Writing applications that are easily moved to various computer platforms with different graphical user interfaces (GUIs) is a complex task. Yet this concept is important for the creator of commercial software, as it is not likely to be clear for many years whether one or two GUIs will survive and become industry 'standards' or whether the growth in GUIs will continue because of new developments in human‐computer interfaces. Providing a user interface abstraction that maps into all toolkits seems to be an appropriate way to proceed, but is fraught with difficulty. For example, different GUIs present a different look‐and‐feel that often causes system‐specific information to be embedded in an application. This paper surveys the problems inherent in designing a user interface abstraction, and describes the experiences gained from a specific implementation called CIRL/PIWI. CIRL and PIWI are acronyms for Co‐ordinate‐Independent Resource Language and Presentation‐Independent Windowed Interface. The user interface abstraction contains a knowledge base that allows many components of the user interface to be defined independent of look‐and‐feel thereby increasing the portability of an application.


A roller bearing includes an outer ring formed by connecting a plurality of arc-shaped outer ring members in a circumferential direction and a plurality of rollers arranged along an inner diameter surface of the outer ring. A slope surface (22i) is provided at one or each circumferential end on an inner diameter surface of the outer ring member (22a), and a contour line of the slope surface (22i) is along a direction perpendicular to a revolution direction of the roller.


Recent epidemiological data on pancreatic cancer presented at the 24th United European Gastroenterology (UEG) Week held in Vienna (Austria) on October 2016, is alarming. During his lecture, Professor Matthias Löhr (UEG pancreatic cancer expert from the Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden) has said: "Pancreatic cancer survival rate is lower than any other cancer. Consequently, it is absolutely vital that patients receive a diagnosis as early as possible to allow for surgery, which is currently the only potential for a cure." This important statement comes from a recent study in which the authors used time-linear prediction models to show how mortality rates for pancreatic cancer will increase across Europe (EU) by approximately 50% in 2025 compared to that in 2010, moving from 76,000 deaths to 111,500 deaths [1]. In addition, the study also revealed that pancreatic cancer may become the third leading cause of death from cancer in the EU following lung and colorectal cancers [1]. We know that the established risk factors are obesity, diabetes, smoking, family history, chronic pancreatitis, and alcohol consumption. These factors should be kept under increased surveillance in those patients having a greater risk of developing pancreatic cancer. Given that these symptoms are not easily identifiable, it is difficult to make early detection of neoplasms so as to avoid recourse to surgery. In fact, at diagnosis, only about 20% of patients with pancreatic cancer are considered to be eligible for surgical treatment [2]. It is well known that pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA) is one of the most difficult types of neoplasia in terms of both diagnosis and treatment. Over the past few years, several serum and tissue markers have been proposed for identifying the earliest forms liable to greater effective treatment, since the prognosis remains low. To date, the most used marker is the carbohydrate antigen (CA 19-9) [3]. According to data from the European Group on Tumor Marker guidelines, this marker is not useful in the diagnosis of early forms [4], utility which instead assumed in concert with radiological techniques, such as computed tomography (CT) or endoscopic ultrasound (EUS). Adnab-9 is a promising murine monoclonal antibody (MAb) that can identify a subpopulation of cells in colonic adenomatous but not carcinomatous tissue resembling Paneth cells [5,6]. Adnab-9 MAb raised against neoplastic, potentially premalignant colonic adenomas recognizes a marker in colonic effluent or tissue which correlates with the presence of tumors or risk of colorectal cancer (CRC) [7]. Adnab-9 is shed into the bowel lumen [8], and preliminary data show that it is also detectable in the stool [9]. Tobi et al. [10] have studied whether Adnab-9 may also be a useful prognostic marker for invasive intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasia (IPMN). They found that 26% of the IPMNs were labeled with Adnab-9 as compared to 0% of pancreatic ductal cancers or surrounding benign tissues (p<0.001). Labeling in IPMNs was usually seen in the noninvasive epithelium, suggesting that Adnab-9 is a premalignant marker in these kinds of lesions [10]. Recently, in a prospective study, Tobi et al. [11] evaluated Adnab-9 monoclonal antibody in stool, pancreaticobiliary secretions, and tissue as screening and prognostic value in sporadic PDA. In particular, pancreaticobiliary secretions were collected from 12 PDA patients and 9 controls. Their results showed that Adnab-9 alone was diagnostic and prognostic when measured in pancreatic secretions, feces, and tissues of PDA patients compared to the controls (p < 0.05). They concluded that Adnab-9 fecal binding can precede the clinical diagnosis by 2.3 years, allowing earlier intervention [11]. In addition, *Corresponding Author: Dr. Maddalena Zippi, Unit of Gastronterology and Digestive Endoscopy, Sandro Pertini, Hospital, Via dei Monti Tiburtini 385, 00157, Rome, Italy, E-mail: email@example.com


.................................................................................................................................... v Dedication ................................................................................................................................ vi Acknowledgement .................................................................................................................. vii List of Tables ............................................................................................................................ x List of Figures .......................................................................................................................... xi List of Acronyms .................................................................................................................... xii Chapter


The high prevalence of iron deficiency anemia and low compliance of iron and folic acid supplementation was reported among pregnant women in Nepal. This study aimed to determine the knowledge and compliance of iron and folic acid supplementation among pregnant and postnatal women in Kathmandu. A descriptive cross-sectional study design was adopted for the study. Sample size was 103 and purposive sampling technique was used to collect the data. All Pregnant women of having above 7 month pregnancy and postnatal's up to 6 months women were included. Data was collected by using self-administered questionnaire .All the obtained data were analyzed with the help of SPSS version 20. Assessment of knowledge revealed that 85.6 % (88) of the participants have adequate knowledge regarding iron and folic acid supplementation .The findings showed 78.6% (81) of the respondents had iron and folic acid compliance as standard of Nepal government that is to be taken minimum 180 tablet before delivery. It concludes that the level of knowledge and compliance rate of iron and folic acid supplementation in Kathmandu is satisfactory in comparisons to national status i.e. 42% according to Nepal Demographic health survey 2016. Pearson chi-square test shows that level of knowledge on iron and folic acid tablet is not associated with the compliance of iron and folic acid tablet (χ2= 0.019, p< 0.889). The main reason of respondents having compliance is due to having proper counseling from health worker and non compliance is due to forgetting to have tablet. Therefore improving knowledge level only can't improve compliance level, various factors like counseling, accessibility and availability of iron and folic acid tablet, side effect of tablet and family support also affects the compliance of iron and folic acid supplementation.


When a massive star ends its life, its core collapses, forming a neutron star or black hole and producing some of the most energetic explosions in the universe. Core-collapse supernovae and long-duration gamma-ray bursts are the violent signatures of compact remnant formation. As such, both fields are intertwined and, coupled with theory, observations of transients can help us better understand compact remnants just as neutron star and black hole observations can constrain the supernova and gamma-ray burst engine. We review these ties in this paper.


Fiber properties were studied for polyether-ester homologs having halogen substituents on the benzene ring; Polyethylene 1, 2-diphenoxyethane-p, p'-dicarboxylate (PEB), Polyethylene 1, 2-di(o-chlorophenoxy)ethane-p, p'-dicarboxylate (PEBCl2) and Polyethylene 1, 2-di(o-bromophenoxy)ethane-p, p'-dicarboxylate (PEBBr2).X-ray fiber diagrams measured for drawn and annealed fibers showed that halogen substituents affect slightly on the fiber identity period and greatly on the spacing which expanded by halogen substitution. The tensile properties were measured for melt-spun, drawn and annealed fibers. Tensile strength was not affected appreciably by halogen substitution. Elongation decreased in the order of PEB>PEBBr2>PEBCl2. Young's modulus increased in the order of PEB PEBCl2. The rate of hydrolysis increased in the order of PEB<PEBCl2<PEBBr2. These fiber properties could be explained mainly by steric hindrance or by volume expansion caused by the halogen substitution.


