence of overexpression of α-synuclein on the cultured SH-SY5Y cells. METHODS: The plasmid of α-synuclein-pcDNA_3 was transfected into SH-SY5Y cells with LipofectAMINE. The expression of α-synuclein was determined by anti-α-synuclein immunocytochemistry. The intracellular reactive oxygen species was determined with 2', 7'-dichlorofluorescein diacetate (DCF-DA) by using a FACSCAN flow cytometer and fluorescent microscope. The intracellular content of reduced GSH was detected with glutathione assay kit by spectrophotometer. RESULTS: The α-synuclein was expressed in cultured SH-SY5Y cells transfected with the plasmid of α-synuclein-pcDNA_3. The DCF loading analysis and the intracellular level of reduced GSH suggested that the transfected cells were under oxidative stress. CONCLUSION: Overexpression and accumulation of α-synuclein in SH-SY5Y cells increase intracellular reactive oxygen species levels, it is suggested therefore that the α-synuclein does play an important role in the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease.


Abstract. The α-dicarbonyl compounds glyoxal (CHOCHO) and methyl glyoxal (CH3C(O)CHO) are produced in the atmosphere by the oxidation of hydrocarbons and emitted directly from pyrogenic sources. Measurements of ambient concentrations inform about the rate of hydrocarbon oxidation, oxidative capacity, and secondary organic aerosol (SOA) formation. We present results from a comprehensive instrument comparison effort at two simulation chamber facilities in the US and Europe that included nine instruments, and seven different measurement techniques: broadband cavity enhanced absorption spectroscopy (BBCEAS), cavity-enhanced differential optical absorption spectroscopy (CE-DOAS), white-cell DOAS, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR, two separate instruments), laser-induced phosphorescence (LIP), solid-phase micro extraction (SPME), and proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry (PTR-ToF-MS, two separate instruments; for methyl glyoxal only because no significant response was observed for glyoxal). Experiments at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) compare three independent sources of calibration as a function of temperature (293–330 K). Calibrations from absorption cross-section spectra at UV-visible and IR wavelengths are found to agree within 2% for glyoxal, and 4% for methyl glyoxal at all temperatures; further calibrations based on ion–molecule rate constant calculations agreed within 5% for methyl glyoxal at all temperatures. At the European Photoreactor (EUPHORE) all measurements are calibrated from the same UV-visible spectra (either directly or indirectly), thus minimizing potential systematic bias. We find excellent linearity under idealized conditions (pure glyoxal or methyl glyoxal, R2 > 0.96), and in complex gas mixtures characteristic of dry photochemical smog systems (o-xylene/NOx and isoprene/NOx, R2 > 0.95; R2 ∼ 0.65 for offline SPME measurements of methyl glyoxal). The correlations are more variable in humid ambient air mixtures (RH > 45%) for methyl glyoxal (0.58


This paper is a comparative evaluation of imaging performance for two types of color liquid crystal displays (LCDs) with Quad RGBW (red, green, blue, and white) and Stripe RGB (red, green, blue) pixel units by means of simulation study. In accordance with the study results, using the proposed color conversion algorithm could achieve color consistence and higher luminance for rendering images with RGBW rather than RGB pixel units. Simultaneously, instrumental color measurement via a spectrometer was done which results also proved that almost same color values of rendering images with RGBW pixel units as well as those images with original RGB pixel units, and higher luminance was achieved. Finally, the pseudocolor phenomenon of rendering images with RGBW pixel units is analyzed and discussed on the basis of human vision model.


Abstract Subantarctic fur seals (Arctocephalus tropicalis) appear as stragglers on New Zealand coasts. Four records are noted, the most recent at Antipodes Island in December 1989.


The aim of this study is to analyze the factors that increase loss concerns among entrepreneurs and the underlying mechanism for loss protection. An e-mail-based survey among 335 entrepreneurs from India is employed in this paper. Using a quantitative methodology and PLS-SEM approach, the study analyzed the relationship between loss concerns and loss protection behavior and the mediating role of startup accelerator programs. Thus, human capital increases loss concerns. Participating in the startup accelerator program is the underlying mechanism to carry out protection behavior when entrepreneurs deem their venture at risk of losing money. The theoretical model explicates 70% of variances in loss concerns and 42% of variances in protection behavior. Every one-unit increase in human capital and uncertainty increases the loss concern by 28% and 10%, respectively. Participating in the startup accelerator program increases the loss protection behavior of entrepreneurs by 36%. Perceived severity increases loss protection behavior by 17%. The present study extends the protection motivation theory in the entrepreneurship literature and provides evidence that startup accelerators influence entrepreneurs in increasing loss protection mechanisms in an emerging economy.
AcknowledgmentThe authors appreciate the assistance provided by Arun Thottath in reaching out to survey participants.


With the rapid development of remote sensing technology,using remote sensing data for water resources monitoring,investigation and analysis has become an inevitable trend.The fast and accurate extraction of water information from remote sensing imagery is an important method and means of the investigation and monitoring of water resources.Currently,there are many ways to extract water information from remote sensing imagery.This paper selected three common water extraction methods,that is the single-band threshold method,the multi-band spectral relationship method based on threshold and the normalized difference water index method based on threshold,then selected the typical plain area,Wuhan city,and the typical mountainous area,Yichang country,as experimental area,and then selected the Landsat5 TM image as research data to analyze and compare the strength and the weaknesses of three methods in the plain and mountainous area respectively by experiment.


Owing to the ever increasing of information privacy requirement, covert communication has gained more and more attention, whose effective range is limited by the trade-off between the covertness and the transmit power. Benefiting from the high mobility and easy deployment, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can be utilized to expand the range of covert networks. Thus, we propose a UAV-relayed covert communication scheme with finite blocklength to maximize the effective transmission bits from the transmitter to the legitimate receiver against a flying warden. The transmitter adopts the maximum ratio transmission and the relay performs Gaussian signalling transmission to cause uncertainty at the warden. First, the optimal detection thresholds are derived at the warden towards the transmitter and the relay, respectively. Then, the hovering location of the warden is optimized to maximize the summation of relative entropies from the transmitter and the relay, which can greatly threaten the covertness. With this worst covert situation, the blocklength and transmit power at the transmitter and the relay are jointly optimized under the constraint of the end-to-end error detection probability to maximize the effective transmission rate from the transmitter to the legitimate receiver. Numerical results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed UAV-relayed covert communication scheme.


Tourism facilities and services quality are importantin relation to visitor satisfaction. The purpose of this study is to measure how satisfaction Hutan Bambu Lumajang with the presence of tourism facility and service quality. Using 80 tourist visitors as respondents in this study. The approach used is multiple linear regression to test hypotheses developed from theoretical and empirical studies. Of the three hypotheses proposed, one hypothesis is rejected, there is no important role of service quality in increasing visitor satisfaction. The results of the study indicate that there is an important role of tourism facilities in increasing end-user satisfaction. But there is no important role of service quality in increasing visitor satisfaction. Visitor satisfaction will be formed from the presence of tourism facilities and service quality of 26.3%, the rest of visitor satisfaction formed by other factors. Based on these findings, then to increase visitor satisfaction should be able to improve existing facilities.


The development of an optimal screening method is required to improve the prognosis of pancreatico‐biliary (PB) cancers. A recently developed microfluidic device achieved a high diagnostic yield by detecting circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the blood of cancer patients. We conducted this study to investigate the clinical utility of measuring CTCs in peripheral venous blood to diagnose PB cancer.