Cantaloupe (Cucumis melo var. saccharinus) is one of the favorite fruits for consumers and widely cultivated in China. Rapidly and accurately obtaining the distribution information of cantaloupe greenhouses is very helpful to local government. The traditional field survey method by workers is laborious and time-consuming. Remote sensing technology has distinct advantages to obtain distribution information of cantaloupe than the traditional method. The plastic greenhouses were usually adopted in order to improve the yield and quality of cantaloupe. The effect of plastic film on cantaloupe spectral reflectance leads to difficulties estimating the growth information of cantaloupe using remote sensing technology. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to provide a remote sensing method to accurately identify cantaloupe in greenhouses. In this study, with GF-2 image as the data source, we proposed an object-oriented remote sensing monitoring method for cantaloupe growth information based on random forest algorithm by using the specific spatial distribution details (texture features and shape features) and spectral features of plastic greenhouse. In the meantime, the method only using spectral features was also conducted as a contrast. In addition, because of the difference of the spectral features between different periods of cantaloupes, in order to improve the identify accuracy, the cantaloupes at early period and middle-late period were separately monitored in this study. The results show that the method with the combination of spectral features, texture features and shape features can effectively improve the classification accuracy than the method with only spectral features. The overall classification accuracy and the Kappa coefficient of the proposed method were 92.36% and 90.17%, respectively. This study successfully implemented the greenhouse cantaloupe identification meeting the requirements of actual production accuracy, and also is a preliminary study for monitoring the growth period of cantaloupe in greenhouses and can provide a basis for monitoring the growth period and predicting the maturity period of cantaloupe in the future.


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It was briefly introduced an important branch of biochemistry—enzyme kinetics,which was a subject of studying the rate of enzyme-catalyzed reactions.It was recalled the history of the assumption of quasi-steady state in enzyme kinetics.The quasi-steady state law in enzyme kinetics had been a basic assumption proposed more than 80 years ago,it was usually involved in detail in most biochemistry textbooks while introducing enzyme kinetics.The assumption played a key role in the analysis of enzyme kinetics equations.Many experiments,numerical simulations supported the validity of the assumption.However,it had rarely been theoretically discussed its reasonability and applicable range so far.The assumption was recently strictly expressed by means of mathematical language.The validity was then proved via qualitatively analysis of dynamic system.Therefore,the assumption could be named as quasi-steady state law.


In a dissolution experiment using the calcifying algae Calcidiscus leptoporus the morphological changes of the coccoliths were followed by means of SEM analysis. The decrease in coccolith calcite mass during this experiment was quantified. These data were used for the interpretation of the coccolith morphologies within faecal pellets produced in additionally conducted feeding experiments with the calanoid copepods Calanus helgolandicus and Temora longicornis. Linking the observed coccolith morphologies from the coccolith dissolution experiments with the coccolith morphologies observed within the faecal pellets it can be concluded that the coccolith dissolution during copepod gut passage is well below 8 weight (wt.) %.


Materials technology is a matter of great applicative and crosscutting interest, as evidenced by their presence in most curriculums of the current industrial engineering degrees. During the development of this matter, it is crucial that the student assimilates not only the relationship among composition, processing and mechanical properties, but also, how all these technological features interact facing the in-service behavior of the material. That is why, within a Doctoral dissertation developed at the Department of Construction and Manufacturing Engineering at the National Distance Education University (UNED), it has designed a computer tool to quantify the stringency level of technological requirements of materials (especially suitable for high demanding applications), characterized by its suitability as interactive teaching material used in the teaching of materials engineering. As a case study, we have chosen a selection of materials for nuclear reactor pressure vessels, because it is a very representative example of the relationship between chemical composition, mechanical properties and in-service behavior.


This project continues to develop a database of plant image images dynamically linked to associated scientific data about those images.


The Hanford Site was established in 1943 as one of the three original Manhattan Project locations involved in the development of atomic weapons. It continued as a defense production center until 1988, when its mission changed to environmental restoration and remediation. The Hanford Site is changing its business strategy and in doing so, is reinventing government. This new development has been significantly influenced by a number of external sources. These include: the change in mission, reduced security requirements, new found partnerships, fiscal budgets, the Tri-Party agreement and stakeholder involvement. Tight budgets and the high cost of cleanup require that the site develop and implement innovative cost saving approaches to its mission. Costeffective progress is necessary to help assure continued funding by Congress.


Recent studies utilizing the radioisotopes have indicated the fact that the bone剛 seekingelements, the calcium and strontium, are directly taken up from the environmental water by marine as well as fresh water fishes (ROSENTHAL, 1956, 1957, 1957a; BOROUGHS et al. 1956, 1957; TOMIYAMA et al., 19,56, 1956a). Before these works, however, the demonstration of this fact had been very difficu1t. SMITH (19291,930) never admitted the calcium uptake by fishes across the gil1s,旦ndKROGH (1938, 1939) saw only once Ca-トi taken up with Cl-by gold fish, but in most experiments Ca++ was not absorbed at all. More recently SCHIFFMAN (1961) showed by means of a perfusion method that both the inand outflux of 85Sr took place across the gills of rainbow trout. On the other hand, by the us巴 ofa divided chamber method, REID, TOWNSLEY and EGO (1959) concluded that 85Sr can b巴 uniformly taken up through the body surface of th巴 fish. The present writers have also carried out for the past several years various 巴xp巴rimentson the calcium metabolism by fishes. The present report deals wi th the results obtained from th巴 exp巴rimentson th巴 crucian carp, including the internal distribution of 45Ca taken up from the environmental medium as wel1 as from injection, the effect of calcium concentration of the external m巴diumon the uptake, the pathway of the uptake and output of calcium, and the types of 45Ca incorporation. The writers wish to express heartfelt thanks to Mr. H. SHlIRE, Mr. M, UESAKA, Mr. H. ANDO, Mr. S. MORITA, Mr. H. NIMURA andMr. T. YAMABE for their careful laboratory assistance during th巴 differentphases of the work reported here.


Several protein kinases which catalyze the phosphorylation of glyeogen synthetase, histones, protamine and proteins present in isolated plasma membranes, microsomes and nuclei have been extensively purified from swine kidney homogenates. About 60% of the protein kinase activity in kidney was recovered in the soluble 100000 × g supernatant fraction following differential centrifugation. The remaining 40% of the activity was found to be associated with the plasma membrane, nuclear and microsomal subcellular fractions. The activity of the protein kinases which were bound to the particulate structures was not enhanced by adenosine 3′:5′ -mono-phosphate (cyclic AMP) when kidney glycogen synthetase or histone was used as the protein substrate, however the rate of phosphorylation of these substrates by the soluble enzymes was increased 50 to 100% by the addition of 0.5 μM cyclic AMP. The bound protein kinase activity was dissociated from the particulate structures by treatment with 0.7 M NaCl. The soluble and bound protein kinase were purified by a procedure involving treatment with alumina Cγ, adsorption to calcium phosphate gel, and chromatography on diethylaminoethylcellulose. Both protein kinase preparations were separated into two fractions by the last procedure and their elution profiles were very similar. The apparent Km for ATP in the presence of 10 mM MgCl2 varied from 5 to 9 μM When either glycogen synthetase or histone was the substrate. All four preparations showed a very broad specificity for protein substrates. They phosphorylated histones, protamine, casein and glycogen synthetases. The molecular weight of the four kidney protein kinase preparations calculated from data obtained by sucrose-density centrifugation and chromatography on Sephadex G-200 was 170000 ± 10000. Upon polyacrylamide-gel electrophoresis in 1% sodium dodecylsulfate all of the samples showed two major components.

The kinetic properties of the bound form of protein kinase was examined with a sonicated preparation of kidney plasma membranes. The molecular weight of the active fragment was greater than 1000000. Proteins present in the membrane were labeled with 32P when the preparation was incubated with magnesium ion and [γ-32P] ATP. This preparation also phosphorylated glycogen synthetase and histone. However, the apparent Km of the bound form of the enzyme for ATP was 2.8 mM when glycogen synthetase was used as the protein substrate.


Introduction The scientific study of human incest and its avoidance has had a peculiar history. Although the topic of incest is one in which a multitude of leading 20 th century scientists and social theorists, from Freud to Levi-Strauss, have invested great significance, it seems fair to say that regress rather than progress has typified the field throughout most of the century, with forward movement re-emerging only recently. The field could not have started more promisingly: In the late 19th century the Finnish sociologist and anthropologist Edward Westermarck put forward a theory that is both remarkably modern in outline, and, to judge by the available evidence, true. Taking into consideration cross-cultural literature, biological principles, results from animal studies, and common observation, Westermarck proposed that a mechanism designed to cause the development of sibling incest avoidance was built into human nature – what we would now call an evolved information-processing adaptation or adaptive specialization. He hypothesized that, as the product of such a mechanism, children who are reared in close physical proximity during early childhood develop a sexual aversion toward one another later in adulthood (Westermarck, 1891/1921). As modern, evolutionarily oriented researchers would express it, the evolved function of such a mechanism was to lower the probability of highly inbred conceptions – the formation of offspring that are highly likely to suffer from significant inbreeding depression. Westermarck went on to describe how such a mechanism operating in different social environments would generate (and hence explain) many of the cross-cultural patterns that are evident in the ethnographic record. This set of claims has come to be known as the Westermarck Hypothesis (WH). As we would phrase it, the Westermarck hypothesis posits an adaptive specialization that (1) takes as input the information provided by early childhood association to identify those individuals who have a high probability of being a biological sibling, and (2) then uses this information to regulate downward the degree to which sexual attraction is experienced towards such an individual. (We also believe – and expect to test – the parallel hypothesis that the same kin recognition subcomponents that compute relatedness for purposes of incest avoidance also do so for purposes of kin-selected altruism (Fletcher & Michener, 1987)). 2 Despite such a promising beginning, the seductive myth-making of Sigmund Freud, followed by the widespread embrace of tabula rasa models of the human mind prevented the Westermarck hypothesis from being fairly evaluated …


A low-cost, large area, random, maskless texturing scheme independent of crystal orientation is expected to have an impact on terrestrial photovoltaic technology significantly. We investigated microstructured silicon formed by irradiating the surface of a Si wafer with femtosecond laser pulses in the presence of a sulfur-bearing gas. It is widely believed that microstructured silicon is a potential material for efficient multi intermediate bands silicon solar cell. Using a four-band model, the loss of sunlight for silicon with two different chalcogenide impurity bands was analyzed, and the levels of the minimum loss of sunlight can be found. Then the effect of the position at which the intermediate bands that have minimum sunlight loss rate on the theoretical conversion efficiency of the corresponding solar cell was discussed with the Detailed Balance Theory. After that, the influence of impact ionization on the efficiency of four-band Solar Cells was analyzed in detail. Finally, problems that need to be ...


The study of locomotion yields information not only concerning the mechanics of progression but also concerning the part that muscles play in this intricate activity. Early attempts at a quantitative analysis of human locomotion were made by the Webers, Marey and Otto Fischer, followed in recent years by Bernstein (1927, 1935) and by Fenn (1929, 1930). The present paper is concerned with a detailed analysis of the dynamics of the human leg in walking, providing data concerning muscle function. In his fundamental investigations of the kinematics of walking, Fischer (1901) was hindered by the fact that he could not determine the point of application of the force exerted by the ground on the foot. The path of this point during the time the foot is on the ground was determined by Elftman and Manter (1934) from cinematic records of pressure distribution in the foot, obtained by a method described by Elftman (1934). For the purposes of the present research, however, a new apparatus has been devised (Elftman, 1938), which gives not only the point of application of this force, but also the magnitude of the force in three components. In addition to solving Fischer's difficulty, this obviates the necessity of dealing with the entire body when only one portion, such as the leg, is of immediate interest. The point of application of this force, as it passes forward during the course of the step, is shown in figure 1. The force itself is plotted in two components, one in the plane of progression, the other lateral, in the horizontal plane. Only the component in the plane of progression will be considered in the present discussion. It is apparent from the diagram that it has two maxima and that it is at first directed upward and backward against the foot, later upward and forward. This reaction of the platform is plotted in figure 6 in two components, one vertical and the other horizontal, in the plane of progression. In addition to this knowledge concerning the external force exerted by the platform, it is necessary to know the disposition of the leg in space. This is shown in figure 2 for the left leg during the double step under con-339 340 HERBERT ELFTMAN sideration. The original information was obtained from cinematic records taken at the rate of 92 exposures per second as the subject walked behind a rectangular grid. The timing was …


In this paper, a data-driven non-model-based approach is proposed for the adaptive optimal control of connected vehicles, comprised of n human-driven vehicles only transmitting motional data and an autonomous vehicle in the tail receiving the broadcasted data from preceding vehicles by wireless vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication devices. An optimal control problem is formulated to minimize the errors of distance and velocity and to optimize the fuel usage. By employing adaptive dynamic programming (ADP) technique, optimal controllers are obtained by online approximation for the connected vehicles without knowing the system dynamics. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated via online learning control of the connected vehicles in two scenarios.


Parkinson's disease is associated with motor, affective and cognitive dysfunction that can have a serious impact on quality of life, even in the early stages of the disease. However the neural basis of these deficits remains unclear. This uncertainty is due in part to the pathological heterogeneity of Parkinson's disease across patients, and over time in the same patient. Compensatory mechanisms are also at work, engaged to optimize performance in the face of disease-related brain dysfunction. Adding to the complexity, dopamine replacement therapy, the mainstay of Parkinson's disease treatment, improves motor function but may cause impairments in certain affective and cognitive domains. This doctoral work applied behavioral and functional neuroimaging methods to understand the effects of Parkinson's disease and dopamine replacement therapy on motor, affective and cognitive function. All studies used a similar within-subject design, assessing patients with mild-moderate Parkinson's disease both off and on dopamine replacement therapy, compared to a demographically-matched healthy comparison group also tested twice. Each study focused on a different behavior, linked to one of three putative corticostriatal loops, involving ventral striatum, dorsal putamen, and caudate respectively. The first study assessed risk-taking and temporal discounting, two components of impulsivity thought to rely on the ventral striatum. This yielded novel evidence of the effect of dopamine replacement therapy on a specific aspect of risk-taking, related to repeated gambling choices, but showed no effect of either disease or dopamine treatment on overall risk or delay aversion. The second study addressed motor function, combining behavioral testing and resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) measures of putamen functional connectivity. This demonstrated distinct compensatory and pathological changes in corticostriatal and striato-cerebellar circuits in relation to motor function, and showed the effects of dopamine replacement therapy on these circuits. The third study assessed working memory, and its neural correlates as measured with task-related and resting state fMRI. The focus was on the caudate nucleus. The analyses revealed that working memory performance was dopamine-responsive, and that it relied on a similar fronto-parietal-caudate network in both patients and controls. However, patients differentially engaged different cortical regions on and off dopamine replacement therapy, pointing again to distinct pathological and compensatory mechanisms. This work as a whole provides new evidence supporting distinct corticostriatal circuits engaged in affective, motor and cognitive function, showing how these are affected by Parkinson's disease, how additional neural resources may be engaged in compensation, and addresses the role of dopamine replacement therapy in these inter-related processes.%%%%La maladie de Parkinson est associee a des dysfonctionnements moteurs, affectifs et cognitifs, ayant un impact important sur la…


ABSTRACT Information influences travel behavior a great deal. This paper applies and further develops an agent-based approach to modeling travel behavior under uncertainty and different information provision strategies. Artificially intelligent agents, with the capability of learning, information acquisition, searching, and decision, are constructed instead of the typical representative agents formulated by utility maximization theory. Meanwhile, the presumption of sequential behavior process is relaxed. Agents are flexible to adjust travel mode, departure time, and route in response to a stimulus. A traffic simulator is also integrated in order to simulate agents' travel experiences on a transportation network. The agent-based model is then integrated into a simulation-based optimization (SBO) framework to analyze the effects of different information provision strategies. It is found that providing real-time traffic information to agents does not always result in improved network traffic condition or higher network reliability. Thus, we employ SBO technique to identify the optimal information provision strategies to support policy/planning decision-making.


A variance reduction technique is presented that is effective when the system characteristic to be estimated is strongly influenced by rare events. Applications to simulations of a simple inventory system and of the New York City Fire Department, where the rare events are back orders and serious fires respectively, are described. In these simulations, virtual measures reduced computer time needed to achieve a given statistical reliability to 1/2 to 1/20 of that needed with the usual direct estimators. Relationships to other variance reduction techniques are indicated.


The reaction of 3,5-diphenyl-1,2,4-dithiazol-1-ium perchlorate with several kinds of active methylenes gives a number of heterocycles, such as 4-hydroxy and 4-mercaptopyrimidine, pyrimidinone, and thiazole derivatives. On treatment with hydroxylamine-O-sulfonic acid, the 4-mercaptopyrimidines lead to the aminothio compounds or the isothiazolo[5,4-d]pyrimidine.