A still argued, but more often ignored, problem of Russian historical phonology is whether or not the phoneme lei changed to or coalesced with lei after jot at an early date. Many of the historical phonologies and historical grammars of Russian ignore the question completely, others simply state the change as an undisputed fact, and only a minority consider the question in any detail (above all Sobolevskij 1907 and Durnovo 1924). Vlasto (1986:126) simply says, "The sg. fem. gen. ee ~ elf ~ eif," with no source cited, and never considers it in terms of a general sound change. The evidence most commonly cited includes the modern Russian gen. sg. fem. eif, the acc. sg. fem. samoif, and the pronunciation of the adj. pI. as [ij;:J] rather than [ijiJ. which assumes an earlier */ijol rather than lije/. Sobolevskij (1907:65) assumes that ei/ etc. are by analogy to menif (<-mene). whereas Durnovo (1924: 182-83) argues for the change of tel to tel after [j]. Deciding the question is complicated by several factors. First of all, the combination [je] occurred only in a small number of instances. Because the "first jat '" after jot changed to lal (e.g., *stoyetey ~ stojati) and the diphthongs which gave the "second jat'" changed to Iii after ajat (e.g., na stole but na kraUJi from a presumed locative ending *-oy), only the so-called "third jat'" could occur after U]. Second, since this "third jat''' was an East Slavic feature, it would not be expected to occur (except as a "scribal error") in any documents which closely followed the usual rather Bulgarianized orthography of early Old East Slavic documents. Forms with jat' are clearly not rare, but the number of cases in documents of the II th and 12th centuries is very small as a percentage of the total: for a listing of some instances, see Sobolevskij 1907: 152-53. We might well expect to find more examples of the "third jat'" in original East Slavic documents (as opposed to those copied directly or indirectly from South Slavic originals), but since we have a very limited number of extant original East Slavic documents from the II th and 12th centuries, we cannot expect to find a large number of attested occurrences of [je]. Third, there were a limited number of instances in which the combination of UJ + [e] could occur, because the "third jat'" was restricted to a limited number of grammatical categories: the gen. sg. and nom.-acc. pI. offeminineja-stem nouns; the acc. pI. ofmasc. jo-stem nouns; the gen. sg. fem., nom.-acc. pI. fem., and masc. acc. pI. of the definite adjective; and the feminine gen. sg. pronominal forms, such as eif 'her', toe 'that one', samoe 'itself". Given the low number of categories in which we might expect to find the forms that interest us and the fact that most texts of the first two centuries were either direct copies of South Slavic originals or copies of copies. finding decisive evidence is not easy. It is made even more difficult by the fact that all of the instances where [je] might occur are grammatical endings, which are subject to analogical change, and therefore less useful for resolving purely phonological questions. A fourth complicating factor is that any attested forms must be considered within the context of the entire document, not just as isolated forms. It is well known that jat' fell together with lei in some dialects of Russian at a very early date. Sometimes the coalescence was only in unstressed position. in other cases in stressed position as well. In some cases e is used for jat' in words which were South Slavic rather than East Slavic.


The International Day of Light is an achievement that the entire photonics community can be proud of. Let's be inspired by the celebrations to begin planning for next year's event.


This essay argues that contemporary poetry from Macau accounts for special networks of production and circulation that require a reexamination of the viability of current theoretical work on the definition and study of 'world literature'. In support of this argument, I present a number of examples that are expressions of Macau's multiple linguistic formations, and of unique intersections with the native land, the transnational, the colonial, the postcolonial and the neocolonial.


The article investigates the socio-economic and political problems of Dalits, Dalit aesthetics, consciousness and literary features and messages of Dalit literature. For this purpose, the novel Niharika by Prakash Tiwari is purposefully and critically studied from the Dalit aesthetics and consciousness perspectives. The concepts of Dalit aesthetics and consciousness on Dalit literature is developed by Sharankuamar Limbale, Arjun Dangle, Laura R. Brueck, Judith Misrani-Barak, K. Satyanarayana and Nicole Thiara. The research article explores that the Dalit literature is not a common literature; rather, it is the literature of Dalit problems, pains, sorrows, revolts, protests and movements. It also discovers that the Dalit literature is the consequence of Dalit consciousness which has wider purposes to awaken the Dalits for their rights, equality, justice and social dignity. The literature has distinct literary characteristics, messages and style of presentation and expression. The researcher employs the qualitative approach with explorative method as critical discourse analysis.


to the editor: I would like to congratulate Adriaensen and colleagues for their excellent works that contribute to the detailed morphology of neuroepithelial bodies (NEBs) ([1][1]–[3][2]). They form a structural basis for understanding NEB physiology. A very interesting thought proposed by the


The utility model discloses a folding large-format photographing rack. The folding large-format photographing rack comprises a rack body; the rack body comprises a holder plate provided with a longitudinal guide rail, an object bearing plate which is arranged on the holder plate and is used for bearing files to be photographed, a longitudinal sliding block which is matched with the longitudinal guide rail, and a photographing plate which is arranged on the longitudinal sliding block; the object bearing plate includes a main plate connected with the holder plate and a folding plate which is rotationally arranged on the main plate; the folding plate can be rotated so as to be folded on the main plate; after the main plate and the folding plate are unfolded, object bearing surfaces of the main plate and the folding plate are located at the same plane; the photographing plate is provided with a plate body which protrudes out from the photographing plate and a photographing-used strip column which is used for preventing a photographing-used mobile phone or tablet personal computer from sliding off from the photographing plate; the photographing plate is provided with a plurality of groups of adjustment screw holes which are different in height; and the photographing-used strip column is detachably arranged on the photographing plate through adjustment screws which are matched with the adjustment screw holes. According to the folding large-format photographing rack of the utility model, the photographing-used strip column is adopted, so that the folding large-format photographing rack can be applicable to photographing-used mobile phone or tablet personal computers of different sizes.


This chapter provides an overview of current responses to climate change. It looks at how CO2 emissions from transport may evolve, assuming current energy prices do not change strongly. It discusses road transport, shipping and aviation in relation to CO2 emissions. Transport activities have adverse environmental and health impacts, of which local and regional air pollution, climate change and noise impacts are the most important. This chapter is a non-comprehensive overview of existing and potential policies to deal with these negative impacts, with a focus on international transport. "International transport" is here defined as those transport activities that are mainly derived from the globalisation of economic activity, not as cross-border transport flows in a more narrow sense. Surface transport, aviation and maritime transport are discussed. The focus is on climate change, treating other adverse impacts (including aviation noise and local and regional pollution from shipping) more succinctly. Policies to reduce transport's greenhouse gas emissions are assessed against the background of a broader discussion of how to deal with the free-rider problem. CO2 abatement in road transport is discussed in some detail, while just a few issues related to maritime transport and aviation are mentioned.


Reading opens many doors and students who do not comprehend well face serious barriers as they enter postsecondary academic institutions. Young people should be able to read and write when they graduate from high school. Such skills allow people to continue their education as well as increase their odds that they can earn an adequate salary. The percentage of 12th graders reading below grade level has remained remarkably stable over the years. A large number of students entering colleges and universities are unable to derive meaning from print at age-expected levels. The purpose of this study was to examine the treatment fidelity and social validity of a systematic and explicitly structured peer-mediated reading comprehension intervention on the reading performance of underprepared postsecondary students. Seven peer mentors and sixteen first-time college students participated in the study. Results indicated the peer-implemented reading program was implemented with high levels of treatment fidelity and social validity while also yielding statistically significant comprehension gains.


Object stores provide a highly scalable and cheap storage solution due to their key-value store semantics and commodity-hardware based deployment. This makes them an attractive option for archiving large amounts of data that are produced in science and industry. To analyze that data, advanced analytics such as MapReduce can be used. However, copying the data from the object store into the distributed file system that the analytics system requires is complex and time-intensive. Hence, running analytics directly on object stores greatly improves usability and performance. In this work, we study this combination and identify common problems.


In the development and production of miniaturized electronic devices, integrated transducers and microsystems, computer simulations constitute a cost-effective and time-economizing alternative to the traditional experimental way by "straightforward trial and error". Problem-oriented modeling not only helps the designer in understanding the "inner life" of the individual components and their cooperation in an integrated circuit or a complex microsystem, but it also assists him in making decisions with the view to finding optimized microstructures under technological and economical constraints. The ambitious long-term goal is the automated optimization of microdevices and systems according to customer-supplied specifications in a computer-based "virtual factory" prior to the first real fabrication. Currently several attempts are being made to build up a "CAD tool box" for top-down and closed-loop simulation of microsystems. Using the concept of "tailored modeling", which is based on established thermodynamic methods, the specific problems of microtransducer modeling such as the consistent formulation of transducer effects, the consistent treatment of coupled fields, and methodologies for fast and reliable model validation can be tackled in a practical way.


The lymphatic system is an essential vascular network vital to proper physiologic function and is responsible for the transport of lymphatic fluid from most tissues to the venous return. At the mesenteric level, bi-leaflet valves encapsulated by a bulbous sinus serve to prevent retrograde flow between tubular vessel segments. Despite their importance, little detailed knowledge is available to truly understand how the leaflet deflections influence the surrounding fluid dynamics. To understand this, a computational study was performed using an idealised geometry of a rat mesenteric lymphatic valve. A fluid-structure interaction approach was used to determine the opening behaviour and resulting fluid dynamics of the lymphatic valve leaflets. Resulting velocity contours during opening revealed a peak velocity of 38 mm/s at the orifice of the valve with an increase in curvature of the leaflet.


Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between subjective experience of an event, motivational style for participating and satisfaction afterwards. It proposes that subjective experience of positive affect acts as a mediator between motivation and satisfaction.Design/methodology/approach – The paper opted for a quantitative survey among 285 respondents asking about their motivation to participate in celebrating Queen's Day, a Dutch national event around the birthday of the Queen Mother. Their satisfaction levels and subjective experience of the event were collected after the event. The (mediation) hypotheses were tested through a series of regression analyses.Findings – The paper provides empirical insights about how subjective experience mediates the effect between motivational style and satisfaction.Originality/value – This paper fulfils an identified need to study the effects of subjective experience in events.


Objective:To investigate the expression of placental vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its relationship with intrauterine growth retardation(IUGR).Methods:Fifty-six patients with IUGR and fifty normal late pregnant women were studied.The expression level of VEGF protein in placenta was determined by ELISA.Results:(1) The VEGF level in normal placenta of late pregnants was (117.37±33.28) ng/L and that in patients with IUGR was (65.45±24.83) ng/L respectively. There was significantly difference between patients with IUGR and that of normal late pregnants (P0.01). (2) Placental weight in patients with IUGR (465±58)g was significantly decreased compared with normal late pregnants (575±98)g (P0 .01). (3) The newborns weight in patients with IUGR (1 987±506) was also significantly lower than that of normal (3 176±503)g (P0.05). But the new newborns length had no significant difference between the two groups (P0.05). Placental weight and the newborns weight had a significantly positive correlation with VEGF level (P0.01 ) in both groups.Conclusion:It showed that the reduced level of VEGF in placenta of patients with IUGR might be one of the important factors responsible for IUGR.


Abstract Generalized additive models (GAMs) offer an alternative approach to developing habitat suitability functions; these models may resolve some of the criticisms that have been made of conventional habitat suitability criteria and the associated composite suitability index (CSI). The potential advantages of GAMs include the ability to (1) account for correlation among habitat variables, (2) include interactions among variables, (3) make quantitative predictions of abundance or probability of occurrence at given flows, and (4) identify sharp thresholds in habitat selection. We developed CSIs and GAMs for two data sets—abundance of benthic invertebrates (mayflies Deleatidium spp. and caddisflies Aoteapsyche spp.) and habitat selection of large brown trout Salmo trutta and rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss—and applied them in an instream habitat analysis. The GAMs performed only slightly better than CSIs. The GAMs for two of the four taxa examined (Deleatidium and brown trout) had strong negative veloci...


This study proposes the IPA–Kano model as a new tool for categorising and diagnosing service quality attributes and providing specific strategies for attributes in each category. The IPA–Kano model avoids the limitation of the Kano model in neglecting the attribute performance and importance and eliminates the weakness of the IPA model in considering only one-dimensional qualities. The proposed model can enable managers to easily grasp accurate user perceptions of a quality attribute and corresponding coping strategies. The effectiveness of this model implementation is later presented with an example of mobile value-added service quality. By applying the proposed IPA–Kano model, the appropriate action strategy for each service quality attribute can be acquired in any service encounters and thus enables service industry managers to improve service quality and to achieve a competitive advantage.


Spinoza's answer to the question whether human beings are free or not seems to be a very short one. Proposition 2 of Part 4 of the Ethics reads: "We are acted on, insofar as we are a part of Nature, which cannot be conceived through itself, without the others". In this sense of freedom, we humans are definitely not free since it is not the case that we exist only from the necessity of our nature alone, and are determined to act by ourselves alone. Two points should be stressed here: affects not only rest upon, but simply are bodily processes, namely processes which augment the body's force of existence; affects are, by the same token, the ideas of these bodily processes. This latter point is confirmed by the general definition of emotions by which Spinoza establishes the starting point for his discussion of human bondage and of human freedom. Keywords: affects; bondage; emotions; Ethics ; Freedom; human freedom; Spinoza


Introduction Where are we going with intervention? Who gains, and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? Is this development desirable? What, if anything, should we do about it? These are in a slightly circumscribed version the sort of questions Bent Flyvbjerg poses as part of a discussion on how to make social science matter (Flyvbjerg, 2001: 145). Increasingly social scientists are demanded applicability. Interventionist research is often seen as commendable, active and useful, whereas descriptive research is seen as passive, detached, old-school and ivory tower-like. On an administrative level this endeavour may for instance be seen through the initiative From Research to Invoice (In Danish: 'Fra Forskning til Faktura') (2003) taken by the Danish government. In scientific context the notion Mode 2 (Nowotny, Scott, & Gibbons, 2003) and Engaged Scholarship (Van de Ven, 2007) and a new interest in action research (Duus, Husted, Kildedal, Laursen, & Tofteng, 2012) exemplifies this movement.


The researchers of the data mining domain presume that the study of traditional clustering techniques is saturating day by day. But, a deep insight into those techniques unfolds many silhouettes which could lead to many more applications in diverged domains. In clustering, the attributes of the data provide the information needed for data segregation. There may exist some real world data with less number of attributes but more information contained in them and may be of interest for some applications. Because of less number of attributes, the data may not be well separated by any of the clustering techniques. Data expansion techniques are methods for constructing more number of attributes from less number of attributes. With the application of these techniques, an expanded data set may be reconstructed from a given data set during data preprocessing. The current work pronounces the fact that, the expanded data at times yield better clustering results than the real data. This paper is an attempt to empirically evaluate and analyze the effects of data expansion on clustering results where validity of the results are established through internal indexing techniques and probabilistic validation measures.


We introduce a customizable, reusable actuated tangible user interface object: ACTO. Its modular design allows quick adaptations for different scenarios and setups on tabletops, making otherwise integral parts like the actuation mechanism or the physical configuration interchangeable. Drawing on the resources of well-established maker communities makes prototyping especially quick and easy. This allows the exploration of new concepts without the need to redesign the whole system, which qualifies it as an ideal research and education platform for tangible user interfaces. We present a detailed description of the hardware and software architecture of our system. Several implemented example configurations and application scenarios demonstrate the capabilities of the platform.


he aim of this study was to verify if the preference techniue "tokui-waza", in judo determinates postural desviations in adult male athletes, with 5 or more years of practive. Thirty seven athletes from Foz do Iguacu, Cascavel, Maringa and Curitiba in the state of Parana practisingfor an average time of 14,1 years werw the subjects. Data werw collected at the subjects' trainig place. Evaluation instruments werw a postural deviation card, graph paper and a interview for identification. Descriptive and inferential statistics werw used to analyse data. Results show that practising judo using the preference technique "tokui-waza" seems to have negative implications in judoists' postural development.


Students are likely to need assistance in making business arrangements with printers, where the student paper is printed elsewhere than on the campus, and in building up a morgue, or library. The adviser can be of value here. One rather common, almost always fatal mistake the adviser makes is to insist upon the suppression of news stories that are likely to cause trouble. Time will not permit of a lengthy discussion of that matter, but I will say in passing that I do not know of any way in which an adviser to student editors can destroy his usefulness more quickly and effectively than to advocate the suppression of legitimate news of campus happenings. Needless to say, the well informed and properly qualified adviser will not attempt it. He may guard against libel and insist upon fair play, but beyond that he must not go, if he is not to impair beyond hope the proper relation of the department of journalism to the student newspaper. Thus far I have dealt with the relationship of the journalism department to the college paper, but there are, of course. other student publications. I believe that members of the journalism department, or other members of the university faculty, may very well act in an advisory capacity in certain phases of the publishing of the student annual, or yearbook. Certainly advice is usually needed when it comes to such matters as signing contracts with photographers, printers, and engravers. Faculty members, who are qualified, can be of assistance in matters artistic and literary, without detract! from the life and spontaneousness of t~g publication. Such relationship to the staff of the student annual will do Illuh to obviate many of the abuses that c often characterize the publishing of S~ob books. c


Two proposed formulae are presented to obtain the reinforced concrete slender column capacity. Reinforced concrete slender columns are used more nowadays than in the past 30 years because of development of engineering materials. Structural engineers that adopted the ACI 318M Code know that the design of this type of columns is more tedious than short ones. This research proposes two formulae that reflect the ultimate strength of cross section of slender columns, one for the axial and the second for the bending moment. Case study of 656250 columns is generated to cover most variable properties of columns, analyzed using MATLAB (R2017a) Program to obtain the ultimate strength of cross section then compared to the strength of slender columns.