Lactobacillus fermentum is found in food products and is generally considered safe. L. fermentum AGR1485 promotes barrier integrity in Caco-2 cells and has genetic similarities to other known probiotic L. fermentum strains. L. fermentum AGR1485 has potential as a probiotic and was sequenced to explore these probiotic properties. The genome is a 2.2-Mbp circular chromosome with no plasmids and a GC content of 51. ABSTRACT Lactobacillus fermentum is found in food products and is generally considered safe. L. fermentum AGR1485 promotes barrier integrity in Caco-2 cells and has genetic similarities to other known probiotic L. fermentum strains. L. fermentum AGR1485 has potential as a probiotic and was sequenced to explore these probiotic properties. The genome is a 2.2-Mbp circular chromosome with no plasmids and a GC content of 51.15%.


The transfer of heat due to the emission of electromagnetic waves is called thermal radiations. In local fractional calculus, there are numerous contributions of scientists, like Mandelbrot, who described fractal geometry and its wide range of applications in many scientific fields. Christianto and Rahul gave the derivation of Proca equations on Cantor sets. Hao et al. investigated the Helmholtz and diffusion equations in Cantorian and Cantor-Type Cylindrical Coordinates. Carpinteri and Sapora studied diffusion problems in fractal media in Cantor sets. Zhang et al. studied local fractional wave equations under fixed entropy. In this paper, we are concerned with the exact solutions of wave equations by the help of local fractional Laplace variation iteration method (LFLVIM). We develop an iterative scheme for the exact solutions of local fractional wave equations (LFWEs). The efficiency of the scheme is examined by two illustrative examples.


"Where will we build our new building?" "Is our current mix of services the appropriate one for the future of our agency?" "Where will our funding come from tomorrow?" "Are we providing the services our clients need?" These, and many other questions, are what agencies need to be asking themselves today. Thanks to the generosity of the Kresge Foundation and the skills of selected members of the Alliance for Children and Families, Strategy Counts, an "initiative to elevate the role of strategy across the sector" was created in an attempt to begin to answer these vital, survival-based questions (p. xvii). The stated goal of the project is to create a "cohort of 20 pilot agencies as pathfinders in hard-wiring strategy into their operations" (p. xvii). After a competitive process among members of the Alliance for Children & Families (The Alliance), 20 agencies were selected to participate in the pilot phase of the project. Each agency chosen was responsible for creating "transformational" (p. xxiii) projects of varying magnitudes and, in most cases, for hiring a Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) to implement these changes. A collection of articles written by principals at several of the chosen sites describes their experiences. The book begins with a discussion of the importance of strategy in nonprofits and a justification of the reasons behind the implementation of the project. It is followed by a well-written, albeit brief, history of social work, the Alliance, and its partners. This is a handy guide to the history of the profession and the sector. The agencies included in the book vary in budget from the relatively small to the very large, from the Public Health Management Corporation with $133,000,000 in 2012 to Holy Family Institute with $5,300,000 in 2012. The agencies also vary in the complexity of the problems encountered and described. Indeed, Public Health Management Corp. and the Holy Family Institute jointly report on the creation of an affiliation agreement, which should be of great interest in years to come, considering that Holy Family Institute is in Pittsburgh and Public Health Management Corp. is in Philadelphia, and they would not typically be considered part of the same family of agencies.


In this paper, we propose the text summarization method using PCA (Principal Component Analysis) and SVD (Singular Value Decomposition). The proposed method presents a summary by extracting significant sentences based on the distances between thematic words and sentences. To extract thematic words, we use both word frequency and co-occurence information that result from performing PCA. To extract significant sentences, we exploit Euclidean distances between thematic word vectors and sentence vectors that result from carrying out SVD. Experimental results using newspaper articles show that the proposed method is superior to the method using either word frequency or only PCA.


The regular practice of physical exercise may reduce the oxidative stress and the risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. This study aims to evaluate serum levels of nitrite and changes in cerebral arterial resistance and cholesterol in elderly women submitted to hydrogymnastic training. The sample was composed of 40 women with overage age of 69.21 ±5.27 years old, separated randomly into an intervention and a control group. Nitrite concentration was analyzed through Griess reaction. The arterial resistivity was observed by Doppler ultrasound, and the cholesterol was determined using colorimetric enzymatic method. The water exercise program lasted 16 weeks. It was seen an increase in NO 2 (p=0.003), reduction in right common carotid artery resistance (p=0.024), TC (p=0.003) and LDL (p=0.001) cholesterol in the WG. There was a negative correlation between NO 3 and RVA, r = -0.221 and p=0.049 and between NO 3 and CT (r = -0,269 and p=0,016) after intervention. The hydrogynmnastic program promoted favorable changes in nitrite levels, arterial resistivity and cholesterol in the elderly women.


Many Latin American countries are currently promoting the development of industry and exploitation of natural resources in an attempt to improve their economic stability. Regrettably, this development process is inevitably accompanied by environmental contamination. However, most of these countries lack the economic base and trained manpower essential for the implementation of a "corrective" strategy using costly and sophisticated pollution abatement technology. Furthermore, most of these countries lack the public support, governmental motivation, legislation, and regulatory infrastructure needed for effective environmental management. This paper outlines, in a simplified critical path format, some of the important elements for an environmental management program in developing Latin American countries.


While the concentration of landmasses and atmospheric aerosols on the Northern Hemisphere suggests that the Northern Hemisphere is brighter than the Southern Hemisphere, satellite measurements of top-of-atmosphere irradiancesfound thatboth hemispheresreflectnearlythesameamountofshortwaveirradiance.Here,theauthors document that the most precise and accurate observation, the energy balanced and filled dataset of the Clouds andtheEarth'sRadiantEnergySystemcoveringthe period2000–10,measures anabsolute hemisphericdifference in reflected shortwave irradiance of 0.1 W m 22 . In contrast, the longwave irradiance of the two hemispheres differs by more than 1 W m 22 , indicating that the observed climate system exhibits hemispheric symmetry in reflected shortwave irradiance but not in longwave irradiance. The authors devise a variety of methods to estimate the spatial degrees of freedom of the time-mean reflected shortwave irradiance. These are used to show that the hemispheric symmetry in reflected shortwave irradiance is a nontrivial property of the Earth system in the sense that most partitionings of Earth into two random halves do not exhibit hemispheric symmetry in reflected shortwave irradiance. Climate models generally do not reproduce the observed hemispheric symmetry, which the authors interpret as further evidence that the symmetry is nontrivial. While the authors cannot rule out that the observed hemispheric symmetry in reflected shortwave irradiance is accidental, their results motivate a search for mechanisms that minimize hemispheric differences in reflected shortwave irradiance and planetary albedo.


The "Three-Guidance" teaching model which includes the guidance to learning,the guidance to questioning and the guidance to practice is a kind of self-created classroom teaching model.After four years of teaching practice and theoretical reflection,the author has further perfected and reflected on its concrete operation methods,and has tentatively formed the effective classroom teaching model that combines organically questioning by means of learning,thinking by questioning and reinforcing through practice.


Ig-α and Ig-β mediate surface expression and signaling of diverse B cell receptor complexes on precursor, immature, and mature B cells. Their expression begins before that of the Ig chains in early progenitor B cells. In this study, we describe the generation of Ig-α-deficient mice and their comparative analysis to mice deficient for Ig-β, the membrane-IgM, and recombination-activating gene 2 to determine the requirement of Ig-α and Ig-β in survival and differentiation of pro-B cells. We find that in the absence of Ig-α, B cell development does not progress beyond the progenitor stage, similar to what is observed in humans lacking this molecule. However, neither in Ig-α- nor in Ig-β-deficient mice are pro-B cells impaired in V(D)J recombination, in the expression of intracellular Ig μ-chains, or in surviving in the bone marrow microenvironment. Finally, Ig-α and Ig-β are not redundant in their putative function, as pro-B cells from Ig-α and Ig-β double-deficient mice are similar to those from single-deficient animals in every aspect analyzed.


This paper deals with Amy Allen's critique of Habermas's theory of modernity, democracy, and cosmopolitanism. I will focus on her arguments that touch on the role of rationality. Allen's critique of Habermas will be presented, especially where she argues that focusing on rationality is ethnocentric and promotes the political exclusion of subaltern groups. The extent to which Allen's critiques affect the emancipatory potential of Habermasian theory will next be assessed. It is finally argued that Allen's position leads to a denial of the distinction between social rationality and irrationality as legitimate criteria. The consequences of such a position for the political sphere will then be analyzed.