Australian water resources have a turbulent history of management, arising from a combination of jurisdictional and physical system characteristics. The position of state boundaries along rivers and across landscapes, and the imposition of state-based management regimes, have resulted in the water resources of large river basins being assessed and managed in significantly different ways. In addition to this, Australian water resources exhibit some of the world's highest variability in flows, leading to large uncertainties in prediction, and management, of the resource. This situation has been exacerbated in recent years as precipitation has diminished and become more variable, enhancing Australia's reputation as a land of 'droughts and flooding rains'. Under various future predictions of climate it is forecast that Australia's water resources will become more scarce and less reliable. In this situation the keys to improving future management of Australian water resources are to monitor the water resource, understand the interaction of water system components of demand and supply and the characteristics of the system, to predict the future state under a variety of conditions and management regimes, and to use system monitoring to improve such understanding and prediction. To achieve these ends the Government of Australia approved, in 2007, the development of an Australian Water Resources Information System (AWRIS). This system is designed as a national end-to-end system, taking data from long term and real-time monitoring networks, through a national data collection and collation centre, to web-based provision of water data, information, prediction and forecasting tools, and predictions. This paper describes the vision, and architecture, implementation and development issues of the AWRIS (http://www.bom.gav.au/water). 1. BACKGROUND Water is a key area of concern for many societies and countries, particularly in the face of clim atic change and increasing climatic variability. Australia is one country that is highly susceptible to these influences for, although having an overall low population density, much of land is arid, with a highly urbanised society and a significant dependence upon irrigated agriculture. In Australia, water resources are largely managed or overseen at a state level, with various l evels of management also occurring at local, catchment, region, system and basin scales. As a result, it is difficult to obtain a whole and consistent understanding of the nature of the resource, and even more difficult to make reliable forecasts of future water availability. There are over 200 agencies, authorities, corporations and organisations that manage part of the resource, and which therefore hold some of the pieces of the water resources puzzle. Effective and holistic water resources management to meet competing needs is thus


The plasma analyzer experiment on the Pioneer Venus Orbiter was designed to determine the basic characteristics of the plasma environment of Venus and the nature of the solar wind interaction at Venus. The plasma analyzer experiment is an electrostatic energy-per-unit charge (E/Q) spectrometer which measures ions and electrons. There is a curved plate electrostatic analyzer system with multiple collectors. The experiment obtains the three dimensional plasma distribution function. Some of the scientific objectives of the instrument are briefly discussed, the general characteristics of the experiment are summarized, and some of the analyses based on the data are presented.


We show that the relativistic two-stream instability can naturally generate strong magnetic fields with 10-5-10-1 of the equipartition energy density, in the collisionless shocks of gamma-ray burst (GRB) sources. The generated fields are parallel to the shock front and fluctuate on the very short scale of the plasma skin depth. The synchrotron radiation emitted from the limb-brightened source image is linearly polarized in the radial direction relative to the source center. Although the net polarization vanishes under circular symmetry, GRB sources should exhibit polarization scintillations as their radio afterglow radiation gets scattered by the Galactic interstellar medium. Detection of polarization scintillations could therefore test the above mechanism for magnetic field generation.


Part 1 Preface Part 2 Acknowledgments Part 3 A Brief Biography of Suzanne Renee Briet Part 4 Suzanne Briet's What is Documentation? Part 5 "A Necessity of Our Time": Documentation as "Cultural Technique" in What is Documentation? Part 6 Writings by Suzanne Renee Briet: A Selective Bibliography Part 7 About the Editors and Contributors


HYDROLOGY AND WATER RESOURCES Remote Sensing Technologies for Multiscale Hydrological Studies: Advances and Perspectives Sadiq I. Khan, Ni-Bin Chang, Yang Hong, Xianwu Xue, and Yu Zhang Groundwater Targeting Using Remote Sensing Santhosh Kumar Seelan WATER USE AND WATER PRODUCTIVITY Remote Sensing of Actual Evapotranspiration from Croplands Trent W. Biggs, George P. Petropoulos, Naga Manohar Velpuri, Michael Marshall, Edward P. Glenn, Pamela Nagler, and Alex Messina Water Productivity Studies from Earth Observation Data: Characterization, Modeling, and Mapping Water Use and Water Productivity Antonio de C. Teixeira, Fernando B. T. Hernandez, Morris Scherer-Warren, Ricardo G. Andrade, Janice F. Leivas, Daniel C. Victoria, Edson L. Bolfe, Prasad S. Thenkabail, and Renato A.M. Franco FLOODS Flood Monitoring Using the Integration of Remote Sensing and Complementary Techniques Allan S. Arnesen, Frederico T. Genofre, Marcelo P. Curtarelli, and Matheus Z. Francisco Flood Studies Using Synthetic Aperture Radar Data Sandro Martinis, Claudia Kuenzer, and Andre Twele WETLANDS Remote Sensing of Mangrove Wetlands Chandra Giri Wetland Mapping Methods and Techniques Using Multisensor, Multiresolution Remote Sensing: Successes and Challenges R. Mishra, Shuvankar Ghosh, C. Hladik, Jessica L. O'Connell, and H.J. Cho Inland Valley Wetland Cultivation and Preservation for Africa's Green and Blue Revolution Using Multi-Sensor Remote Sensing Murali Krishna Gumma, Prasad S. Thenkabail, Irshad A. Mohammed, Pardhasaradhi Teluguntla, and Venkateswarlu Dheeravath SNOW AND ICE Remote Sensing Mapping and Modeling of Snow Cover Parameters and Applications Hongjie Xie, Tiangang Liang, Xianwei Wang, and Guoqing Zhang NIGHTLIGHTS Nighttime Light Remote Sensing: Monitoring Human Societies from Outer Space Qingling Zhang, Noam Levin, Christos Chalkias, and Husi Letu GEOMORPHOLOGY Geomorphological Studies from Remote Sensing James B. Campbell and Lynn M. Resler DROUGHTS AND DRYLANDS Agricultural Drought Detection and Monitoring Using Vegetation Health Methods Felix Kogan and Wei Guo Agricultural Drought Monitoring Using Space-Derived Vegetation and Biophysical Products: A Global Perspective Felix Rembold, Michele Meroni, Oscar Rojas, Clement Atzberger, Frederic Ham, and Erwann Fillol Remote Sensing of Drought: Emergence of a Satellite-Based Monitoring Toolkit for the United States Brian Wardlow, Martha Anderson, Tsegaye Tadesse, Chris Hain, Wade T. Crow, and Matt Rodell Regional Drought Monitoring Based on Multisensor Remote Sensing Jinyoung Rhee, Jungho Im, and Seonyoung Park Land Degradation Assessment and Monitoring of Drylands Marion Stellmes, Ruth Sonnenschein, Achim Roder, Thomas Udelhoven, Stefan Sommer, and Joachim Hill DISASTERS Disasters: Risk Assessment, Management, and Post-Disaster Studies Using Remote Sensing Norman Kerle Humanitarian Emergencies: Causes, Traits, and Impacts as Observed by Remote Sensing Stefan Lang, Petra FUreder, Olaf Kranz, Brittany Card, Shadrock Roberts, and Andreas Papp VOLCANOES Remote Sensing of Volcanoes Robert Wright FIRES Satellite-Derived Nitrogen Dioxide Variations from Biomass Burning in a Subtropical Evergreen Forest, Northeast India Krishna Prasad Vadrevu and Kristofer Lasko Remote Sensing-Based Mapping and Monitoring of Coal Fires Anupma Prakash and Claudia Kuenzer URBAN AREAS Urban Growth Mapping of Mega Cities: Multisensor Approach Hasi Bagan and Yoshiki Yamagata Latest High-Resolution Remote Sensing and Visibility Analysis for Smart Environment Design Yoshiki Yamagata, Daisuke Murakami, and Hajime Seya SUMMARY Remote Sensing of Water Resources, Disasters, and Urban Areas: Monitoring, Modeling, and Mapping Advances over Last 50 Years and a Vision for the Future Prasad S. Thenkabail


The Supercritical carbon dioxide (SCO2) is widely used in many industrial applications as process or heat transfer fluid. The SCO2 is characterized by good chemical stability at high temperature, supercritical conditions at limited temperature and pressure and high thermodynamic efficiency. Because of these features, SCO2 allows to operate with small sized operating machines and higher efficiency compared to conventional applications. Moreover, the SCO2 can be used in conventional thermodynamic gas cycles reaching higher efficiency at the same temperature level. The main advantage is the possibility of reaching thermodynamic efficiency values close to 50%, much higher than conventional cycles. Moreover, the critical point of CO2, low pressure and low temperature (7 MPa and 300 K), makes systems more economic and technically feasible than systems powered by other supercritical fluids. SCO2 industrial applications are analyzed in the present paper and specific advantages will be investigated.