Purpose. The growth in the scale of economic activity of mankind has caused destructive environmental changes. Economic activity in the twentieth century has become a significant geological and biospheric factor. This led to the formation of the Sustainable Development Concept and Green Growth Theory. One of the tools for the practical implementation of these approaches is the introduction of Green Supply Chains into the business. The purpose of the study is the analysis of Green Supply Chains as an innovative tool for doing business, as well as the study of its reflection in modern scientific literature.
Methodology / approach. The research used methods of comparative and retrospective analysis, an institutional approach, structural-functional and scientometric analysis. As data sources, information was used from the international bibliographic database Scopus and the national (Russian) bibliographic database elibrary.ru.
Results. One of the ways of transforming enterprises, industries and the economy under the influence of the Sustainable Development Concept is to introduce Green Supply Chain (GSC) into business practice. Understanding the importance of implementing this tool, business entities and their stakeholders form a «social order» for GSC research. This caused a surge in interest of researchers in many countries around the world to this issue. In the last decade, interest in these issues in the world scientific literature has been growing like an avalanche. Moreover, if initially the main studies were conducted in European and North American countries, by now the championship has passed to Asian countries. This geographical redistribution of research efforts leads to the modernization of the economies of rapidly growing Asian countries, primarily China and India. This will inevitably lead to an improvement in their competitive position in the world. At the same time, business and authorities in not all developing economies realized the strategic importance of GSC. This applies to Russia, Ukraine and several other countries. This situation objectively weakens their competitive position in the global economy.
Originality / scientific novelty. The article quantitatively evaluated the research activity in studying the problems of Green Supply Chains. This study is based on chronological and geographical factors. Identified trends: a shift in the center of world research in Asia; correlations between the pace of green modernization of the economy and research activity in the field of Green Supply Chains; country differentiation in research activity. The advantages of Green Supply Chains as an innovative tool for doing business are shown.
Practical value / implications. A substantive analysis showed that the concept of Green Supply Chains and its implementation in business can lead to significant positive changes not only in the economy, but also in society. In this regard, in countries where this concept has not yet become significant and is perceived by the authorities and business as something secondary, politicians should pay more attention to it. It is necessary to activate a special direction of state policy aimed at stimulating the formation and development of Green Supply Chains in the national economy.


Cold load pickup needs to be included as one of the considerations when protective relay set-points are selected for distribution feeder protection. It's universally recognized that, when a feeder is restored after an extended outage, the load can exceed the normal feeder load until normal load cycling is re-established. However, numerous feeder specific variables need to be considered. The methodology described in this report provides a perspective of relationships between load type, load diversity, percent of circuit load for various load types, and cold load pickup. It is noted, however, that the methodology in this report was developed with the assumption that an outage of sufficient duration (to establish cold load pickup) has occurred during peak load conditions.


Objective To know the clinical status quo of Beijing City's chronic airway disease.Methods 2987 patients with the chief complaint of chronic cough and dyspnea were taken open questionnaire survey from July 10 to July 28 in 2012 at clinic of Guang′anmen Hospital,covering essential informations,diagnosis,treatment and medication,num ber of acute exacerbation,the mMRC score,the status of health control,medical expenses and economic burden.The above results were analyzed.Results The mean age of the patients was(55.04 ± 15.95) years old.The average medical history of the patients was 12.45 years with a definitive diagnosis of 9.87 years,the average interval from onset to di agnosis was 2.58 years.The patients got hospitalized due to respiratory diseases for(1.49 ±0.70) times per year,taken emergency treatment for(1.65±0.70) times per year,got outpatient infusion for(1.61±0.61) times per year.Lung function GOLD classification showed significant positive correlation with the mMRC score(P = 0.036).Health knowledge and information rooted in doctors in 70.60% of all the patients,only 26.50% of patients willing to participate in the man agement of chronic disease.Conclusion The popularization of knowledge and awareness about the prevention and cure of chronic airway disease is poor,the early diagnosis rate is low,the compliance of patients take medication is poor,the awareness and capacity of self-management is poor,although it is in Beijing,and where the medical resources and information are rich.Those lead to poor disrase control.It is pressing to strengthen the management of chronic airway diseases and spread knowledge.


The social function in mining is in a state of decline. Recent changes among the world's major mining companies suggest that corporations are responding to the dual pressure of profit maximization and sustainable development by cutting back on the social function of their business. Our approach draws on two conceptual platforms to describe and analyse the development and the subsequent demise of the "social function" in the global mining industry. This approach captures the various exchanges that occur within and across place defining boundaries of "company" and "community", and importantly, as a means for explaining the significance of changes to the industry's organizational configurations. We argue that mining companies are places of refusal and resistance. A redirection of organizational flows of capital, information and other resources is required for mining companies to meet the increasing demand for social performance capability, and avoid creating costly legacies for the future.


LED,as a new type of green light source,develops rapidly in the field of road lighting. Road lighting requires that LED street lamp forms rectangular flare of good uniformity on the road,which would require the design of freeform lens to meet the requirements of light distribution. This paper briefly introduces the common design method for free-form lens,and makes a detailed introduction and comparison between the partial differential equation method and the grid method.Grid method is considered to have a good prospect of research.


Work and professional stress represent discrepancies between the demands of the workplace and the environment in relation to our capabilities, desires and expectations to meet these requirements. Not all occupations are equally subject to professional stress. Among the most stressful occupations are those that are focused on working with people. However, there are some differences too. What are the helping professions? These are professions that are focused on helping other people solve their life problems. What they all have in common is that they involve personal contact with helpers in distress. Who are the helpers? These are people who have chosen professional or volunteer activities in situations in which common forms of mutual assistance among vulnerable people in crisis or distress are insufficient, and they need extra help. These are primarily health care workers, educators, psychologists, social workers, lawyers, police officers, firefighters and others. Our goal is to show the basic instrument for determining the Burnout scale, taken from the American authors, for wider application in the prevention of mental and (somatic) disorders among helping professions. There will be a typical case study for the quality observation and identification of the problem.


By using a sample of 412 UK New Technology Based Firms, we investigate the direct effect that entrepreneurial human capital characteristics have on EC adoption and how the same human capital charac...


Judaism in "The Encyclopedia of Chicago" will be the topic of a lecture by the distinguished rabbi emeritus of KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation, Arnold Jacob Wolf. He will preview the soon-to-bepublished reference work about our city for which he has been invited to write an article about Judaism. Rabbi Wolf has written on theology and contemporary issues for many periodicals. "Unfinished Rabbi," a selection of his writings was published in 1998. Save the date––Sunday, February 20, 2000. Rabbi Wolf will speak at 2:00 p.m. following a social hour and refreshments at 1:00 p.m. at Bederman Hall, Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies, 618 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago. Admission is free and open to the public. ❖ IN THIS ISSUE


The actual state and the necessaries for website construction of reference-rooms in the universities were analyzed. The discussions on how to take scientific and effective means,to use the advanced techniques to do the website construction,designation and maintenance,and how to make good use of the reference-rooms characters to play their functions in the information construction were made.


In contemporary Japanese society, it is difficult to find a marriage partner, and therefore, "Konkatsu," the search for a marriage partner, has become a socially accepted activity in Japan. In response to this social challenge, in addition to private companies, governments and non-profit organizations are supporting individuals in their search for a marriage partner. This paper reviews statistical information related to marriage hunting published in Japan. In addition, some of the authors' collaborative activities and academic publications based on these activities are reviewed. Subsequently, the paper discusses and highlights the importance of helping individuals have confidence in their physical attractiveness.


This article analyzes the external factors affecting the financial security of construction materials industry enterprises and reveals the specific features of the construction industry in ensuring financial security at the micro level. The author has thoroughly analyzed the world's existing methodology for assessing the financial security of the enterprise. Taking into account that the method of determining the level of financial security of the enterprise based on the assessment of the internal and external environment is universal, it can be used in construction industry enterprises, taking into account the specific characteristics of the construction industry network.


The invention provides a fast high dynamic range three-dimensional measurement method. The method comprises the steps that a four-amplitude grating strip is generated by a computer; two polarizer are respectively placed on the optical axis of a projector and the optical axis of a camera; any one polarizer is rotated; the angle between the optical axis of the projector and the optical axis of the camera is set to be 90 degrees; the projector is used to project the generated four-amplitude grating strip to an object to be measured; the camera is used to synchronously shoot a four-amplitude strip image generated by the reflection of the object to be measured; the four-amplitude strip image is analyzed to acquire a high frequency wrapped phase and low frequency phase; the high frequency wrapped phase is unwrapped to acquire a high frequency unwrapped phase; and according to the unwrapped phase, the three-dimensional scene of the measured object is reconstructed. The fast high dynamic range three-dimensional measurement method provided by the invention can carry out high dynamic range three-dimensional measurement on a dynamic scene.