The problem of sensor fault diagnosis and reconstruction of the continuous casting mold vibration displacement system driven by servo motor is investigated in this paper, and a fault reconstruction method based on adaptive sliding mode observer is proposed. Firstly, the matching condition of the observer is satisfied by constructing an auxiliary output, and a new state variable is selected as the low-pass filter with the fault vector output. Then an adaptive sliding mode observer is designed for the auxiliary output system in the present of the unknown upper bound of the fault, in which the adaptive switching gain is updated online. The gain matrix of the observer is obtained by solving a LMI optimization problem. And a linear transforming matrix is introduced to realize the direct estimation of the fault by the principle of the equivalent control output error injection. Finally, simulation results are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.


The reliable prediction of working and cushion gas volumes as well as of the withdrawal curve and the maximum withdrawal rate and the duration of the maximum rate plateau are key parameters of operating and planned underground gas storage caverns. These capacities and their availability are the basis for safe operations, marketable storage capacities and gas sales which leads overall to good economics. The changing gas market with increasing competition and more active use of gas storage has prompted the need for more reliable predictions of the cavern capacities. Therefore, the evaluation of key parameters for an individual cavern must be based on a modeling approach using a complete numerical system which also refers to the salt rock formation around the cavern, the gas filled cavern itself and the well and surface facilities up to the storage connection point to the gas pipeline network. By adjusting model parameters it is possible to calibrate models against reality by matching the model to historically observed data such as cavern well-head pressures and temperatures, gas injection and withdrawal rates and cavern geometrical volumes measured by sonar surveys in gas. Subsequently a simulation run at maximum gas withdrawal rates provides a prediction over time of pressures, temperatures, withdrawal rates, salt convergence and the mentioned key parameters. For these predictions the overall physical mechanisms with boundary conditions have to be modeled numerically. These include: - pressures in the cavern, well and surface facilities as well as the pressure losses, - temperatures and associated heat transfer in salt rock formations, - geometrical volumes exposed to salt convergence and the salt mechanics limitations, - gas injection and withdrawal rates, - hydrate formation from the gas-water content to avoid blockages in the well tubing and surface facilities. Based on a consistent history match and limiting conditions the key parameters resulting from predictions are illustrated by way of examples. Applications are shown which demonstrate the importance of an integrated modeling approach including dynamic temperature behavior and salt convergence for project decisions and storage optimization. Calculations were performed by using a commercial simulation tool which had to be enhanced to describe the combined physical mechanisms along with the boundary conditions and moreover had to be adjusted to local requirements to end up with a reliable simulation model.


When the response to percutaneous ablation therapy (PAT) of liver tumours is incomplete, surgery may be undertaken as a salvage therapy. To validate the safety and effectiveness of salvage hepatectomy, patients who had undergone PAT or no treatment before hepatectomy were compared.


fication for such practice came in the discourses on martial races, which could be found in French Indochina as well as in Dutch Indonesia or the domain of the British. Emphasis upon honor and duty appealed to these sometimes newly constructed identities and often secured their loyalty. Such praise existed alongside suspicion, leading to the use of "martial races" outside their areas of recruitment, as the two essays on Indochina make clear. The ambivalent and often contradictory legacy of the era of the colonial armies could be seen in the aftermath of Japan's wartime domination in Southeast Asia, which becomes apparent in Abu Tahib Amhad's essay on the impact of the occupation upon colonial and anticolonial forces alike. Collaboration with the Japanese against the Europeans could lead to subsequent formation of national armies, delay the process as in Burma/Myanmar, or could lead to reversals of loyalties as the Japanese imperial sun began to sink. And the postwar and postcolonial legacies would also differ, seen in the experience of Malaysia where resistance to the Japanese in 1941–42 became a proud, postcolonial memory.


The manufacture of the female body by contemporary medicine questions the psychic stakes of feminine identity inherent to interiority. Does this practice currently make it possible to bring about the woman without any doubt? Analytical listening of patients suffering from rare gynaecologic pathologies: from disorders of sex development (dsd) to Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser Syndrome (mrkh), clarifies these questions. On one side the visual doubt on genitalia at birth feeds scepticism and can at times contaminate identity constitution; on the other side the discovery of the absence of internal sex organs makes the tranquil feeling of being a "girl-to-be-woman" waver. At both ends therefore exists a doubt about "being female". In the end, made female through medicine, these girls and later young women are no less reduced to not seeing the interior they were built. Therefore, would it not be this lack of seeing their interiority restored, with regard to excessive medical voyeurism they might feel the object of, which carries this radical uncertainty?


The article reviews the art installation exhibition "Follies," featuring the works of conceptual artist Mark Dion on view at Storm King Art Center in New York City until November 9, 2019.


Ba-free mercury-based cupric oxide superconductors "(Hg, M)Sr2Can-1CunOy" (M=Re, Cr, Mo; n=2, 3) were prepared by using high-pressure technique. The substitution of M for Hg was found to be essential to the stabilization of the Ba-free phases, which are isostructural to HgBa2Can-1CunOy As-grown Re-doped sample was over-doped, and Tc varied systematically as a function of temperature of annealing in an evacuated quartz ampoule. The maximum TT thus attained is 120 K for Re-doped n=3 phase. As-grown Cr-doped n=3 phase was under-doped superconductor, and Tc up to 110K by oxidization. As opposed to samples of HgBa2Can-1CunOy' these compounds "(Hg, M)Sr2Can-1CunOy" (M=Re, Cr, Mo; n=2, 3) are stable in air at room temperature.


Background
Hepatic metastases from colorectal cancer are still characterized by a poor prognosis as only 20% of patients can undergo surgical resection and in the other 80% chemotherapy achieves short results with a 5-years survival lower than 5%. Protein-kinases play a crucial role in determinating alterations of intracellular signal transmission that are basis for neoplastic and metastatic process. Reverse phase protein array is a technique that allow simultaneous analysis of the phosphorilation state from different specimens and consequently the activation of protein-kinases.
Aim of the study
Our purpose is to compare the phosphoproteomic profile expression of a kinases group involved in intracellular signal transmission of sybchronous liver metastases from colorectal cancer with the matched primary tumors and with metachronous lung metastases, to evaluate if there are a common phenotype for every type of metastases from colorectal cancer and a specific phenotype for liver metastases.
Materials and methods
Using reverse phase protein array we analyzed the activity of 87 protein-kinases involved in multiple intracellular signalling pathways of 34 specimens from patients with colorectal cancer and synchronous liver metastases and of 16 specimens from patients with metachronous colorectal cancer lung metastases.
Results
The levels of 38 out of 87 endpoints analyzed were significantly altered between the primary tumors and the liver metastases. The majority of these are components of only two major signaling pathways: these include the PI3 Kinase/AKT/mTOR prosurvival pathway and the growth factor receptor signaling pathways (which also feed into PI3K signaling). We also observed an increase in phosphorylation of PDGFRb (Y751) (p value = 0.0181), and cKit Y703 (p value = 0.005) in the liver metastases as compared to the primary tumors: both these growth factor receptors also signal through the PI3K/AKT pathway. To confirm this finding, Western blot analysis of AKT (S473) and c-Kit (Y703) was performed on 5 of the cases using a separately obtained cell population obtained by LCM: the results show that the elevations observed by RPPA are accurate.
Comparing the liver metastases to the matched primary colorectal cancver tumor and the unmatched pulmonary metastasis phosphorylation of Pyk2 (Y402) and VEGFR (Y996) were found to be higher and phosphorylation of PKCzeta/lambda (T403/410) and BAD (S136) lower in the liver metastases (p <0.05).
Conclusions
Our results highlight that:
1- There is a common metastatic phenotype in neoplastic cells which is not related to target organ, the PI3 Kinase/AKT/mTOR prosurvival pathway.
2- There is also a phenotype specific for the liver metastases that include the overexpression of VEGFR2 (Y996) e Pyk2 (Y402) in the liver metastases.
Moreover these results suggest some new targets for the therapeutic strategy of colorectal metastases: an inhibitor of PI3K-AKT, in association with drugs as Gleevec (Imatinib mesilate) that inhibit PDGFR receptors and c-KIT, might be used as for colorectal metastases. More selectively, for the treatment of liver metastases, an association of Bevacizumab (VEGFR inhibitor) with a Pyk2 inhibitor could be useful and effective.


Collaborative Web Applications (CWAs) have become a pervasive part of internet. Social media (such as Face book, twitter), topical forums, wikis are all examples of CWAs – that enable a community of end users to interact or cooperate towards a common goal. Some key characteristics of CWAs such as low entry barrier, instant updates, large number of friends, open platform, anonymity make it vulnerable to activities of ill intentions thereby providing a medium for nefarious persons to operate. One such collaborative system is Twitter which has experienced enormous growth in a small amount of time and users do spend respectable amount of their everyday time interacting about various topics with other peers. Twitter has evolved from being a conversation or opinion sharing medium among friends into a platform to share and disseminate information about current events. Events in the real world create a corresponding spur of posts (tweets) on Twitter. In other words it has evolved from a micro blogging service to a major news source. Although a large volume of content is posted on Twitter, not all information is trustworthy or useful in providing information about the event. Gossips, fake news etc. are also a part of genuine news. The main aim of this paper is to tackle the issue of accuracy paradox, a major problem when dealing with social media research, were the data extracted by us was highly imbalanced. This high imbalance in the data was solved by designing an LD-SMO algorithm which achieved an accuracy of ~96% with an equally comparable sensitivity and specificity.


For the asymmetry property of the passive tag UHF RFID system's up/down link,PIE and FM0/Miller encod-ing were used in the reader and tag baseband respectively.The power spectral density(PSD) and the first null bandwidth of these encoding were characterized by analysis and calculation.The PSD and adjacent channel power ratio(ACPR) of DSB-ASK,SSB-ASK and PR-ASK modulated PIE data after pulse shaping were given by simulation.And the optimized data rate was proposed for a given channel bandwidth.


On view of transaction cost theory,this paper carries on brief analysis of transaction efficiency combined with reality of China,and brings forward the idea of building logistics Alliance.


Constipation with fecal impaction is a common and usually overlooked problem. Fecalomas are an extreme variety of fecal impaction caused by coprostasis (1). They are frequently radiopaque, usually found in the rectosigmoid region, and rarely in the more proximal colon. Chronic constipation is one of the most common causes of fecalomas in adults. Chronic constipation is a very common disorder in the general population that is clinically characterized by difficult stool passage includes straining, a sense of difficulty passing stool, sensation of incomplete evacuation, sensation of anorectal blockage, hard/lumpy stools, and infrequent bowel movements (<3 per week) (2). Fecalomas are usually radiopaque and laminated on X-Ray. Herein we report a rare case with well defined contoured, eliptic shaped radiopaque rectal fecaloma which mimic a foreign body.


Inkjet printing has been used as a patterning technique in the fabrication of organic electronic devices because of its characteristics such as high efficiency,low cost,non-contact and flexible patterning process and so on.The deposition and patterning of functional polymer films have been realized through the inkjet printing of the functional polymer solution and used in the fabrication of polymer light-emitting diodes,organic thin film transistors and their integrate circuits.This paper has reviewed the evolution of the fabrication of organic electronic devices by inkjet printing,and the basic problems and status about the inkjet printing of the polymer solutions.


Electrical properties in an n-GaAs/n-GaAs interface regrown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) were remarkably improved using ammonium sulfide [(NH4)2Sx] treatment prior to regrowth. Reflection high-energy electron diffraction observations indicate that GaAs native oxide is removed by this treatment at a 500°C substrate temperature. This is 100°C lower than the temperature for removal of a native oxide by conventional thermal annealing in MBE. Transmission line model measurement shows that contact resistance at the (NH4)2Sx-treated interface is 1.8×10-6 Ωcm2, while it is 6.0×10-5 Ωcm2 without this treatment. Capacitance-voltage measurement and secondary-ion mass spectroscopy show that this reduction, in contact resistance at the regrown interface, is due to sulfur atoms in the interface behaving as donors (at a carrier concentration of 2×1018 cm-3); therefore, they compensate impurities such as carbon or oxygen in the interface. These results reveal that (NH4)2Sx-treatment before regrowth is useful for improving device performances; that is, reducing source resistance for field-effect transistors fabricated by n+-GaAs selective growth.


This study is on the effects of spousal loss among older adults who continue to live independently after bereavement. Little longitudinal studies focus on this group, which is of special interest, since in many countries, care policy and system reform are aimed at increasing independent living among older adults. Using longitudinal data from a Dutch public data repository, we investigate the effects of spousal loss on psychological well-being, perceived quality of life, and (indication of) yearly health-care costs. Of the respondents who had a spouse and were living independently (N1⁄4 9,400) at baseline, the majority had not lost their spouse after 12months (T12, n1⁄4 9,150), but 2.7% (n1⁄4 250) had lost their spouse and still lived independently. We compared both groups using multivariate regression (ordinary least squares) analyses. The results show that spousal loss significantly lowers scores on psychological well-being and perceived quality of life, but we found no effect on health-care costs. Tranzo, Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Tilburg University, the Netherlands Corresponding Author: L. C. van Boekel, Tranzo, Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Tilburg University, Professor Cobbenhagenlaan 125, PO Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, the Netherlands. Email: email@example.com The International Journal of Aging and Human Development


Oxygen is one of the most commonly used yet poorly prescribed drugs. The 2015 British Thoracic Society (BTS) emergency oxygen audit highlighted the national shortcomings in oxygen prescribing and administration. A 2017 local audit at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, UK, continued to demonstrate poor compliance with the BTS Oxygen Prescribing Guidelines in all areas audited. This study carried out yearly reaudits in November 2018 and 2019 to objectively measure the impact of implementing trust-wide and local interventions (July 2018 and August 2019).Intervention 1 included introduction of the National Early Warning Score (NEWS2) scale and redesigning drug charts with tick-boxes for target oxygen saturations. Intervention 2 included mandatory junior doctor teaching on safe oxygen prescribing, 'oxygen safety' posters on audited wards, and reminders at handover for staff to measure and document oxygen saturations.Following Intervention 1, all patients with valid oxygen prescriptions had a specified target saturations range. Intervention 2 ensured all patients had actual saturations within their prescribed target range, and 99% had oxygen saturations documented with sufficient frequency for their NEWS2 score. These were huge improvements from previous audits, during which a significant proportion of patients were at risk of hypercapnia, and those over- or underoxygenated were left unrecognised for hours. Despite improvements, 14% of patients continued to use oxygen without valid prescriptions in 2019, and drug charts were inconsistently signed for during drug rounds.Although the implemented changes enabled drastic improvements for patient safety and quality in oxygen use, future work should ensure oxygen is always treated as a drug with suitable prescription and documentation.


Dr. Aleth M. Mamauag, director of the Institute of Fisheries, Isabela State University, Philippines, along with his graduate student visited Dean Chu and Chairperson Lai, College of Life Sciences, NCYU to discuss further collaboration and student/faculty exchange program.


The study examines the phenomenon of grammatical inclusion, which means that the verb implies the meaning of another act; it takes its judgment on Intransitivity and transitivity , a phenomenon seen by a group of grammarians, linguists and commentators, The research seeks to prove the occurrence of the phenomenon of grammatical inclusion in the poetry of Abu al-Tayyib al-Mutanabi, based on the origin of the linguistic use of Arabic works. The research also presents an empirical study of a set of signs of grammatical inclusion in al-Mutanabbi poetry. It shows the rhetorical rhetoric of inclusion in the poetic context. To conclude the research to prove the genius of al-Mutanabi in the use of this phenomenon, and improve that the poetry of Abu al- Tayyib is deserve to study through the phenomena of language and contextual unconventional reveal new macaroni on the linguistic and monetary studies


Lithium aluminium hydride in the presence of vinylmagnesium bromide (1:1 molar ratio) affords a potent reagent for the reduction of acrylic acid to allyl alcohol (ratio of allyl alcohol to 1-propanol: 3:2). This reducing mixture has allowed the preparation of nocarrier added [1-11C]allyl alcohol with a 25% yield (decay corrected at the end of radionuclide production, overall synthesis time including GC: 40 min) in a one step procedure from [11C]carbon dioxide (C-11: t1/2:20.4 min). [1-11C] 1-propanol was obtained in parallel with a 6.5% yield.