ABSTRACT: Objective: To describe clinical characteristics of Canadian patients with myelin-oligodendrocyte glycoprotein immunoglobulin-G optic neuritis (MOG-IgG ON). Methods: Retrospective observational case series of MOG-IgG seropositive patients with ON referred to tertiary neuro-ophthalmology practices. Outcome measures included clinical characteristics, radiologic findings, and visual outcomes. Results: Forty-six eyes of 30 patients were included. Twenty-three (76.7%) were women, mean onset age was 40.7 years (range 16–77), and most were Caucasian. Seventeen (56.7%) presented with their first ON episode. Sixteen (53.3%) had bilateral eye involvement. Isolated ON without associated neurological symptoms occurred in 90.0%. In 22 patients with acute ON (seen within 1 month of onset), presenting mean visual acuity (VA) was 20/258 (logMAR 1.11), mean deviation (MD) on Humphrey visual fields was −16.90 ± 10.83 dB, and peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness on ocular coherence tomography (OCT) was 164.23 ± 46.53 um. Orbital magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) within 1 month of symptom onset for 19 patients demonstrated orbital optic nerve enhancement in 11 (57.9%) and perineural enhancement in 11 (57.9%). Brain MRI was normal in 28 (93.3%) patients. Twenty out of 22 patients with acute presentation were treated with high-dose glucocorticoids and 5 with plasma exchange in addition to corticosteroids. Long-term immunosuppression was utilized in 9 (30%) out of all 30 patients. Final VA was 20/30 (logMAR 0.18), MD was −7.17 ± 8.85 dB, and RNFL thickness was 72.15 ± 20.16 um. Conclusion: MOG-IgG ON in Canada has a variable presentation with most patients having substantial initial vision loss with good recovery. This is the largest characterization of the disease in Canada to date.


Abstract Industrial realization of practically useful compounds with P-C bonds is restrained by lack of simple methods of their production. The use of tri(2-chloroethyl)phosphite and its transformation products for binding aluminium chloride in reactions of phosphorus trichloride with arenes has allowed to improve aryldichloro- and diarylchlorophosphines synthesis methods, as the indicated bases form with AlCl3 liquid complexes which do not mix with the expected product. Complexones have also been successfully used in the synthesis of organylphosphonyl- and -thionophosphonyldichlorides. New agents of converting adducts of unsaturated compounds and phosphorus pentachloride into organyldichlorophosphonates (aldehydes, ketones, acetyles, ethers and salts of carboxy-lic acids, α-oxides, N-oxides, hexamethyldisiloxane) have been found. Isoalkylallylethers are shown to react with PCl5 in two directions producing i-PrOCH=C(CH2Cl)P(O) C12and CH2=CH-CH2OC(CH3)=CHP(O)Cl2 Alkylmetallylethers react under mild conditi...


During the last 30 years, our understanding of the nation-building process in various parts of Europe and across the globe has increased substantially. Some of the most important results of this growing body of studies will be discussed in this review article, which consists of four parts. First, I will examine some innovative trends in the field of nationalism studies, such as the growing attention for the impact of nationalism on popular culture and the interplay between regional and national identities. The second part makes clear that the overwhelming majority of existing studies deals with one region or nation, while taking the national framework for granted. By presenting the history of Europe as a collection of (isolated) national histories, most scholars still fall prey to a methodological nationalism. One way to overcome this (implicit) methodological nationalism is to analyse the impact of foreign tourism on the construction and diffusion of national and regional identities. The role of tourism in the construction of territorial identities has already been explored in a growing number of studies. Some of the most important contributions to this field will be reviewed in the third part. Finally, I will argue that the impact of foreign visitors on the nation-building process can best be studied in a comparative way by focusing on local communities as the arena in which the outside influences of an international, national and regional level came together and demanded a local response.


Power Electronic converters and systems require precise timing control. Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) has the advantages of reconfigurability, determinism and precise timing control over other digital controllers. Models for real-time switching pulse generation for power electronic converters namely AC to DC, DC to AC, AC to AC, DC to DC converters are built using a real time environment-NI's CompactRIO — a hardware module which combines an FPGA and various I/O modules. The FPGA has been programmed graphically using the software module Labview-FPGA (2014 version) Control signals have been validated with AC to DC converters with R, RL, RLE loads and real time control of these converters has been achieved. Open loop speed control of Converter-fed DC motor has been achieved, with the controller in the system being FPGA of CompactRIO. Speed control with closed loop current control has also been tested with the same real time environment.


We use the event study methodology to investigate the share price responses to the formation of 281 partnerships in the biotechnology/pharmaceutical industry over the years 1995–2000. The average stock price response is positive, more so than in previous empirical works, which could be interpreted as evidence that interfirm collaboration is particularly valuable in high-technology industries. Research and development (R&D) partnerships also generate higher abnormal returns (relative to production or marketing agreements). On average, smaller firms in the partnership seem to appropriate a very significant share of the cooperative surplus, especially when they receive large technology payments or when the partnership is concluded in the R&D stage. On the other hand, partnership announcements of more profitable firms tend to be associated with higher abnormal returns.


Two of the leading software engineering processes are Rational Unified Process (RUP) and waterfall models. RUP is a unified model planning form for large business applications that provides a language for describing method content and processes. The waterfall model is a classical model of software engineering. This model is used in governmental projects as well as many major companies associated with software engineering. The main concern in this research is to represent the mentioned models of software development and make comparison between them to show the features and defects of each model.


(1) Cerebral pH coeficient does not show significant changes between brain functional disorders and others.(2) GOT of brain decrease, and of cerebrospinal fluid increase in brain functional disorders, especially in contusion.(3) These enzymological changes were seen at experimental studies in animals.


Internal IMF policy structures and process the case of Jamaica - 1976-1981 the case of Zaire, 1976-1981 the case of Sudan - 1979-1985 the case of India, 1981 the case of the United Kingdom - 1975-1977 the case of Turkey, 1977-1982 the case of Argentina, 1982-1987.


In this study, the laser-induced thermal effect on the sensitivity of a scanning near-field optical microscope (SNOM) tapered probe is analyzed. In the analysis, the thermal effect can be considered as an axial force and is dependent on the temperature distribution of the probe. The Rayleigh–Ritz method is used to determine the sensitivity of the probe. According to the analysis, the sensitivity of the first three vibration modes increases when the thermal effect is taken into account. When the contact stiffness is low, the thermal effect on the sensitivity of mode 1 is particularly significant. The sensitivity of mode 1 increases with increasing taper angle and coating thickness of the probe. In addition, the effect of a SNOM probe with three different coating materials, Al, Au, and Ag, on the sensitivity of mode 1 is studied. The result shows that the highest sensitivity is obtained for the probe with an Al coating, whereas it is the lowest with a Au coating.


The purpose of this study is to investigate the cooling performance of Heat Pipe Heat Exchanger(HPHE) for an electronic telecommunication system by adequate convection condition. Heat generation rates of electronic components, the temperature distributions of HPHE and surrounding air are analyzed experimentally and numerically. In order to perform the heat transfer analysis for the thermal design of telecommunication system, a program is developed. The program is useful to a user who is not familiar with an electronic telecommunication system. The simulation results showed that the HPHE were able to achieve a cooling capacity of up to 230W at the maximum temperature difference of . To verify the results from the numerical simulation, an experiment was conducted under the same condition as the numerical simulation, and their results were compared.


There has been particularly significant work being done by the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) in collaboration with other societies, boards, and colleges during the last several months. Many of these initiatives are known to SIR members, and include initiatives with the American College of Radiology (including collaboration toward the building of an NRDR IR Registry, involvement in their recent CME meeting focusing on the value proposition, as well as resources provided by the College to support the clinical focus of IR); the American Board of Radiology (particularly with regard to the maintenance of certification [MOC] process, as well as the new interventional radiology [IR] and diagnostic radiology [DR] dual certificate); as well as innumerable other subspecialty societies within and outside of the house of radiology. The three authors of this editorial would here like to provide some feedback regarding how the work of our societies is done—thanks in part to a unique opportunity to attend a somewhat different type of society conference: one held by the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE).