A study seeks to assess the children's understanding of television advertising from the early childhood to the early adolescence and the role of parent-child interaction in this process. For the purpose, two non-disguised structured questionnaires were designed and administered: one to the children and the other to their parents. Children from both the sexes were considered. The study has revealed that Indian children are not as easy a target as advertisers and critics believe. They are able to analyse TV ads and develop a realistic approach towards them. It has been further noticed that children as young as six years, could understand the purpose of TV ads and distinguish them from TV programmes. With increase in the age of the child, there was found to be a significant increase in his/her cognitive understanding of TV ads. Armed with the knowledge about the advertiser's persuasive intent and scepticism about the truthfulness of advertising claims, children above the age of eight years were found to have the ability to respond to TV ads in a mature and informed manner. The results of the present study also show that the TV ads contribute significantly towards the Indian children's consumer socialisation. Even parents admit the role that TV ads play in shaping their children's buying response. However, it was also found that early parent-child interaction was a key element if parents did not want their child to be effected adversely by TV ads. Parents have a responsibility to teach their child about the realities of the commercial world. They play a crucial role in determining what their child learns from TV ads as they supplement the information provided in them. The final lesson that a child extracts from the viewing of TV ads may be a joint product of what was shown on the screen and what was taught by the parents.


In times of scarcity of fossil resources and climate change, the need of renewable resources for the biobased economy becomes increasingly important. Within this thesis a contribution was done to achieve the aim to produce chemicals biobased and not anymore only petrochemical based. To accomplish this, the industrial relevant
microorganism Corynebacterium glutamicum was engineered to utilize the hemicellulose derived pentose sugar D-xylose via an alternative pathway. This utilization was made feasible via the Weimberg pathway without loss of carbon in terms of products derived from alpha-ketoglutarate. During the first investigation two major by-products, D-xylonate and xylitol, of the new synthetic pathway were found. The latter is known as inhibitor of different microorganisms, which could be also confirmed in this thesis for C. glutamicum. The inhibition studies showed different target genes, which are partly responsible for this inhibitory effect (e.g. xylB). Interestingly,
the reference strain in this thesis, a strain expressing the isomerase pathway (including the xylB gene), was already inhibited by low amounts of extracellular xylitol
and accumulates the highest amount of intracellular xylitol-5-phosphate. Within this thesis a high amount of engineered strains had to be screened and charaterized. Therefore, it was the initial aim to develop new robotic workflows and
automated enzymatic assays on a robotic platform. The extended Mini Pilot Plant enables now the high-throughput microbial phenotyping with connected analytics in 384-well format. Further, it is now possible to run a complete process with separation of cell-free supernatants for analytics under sterile conditions without human interruption. Another new robotic workflow which was designed within this thesis is the miniaturized and automated repetitive batch cultivation. The developed workflow was used for fully automated adaptive laboratory evolution (ALE) of the engineered C. glutamicum strain expressing theWeimberg pathway for D-xylose utilization. The ALE process was successful and the final strain had an 260% increased maximal growth rate of max = 0.26 h-1on D-xylose as sole carbon source. The final D-xylose utilizing strain (WMB2evo) grows stable during lab-scale bioreactor operation, which demonstrates the high potential of this strain for future projects with biorefinery applications. Additionally, the occurred mutations during the ALE process were analyzed by genome sequencing and revealed about 15 potential key mutations for improved D-xylose assimilation. These found mutations can be used for
rational strain engineering within further biorefinery projects. But for now the final D-xylose utilizing strain (WMB2evo) is the fastest growing C. glutamicum strain on D-xylose as sole carbon source in literature.


Purpose: TomoTherapy MVCT can be carried out using three distinct imaging modes: Fine, Normal and Coarse. These correspond to a CT slice thickness of 2 mm, 4 mm and 6 mm. In this study we evaluate a new Ultrafine mode allowing slice thickness of 1 mm. Measurements in a phantom are carried out to estimate typical patient dose for all 4 modes. Image quality for the various modes is compared. Method and Materials: A standard TomoTherapy solid water "cheese" phantom was used for all dosimetric analyses. Measurements were made at superficial (0.5 cm) and deep (15.0 cm) regions using ionization chambers.Image quality was evaluated using a megavoltage CT phantom containing 0.067–1.0 Lp/mm. In addition, clinical images of a cranium containing 2 mm gold markers were also evaluated for quality. The collimator width was maintained at standard settings for Fine, Normal and Coarse modes, and reduced to finer settings for the new Ultrafine mode. Results: The collimator opening on our unit was measured at isocenter and was found to be 0.69 cm in the three standard modes, and 0.39 cm in the new Ultrafine mode. The measured imaging dose was: Ultrafine 2.07 cGy, Fine 2.44 cGy, Normal 1.30 cGy and Coarse 0.90 cGy. Dose at superficial and deep regions was similar. The axial views for all four modes show similar resolution as expected since a 512×512 matrix is used regardless of mode. However, the sagittal images show considerable improvement, in both phantom and clinical studies, when imaged in Ultrafine mode. Conclusion: A new Ultrafine collimator setting for TomoTherapy, allowing a resolution of 1 mm in the sagittal plane, is characterized. This improvement is gained without increased patient exposure compared to the standard 2 mm Fine mode. This new imaging mode is expected to be particularly useful in radiosurgery.


A global response to Covid-19 pandemic has triggered issues related to stress and social restrictions;thus, mental health is seen as a particular area of concern for social well-being for both policymakers and corporate regulators/companies Given that mental health intersects with most, if not all, of the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), this research brought to light issues surrounding employment of people with mental disabilities (PWMDs) and the financial merits of employing them An online survey was administered to PWMDs to elicit what possible flexible opportunities could enable them to gain or stay at work Interviews were also conducted with human resource managers and financial managers Our results show that there are currently no flexible working opportunities available for PWMDs, which could enable them work effectively to improve both self and general economic growth The findings of this study will enable employers to explore the financial benefits of employing PWMDs and also aid the government to create better policies to boost employers' commitment to employing PWMDs and achieve some of the UN SDGs © 2021 The Authors Business Strategy and The Environment published by ERP Environment and John Wiley & Sons Ltd


ABSTRACT The state of Jammu and Kashmir in North India experienced one of the worst floods in the past 60 years, during the first week of September 2014. In the present study, multi-temporal synthetic aperture radar (SAR) satellite images acquired from Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) satellite RISAT-1 and Canadian satellite Radarsat-2 during the peak flood period (08th–23rd September 2014) are used for extraction of flood disaster footprints, mapping spatial and temporal dynamics of flood inundation and assessing the disaster impact. With the aid of pre- and post-flood satellite images, coupled with hydro-meteorological data, the unprecedented flood situation is analyzed. It is estimated that about 557 km2 of the Kashmir Valley's geographical area was inundated. Bandipora, Pulwama, Srinagar, Baramulla and Budgam were the worst flood affected districts, having more than 50 km2 of their area affected by flood waters. Of the total inundated area, about 80% of the area under agricultural activity was submerged, followed by built-up areas constituting about 12% of geographical area. About 22 lakh people in 287 villages were affected by floods. The flood waters persisted in the northern and central part of the valley for more than two weeks.


Analog and digital cryoelectronic applications of a novel hybrid device family combining both semiconducting and superconducting elements have been demonstrated experimentally. The proposed device concept is based on the magnetic control of the filamentary current flow during avalanche breakdown in bulk semiconductors at low temperatures. Power losses are minimized by using superconducting lines for the generation of the magnetic control fields and for the interconnections. Our device configuration represents an interesting concept for the development of ultrafast electronic circuits requiring high packing density and correspondingly low power dissipation.


The experimental study attempts to investigate effectiveness of applying Gricean theory of Conversational Implicature to college English listening teaching to improve the students' listening comprehension.As the results from the experiment processed by T-test and correlation analysis show the effectiveness,some suggestions are put forward on college English listening teaching.


At a musical performance at the National Theatre in Kampala, Uganda, the stage is packed with fifty colorfully-adorned musicians and choir members, led by a charismatic female soloist in a gomesi, the Ugandan national dress. She moves throughout the group of attentive choir members who sit about her, swaying to the music as she harmoniously describes the basic provisions of the country's new constitution in Luganda:


Regression testing is necessary to assure the quality of service-oriented business applications in their evolutions. However, because of the constraint of testing resource, entire test suite may not run as a result. Therefore, test case prioritization technique is required to increase the efficiency of Web service application regression testing. In this paper, we propose a dependence analysis based test case prioritization technique. First, we analyze the dependence relationship using control and data flow information in an orchestration language: WS-BPEL. Then we construct a weighted graph and do impact analysis to identify modification-affected elements. After that, we prioritize test cases according to covering more modification-affected elements with the highest weight. Finally we conduct a case study to illustrate the applicability of our method.