This paper presented design and implement of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) to hydrological data collection platform. EDI is a significant computer application technology which is widely used in developed country. EDI is based on computer applications, communications, networking and data standardization. This paper introduces history of hydrological data interchange, analyzes current situation of data exchange and existing problems, gives information for EDI model based on XML and middleware, and gives a detail description of the program.


Generalized modular design method is proposed to solve the limitation of traditional modular design. The applica-tion domains of modular design are extended because paramet-ric design and variational analysis methods are introduced into generalized modular design. It can be applied for developing not only products and product family planning which have ob-vious hierarchy but also mechanical products with complex work conditions and heavy load, whose strength and rigidity design is necessary, and whose hierarchy is uncertain. The the-ory of generalized modular design, generalized product plat-form, product family planning based on combination of gener-alized modules and based on generalized product platform are systematically represented. At last, an example of generalized modular design and product family planning of hydraulic press machines is given to illustrate the theory and methodology of generalized modular design.


Nitro functionalization of alkenes has particular importance in the field of energetic materials due to unsaturated nature and the ability to synthesize a wide range of C-nitro aliphatic compounds. Considering the importance of these compounds, the use of nitrile iodide as a mild, inexpensive and safe reagent to nitro functionalization of HTPB as an unsaturated prepolymer was studied in this paper. In order to optimization of the effective parameters on the synthesis of Nitro-HTPB, the proportional amounts of reactant, amount of solvent, temperature and reaction time were investigated and the effect of these parameters on the efficiency of nitro functionalized products was evaluated. It was observed that the kind and amount of solvent have a significant impact on the quality of product. In this regard, 24 hours of reaction time at room temperature were considered as optimal conditions. Finally, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) method was used to study the effect of the amount of nitro group on the thermal behavior of the products. It was observed that by increasing the nitro group amount of products, thermal stability decreases and heat of decomposition increases.


ABSTRACT Rockfall events constitute one of the most dangerous phenomena in mountainous areas, which can affect transportation routes. In a risk mitigation perspective, the quantification of the risk for pedestrians and vehicles represents a crucial aspect for authorities. A method tailored to these elements at risk is herein presented. The proposed method is based on a mixed formulation of the Quantitative Risk Assessment and the Event Tree Analysis approaches. According to these procedures, an accurate evaluation of the annual probability of adverse outcomes can be computed considering all the scenarios which can lead to a fatality or to an injury. Vice versa, the method lets to evaluate the allowable traffic condition, given an acceptable threshold for the risk. Furthermore, it serves to quantify the risk reduction in case of installed passive mitigation measures and, thus, to plan the priority of intervention works. An application on a study case in the Italian Alps illustrates the potentialities of the methodology.


Objectives: Variations in bony anatomy may be associated with failure of stabilization surgery. The aim of this study was to develop a method to measure bony morphology on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to identify risk factors for failure after Bankart repair. Methods: This was a retrospective case-control study of 118 patients. Cases of postoperative dislocation were compared to matched controls. Demographic data was obtained by chart review and radiographic data from preoperative MRI. Volume was measured using a 3-D model. Radius of curvature of the humeral head and glenoid was measured on axial MRI images. Statistical analysis used student's t-test for continuous variables and either Fisher's exact or Chi-squared test for categorical variables; P value < 0.05 was significant. Interrater reliability between reviewers was calculated using interclass correlation coefficients (r). Results: Forty-six patients who had a postoperative dislocation met inclusion criteria and were matched to 72 controls. There was no difference between groups for demographic (age, sex, percentage of contact athletes) or radiographic (glenoid bone loss, off-track Hill-Sachs lesions) parameters. The average number of preoperative dislocations was higher in the case group (3.2 vs. 2.0, p=0.003). The humeral head (68.8 ml vs 62.8 ml, p=0.05) volume was greater in the case group, though this did not reach statistical significance. Glenoid volume (13.5 ml vs 12.8 ml, p=0.31) was similar between groups. The radius of curvature of the glenoid was larger, or shallower, in the case group compared to the control group (23.6 mm vs 22.6 mm, p=0.05), though the difference did not reach statistical significance. A greater percentage of patients with a glenoid radius of curvature > 24.5 mm experienced a postoperative dislocation compared to those who had a smaller radius of curvature (62.0% vs 29.8%, p < 0.01). In fact, patients who had glenoid radius of curvature > 24.5 mm were 5 times as likely to experience a postoperative dislocation compared to those who did not (odds ratio 5.04, 95% CI 2.13 – 11.94, p < 0.01) There was no significant difference between the number of preoperative dislocations between patients with larger or smaller glenoid radius of curvature (2.6 vs 2.3, p = 0.55). There was a strong interrater reliability for measurement of humeral head volume, glenoid volume, radius of curvature of glenoid and radius of curvature of humeral head (r = 0.94, 0.88, 0.89, 0.95). Conclusion: The results of this study demonstrate that a larger radius of curvature, indicative of a shallower glenoid, is associated with failure following primary arthroscopic Bankart. These findings suggest that the bony concavity of the glenoid may play a role in stability. Figure 1.


ne day while walking to school, my daughter and I were discussing a headline we had recently seen that she found funny even though it had no humorous content. 'It just rhymed,' she said, 'and I think if it rhymes, it's funny.' She's right, according to Alastair Clarke's study on the pattern recognition theory of humour. Clarke sets his theory apart from theories proposed and debated in philosophical and literary discourse by asserting a neuroscientific basis for humour that disregards content al-------together: for Clarke,~The humorous r~sponse is evoked by the surprise recognition of a pattern' (2008:27). Content i~ hnportantfor ClarkEfonly in~ofar as it--__,_ __ _ forms the individual entities that are first apprehended and then recognised as repeating in adapted circumstances. Pattern recognition is obviously a crucial facet in a ~hild's developing cognitive arsenal; it enables a child to access and find order in a world that would otherWise present itself as a kind of terrible randomness of individual events or entities. As sequences of entities develop into patterns, children can act on expectations of pattern repetition, and this produces -a kind of reward or sense of mastery. Humour, on the other hand, produces a different kind of reward, because it is based not on the expectations of the repetition of a familiar pattern, but on the surprise of discerning a pattern despite altered circumstances or in an unexpected place, and tlms rewards our ability to parse innovation.


The marine sesquiterpene alcohol (+) axenol was prepared in a very short way from (+)-menthone using a one-pot olefination-ring closing metathesis.


With the further promotion of quality-oriented education and powerful implementation of new curriculum in the developing economic society,teachers in elementary and secondary schools have taken on new roles as follows:informants,cultural relativists,creative designers,lifelong learners and moral models,which exist in teachers' beliefs and behaviors,leading them to the new direction of their professional development.


To test for the presence of germ cell determinant in Xenopus embryos, vegetal pole cytoplasm containing the "germ plasm", or a subcellular fraction of it, was microinjected into single somatic blastomeres isolated from 32‐cell embryos. Injected or non‐injected (control) blastomeres were cultured in 3H‐thymidine until normal control embryos reached the neurula stage. The labeled explants were then implanted into unlabeled host neurulae, which were allowed to develop to the tadpole stage. Labeled PGCs of explant origin in the genital ridges of the experimental tadpoles were examined by autoradiography.