Simulation in the passive millimeter-wave (MMW) imaging of rough surfaces is an indispensable step in the simulation in passive radiation imaging. The multi-layer brightness temperature tracing method (MBTTM) can be used to simulate the image of a rough surface, which has been proven in our previous work. However, it causes a significant decrease in efficiency of the simulation. To solve this problem, a fast MBTTM is proposed in this paper. In the new method, the uniformly emission method and multi-layer densification method are presented. To validate the correctness of the new algorithm, the comparison of the simulation and measurement results are proposed. These results are in good agreement, which indicates that the fast MBTTM can notably shorten the computing time of the simulation of the rough-surface scene.


A detailed mathematical model of compressor stations and pipes is essential for optimizing the performance of the gas pipeline system. Most of the available literature on compressor station modeling is based on isothermal solutions for pipe flow, which is inadequate for our purposes. In the present work, the pipe flow is treated as nonisothermal unsteady one-dimensional compressible flow. This is accomplished by treating the compressibility factor as a function of pressure and temperature, and the friction factor as a function of Reynolds number. The solution method is the fully implicit finite difference method that provides solution stability, even for relatively large time steps. The compressors within the compressor station are modeled using centrifugal compressor map-based polynomial equations. This modeling technique permits the designation of different models of compressors in the compressor station. The method can be easily extended to include other types of compressors. Using this mathematical model as a basis, a nonlinear programing problem (NLP) is set up wherein the design variables are the compressor speeds and the objective function to be minimized is the total fuel consumption. The minimum acceptable throughput is imposed as a constraint. This NLP is solved numerically by a sequential unconstrained minimization technique, using the mathematical model of the system for the required function evaluations. The results show that this approach is very effective in reducing fuel consumption. An application of this methodology for selecting the number of compressors to be shut down for the most fuel-efficient operation is also presented. Our results further indicate that station-level optimization produces results comparable to those obtained by network-level optimization. This is very significant because it implies that the optimization can be done locally at the station level, which is computationally much easier.


Objective:To study the protective effect of milrinone,a specific phosphodiesterase inhibitor,on graft lung function during procurement and cold preservation.Methods:Twenty-four SD rats were randomly divided into 2 groups.The lungs were flushed and preserved for 12 h in 4℃low po- tassium dextran (LPD) solution,and then reperfused with blood (5 mL·min~(-1)).The lung preservation and reperfusion were performed in the absence (control) or presence of milrinone (666μg·L~(-1) or 20μg/30 mL).Results:The gas exchange,uhrastructure,wet/dry weight ratio and hemodynamics were superior in lungs treated with milrinone.The contents of MDA,MPO and interlukin-8 in pulmonary tissue after reperfusion were significantly lower in milrinone group than in control group.Conclusions:The spe- cific phosphodiesterase inhibitor milrinone provides protection from ischemia-reperfusion injury in an in vitro model of lung transplantation during cold preservation.


We present results on thin Ti-Nb-based films containing Hf at various concentrations grown by magnetron sputtering. The films exhibit α" patterns at Hf concentrations up to 11 at.%, while at 16 at.% Hf, the β-phase emerges as a stable structure. These findings were consolidated by ab initio calculations, according to which the α"–β transformation is manifested in the calculation of the electronic band energies for Hf contents between 11 and 18 at.%. It turns out that the β-phase transition originates from the Hf 5d contributions at the Fermi level and the Hf 6s hybridizations at low energies in the electronic density of states. Bonding–anti-bonding first neighbor features existing in the shifted plane destabilize the α″-phase, especially at high Hf concentrations, while the covalent-like features in the first neighborhood stabilize the corresponding plane of the β-phase. Thin films measurements and bulk total energy calculations agree that the lattice constants of both α″ and β phases increase upon Hf substitution. These results are important for the understanding of β-Ti-based alloys formation mechanisms and can be used for the design of suitable biocompatible materials.


This is a brief survey of recent works by Neil Trudinger and myself on the Bernstein problem and Plateau problem for affine maximal hypersurfaces. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 35J60, 53A15.


The Deep Space Network (DSN) enables NASA to communicate with its deep space spacecraft. By virtue of its large antennas, the DSN can be used as a powerful instrument for radio astronomy. In particular, Deep Space Station (DSS) 43, the 70 m antenna at the Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex (CDSCC) has a K-band radio astronomy system covering a 10 GHz bandwidth at 17 to 27 GHz. This spectral range covers a number of atomic and molecular lines, produced in a rich variety of interstellar gas conditions. A new high-resolution spectrometer was deployed at CDSCC in November 2019 and connected to the K-band downconverter. The system has two different firmware modes: 1) Using a 65k-pt FFT to provide 32,768 spectral channels at 30.5 kHz (0.45 km/s velocity resolution) and 2) Using a 16k-pt polyphase filterbank (PFB) to provide 8,192 spectral channels with ~ 122 kHz resolution (1.8 km/s velocity resolution). Previous work extensively described the spectrometer system. In this paper we present added functionality and updates to the commissioned spectrometer. The changes include developments in system timing, metadata, firmware and data products.


This master's thesis will experimentally verify that it does not matter from which queue an object is stolen, how often an object is stolen or how many objects are stolen when doing load balancing ...


Fromthe mid-1960s,telecommunication services are used to provide by satellite. Later significant expansions available in the public and private sector which provide payload, transmission, and antenna and launch capabilities. Satellite television and global positioning system (GPS) navigation are now become new form of mobile communication in satellite communication. For the use of communication in maritime sector the Mobilesatellite services being used from the start of the 1980s.Aeronautical, personal communication and land mobile services are the frequent use of mobile satellite communication.


Academic libraries in China are transforming traditionally isolated and separated operations by initiating an integral library system (also known as integral system development) to connect all academic libraries nationwide, and to connect them with other information networks abroad. A three-tier network at the national, regional, and campus levels should be developed. This paper describes the current academic library environment in China, the concept of the integral library system, and the major goals to be realized in the next five years.


A new model for the quantitative analysis of Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy (KPFM) measurements of quasi‐one‐dimensional systems is presented. It is applied to precisely determine the local surface potential (SP) of semiconducting nanofibers of poly(3‐hexylthiophene) (P3HT) self‐assembled on various flat substrates. To study these quasi‐one dimensional objects, the effective area has been defined. This parameter represents the area of sample surface interacting with the KPFM probe and it plays a crucial role in the estimation of the SP of nanofibers having a cross‐section comparable to the apical diameter of the tip, i.e., 20 nm. Therefore our model makes it possible to gain quantitative insight into nano‐systems smaller than 20 nm. In particular, through the estimation of the effective area, it allows to determine the local surface potential of single nanofiber as well as to simulate the KPFM image of nano‐assemblies adsorbed both on electrically insulating and conducting substrates. This versatile model represents a useful tool to study with a high degree of precision the surface potential characteristics of nanowires paving the way towards their use as building blocks for the fabrication of electronic nanodevices with improved performance.


Summary One hour after insulin administration to healthy, fasting humans, plasma nonesterified fatty acid (NEFA) levels decreased by approximately 40% of the prein-jection value. Contrary to predictions, plasma free tryptophan did not change and plasma bound tryptophan decreased by 12% during the 1 hr after insulin administration. In these subjects, neither bound nor free plasma tryptophan levels are correlated significantly with plasma NEFA levels. These data clearly demonstrate that the levels of free or bound tryptophan in plasma are not regulated by changes in NEFA plasma levels in fasting humans after insulin administration.


"Globin insulin" was announced by Reiner, Searle and Lang1in 1939. It is now available in the open market as globin insulin with zinc in U 80 concentration. Globin insulin with zinc is a clear aqueous solution, having apHof about 3.7 and composed of 3.04 mg. of globin (a simple protein derived from hemoglobin), 0.24 mg. of zinc (present as zinc chloride) and 80 units of insulin per cubic centimeter; 0.18 per cent of cresol is added as preservative. Observations on the action and clinical use of globin insulin with zinc have been published by Bauman,2Marks,3Andrews and Groat,4Duncan and Barnes,5Bailey and Marble,6Levitt and Schaus7and Lawrence.8A consideration of these reports and the experience of treating more than 50, nearly all ambulant, cases of diabetes with globin insulin with zinc9furnish the material for