The philosophical reason – logos – is seen as able to oppose violence. However, when reflecting on the horrors carried out by the potency of reason, it becomes clear an intrinsic relationship between logos and violence, from which results the generative evil of pain and suffering. Crossed by violence, logos shows itself not only violent but also violated. Our journey begins with Hegel's reflection on the "domestication" of the negative, which ends valuing it inside the dialectical movement. Then Weil's thought clarifies that man forms himself from the progress of his rational constitution, relating the extinction of violence with the absolutely coherent discourse. Finally, Derrida's perspective leads to the ethical choice of the "economy of violence", in which one must choose the lesser evil in tackling the most destructive forms of violence, seeking possible peace. Violence is the very reality of life and inseparable from it, it's a visible expression of the ambiguity of all being


Neem seed cake has been reported to make nutrients available to support good growth of crops and increase yield. This ease of nutrient release is also required in a potential bio-stimulant. This study assessed the potentials of a neem seed-based fertilizer formulation as a bio-stimulant to aid continued nutrient mineralization from an organic source in contaminated soil samples. Neem seed-based organomineral formulation was added to soil samples contaminated with two field rates (40 and 60 mg.a. i ha-1) of nicosulfuron herbicide to assess their separate and interaction effects on soil microbial activity in the laboratory. The treated samples were incubated for 8 weeks, and soil microbial activity was monitored in dynamics for the period of incubation. Data on soil basal respiration, soil organic carbon, and soil carbon mineralization quotient (qM) were collected on weekly basis for the 8 weeks. Application of nicosulfuron alone regardless of rate repressed soil basal respiration; hence carbon mineralization in the early weeks of the incubation period, but these parameters were stimulated after the 5th week of incubation. Addition of the neem formulation on the other hand caused consistent significant stimulation from the beginning to the end of incubation. Results further showed that combining nicosulfuron and the neem formulation raised soil basal respiration significantly above what individual factor contributed. It was therefore concluded that although the individual factor was found to increase CO2-C compared to the control at the end of incubation, the interaction of the two inputs raised CO2-C even higher. This is an indication that the neem seed cake formulation has the potentials to cushion the adverse effects of nicosulfuron contamination on the soil microbial community.


In this paper, we study the classical problem of the wind in the steady atmospheric Ekman layer with constant eddy viscosity. Different from the well-known homogeneous system in [ 14 , 20 ], we retain the turbulent fluxes and establish a new nonhomogeneous system of first order differential equations involving a term with the horizontal dependent. We present the existence and uniqueness of periodic solutions and show the Hyers-Ulam stability results for the nonhomogeneous systems under the mild conditions via the matrix theory. Further, we consider the nonhomogeneous systems with varying eddy viscosity coefficient and study systems with piecewise constants, systems with small oscillations, systems with rapidly varying coefficients and systems with slowly varying coefficients and give more continued results.


of the border, his celebrations of the Scottish Enlightenment contrasting with Johnson's derisive skepticism of Macpherson's Ossianic project. Johnson is far less interested in Edinburgh literati than in Highland scarcity ("An eye accustomed to flowery pastures and waving harvests is astonished and repelled by this wide extent of hopeless sterility"), but this conceit allows him, in Leask's convincing reading, to elevate his own subjective reflections through careful literary invention. Leask proves a compelling guide not only to the compositional history of the Journey, but to the manifold debates it has produced, from the eighteenth century onward, between vernacular and metropolitan sensibilities, religious piety and national pride. Subsequent chapters attend to William Gilpin and the legacy of the picturesque, particularly in Dorothy Wordsworth's Recollections of a Tour in Scotland (1803), and to the poetry and novels of Walter Scott, who created a second wave of Highland tourism that recast the older tensions between improvement and romance in the context of a second transport revolution of industrialized mobility. By this point, a sense of "genre exhaustion" had set in, but the cultural phenomenon of the Highland Tour would only continue to expand in ways that did not so much supplant the earlier military, antiquarian, and scientific surveys as amalgamate the itineraries and observations of these idiosyncratic publications into the regularity of a steamboat timetable. Leask's deeply learned and wide-ranging study is now the go-to source for this rich biographical history and will prove a recurrent point of reference for scholars of this northern land.


The invention relates to a compound type memory alloy friction damper, which is mainly composed of a main board, a sub board, a friction plate, a hyperelastic shaped memory alloy wire, a resetting pulling rod, a U-shaped pre-strained adjusting plate and a high strength bolt. The invention is characterized in that the friction plate is inserted between the main board and the sub board, a bolt movable hole and a pulling rod movable hole are reserved on the main board, and a bolt hole and the pulling rod movable hole are reserved on the sub board and the friction plate; the high strength bolt penetrates through the bolt hole on the sub board and the friction plate and the bolt movable hole on the main board; the resetting pulling rod penetrates through the pulling rod movable hole on the main board, the sub board and the friction plate; the hyperelastic shaped memory alloy wire penetrates through the resetting pulling rod and the U shaped pre-strained adjusting plate, and the both ends are respectively pulled tightly and fixed with a clamping device, the interval between the U shaped pre-strained adjusting plate and the resetting pulling rod is adjusted through an adjusting bolt, to ensure the hyperelastic shaped memory alloy wire to reach the required initial strain. The invention has the advantages that the capacity of the energy dissipation is strong, the resetting is automatic, the structure type is simple, and the invention is convenient for the application of the engineering.


On November 28 and 29, 2001, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Court) held hearings for the reparations phase of Bamaca Velasquez v. Guatemala, a landmark case that expanded the scope of reparations for cases of forced disappearance in the interAmerican system. At the reparations hearing, the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights (Commission) requested that the Court order the exhumation and return of the disappeared body as a specific remedy. In its judgment on reparations, released on February 22, 2002, the Court granted the Commission's request and ordered the Guatemalan government to exhume the body and return it to the victim's family. Because the Court has never before ordered the exhumation of a body in a case of forced disappearance, the Court's ruling on reparations in the Bamaca case is a significant development in forced disappearance jurisprudence in the inter-American system.


An experimental study was carried out to evaluate t he liquid desiccant system performance during dehum idification and humidification processes using air injection throug h the liquid desiccant solution (Calcium Chloride). The air flows cross the desiccant solution with different air mass flow rat es. The system is studied at different operating co ndition (air flow rate, temperature, humidity ratio and solution levels). The effectiven ess of the proposed system for both dehumidificatio n and humidification processes were evaluated. Also, the cooling effect and mass tcoefficient was obtained. It is found that the system effectiveness reached 0.75 in the dehumidification process and 0.7 in the humidification process. Mass transfer coefficient depends on the air mass flow rate and the desiccant solution level in the tank Econom ical Results of the presented system is estimated


The sacred poetry of Richard Crashaw deserves to be compared to the poetry of the Jesuits and studied in the light of Jesuit poetical theory in the Renaissance. There is no other body of poetry that it so much resembles and no other poetical theory that explains its purposes and techniques so weill. In The Poetry of Meditation, Louis Martz pointed out the great influence of the Spiritual Exercises of the Jesuits On some of Crashaw's poems and on sorne of Donne's and Southwell's. But we must suspect that this inlluence on English poetry is not confined to the structure of individual poems and that it came into it originally through a poetic theory. As it turns out, this theory was closely allied to the Spiritual Exercises and its rules were adapted to the ends of meditation.


Jeffrey T. Hansberger, Robert W. HoltGeorge Mason UniversityABSTRACT Instructor/Evaluators (I/Es) must accurately understand the structure and content of the evaluation tool to evaluate pilots reliably and validly. This study examines how accurately I/E expectations about their evaluations correspond to their actual evaluations. Discrepancies were found between the I/Es' expectations and their actual evaluations. Estimates of grade distributions significantly deviated from actual grade distributions. Estimates of unique connections between observable behavior ratings and task ratings deviated from actual multiple regression results. Several types of errors and biases were described as the potential cause for these discrepancies. INTRODUCTION Aviation safety is the top priority for many airlines and government agencies. The Instructor/Evaluator (I/E) plays a critical role in ensuring safety. The I/E's job of critically and accurately assessing pilot performance is instrumental in assuring the pilots possess adequate skills to fly safely. This study inspects the evaluation process the I/Es are instructed to follow, how well they actually follow through with this process, and their expectations of their evaluations. The primary role of the I/E is to accurately evaluate pilot performance. One of their tasks is to detect flight performance below acceptable limits. The detection of poor performance provides them information to give accurate and helpful feedback to the pilots. The detection of unacceptable performance by the I/E also allows them to administer additional training until the skill reaches a satisfactory level. Both feedback and additional training may improve subsequent pilot performance in a number of different training environments. The I/Es often evaluate pilot performance in a number of various settings and environments. Different evaluation environments allow the I/Es to assess different aspects of performance. The prototypical evaluation types are usually a maneuver validation, an actual line flight observation (e.g., line check), and a simulation based evaluation (e.g., LOFT, LOE). The simulation based Line evaluation or a Operational Evaluation (LOE) has the ability to simulate actual line events with the flexibility and control to train and evaluate pilot performance in a safe environment. The LOE involved in this research was divided into event sets that correspond roughly to the phases of flight. Each event set was made up of an event trigger, supporting conditions, and distracters. The I/Es followed a pre-constructed script and used a worksheet specific to the LOE that aided in the evaluation of each event set. For each event set, the worksheet was designed to facilitate a specific evaluation process. The process begins with the most specific level of evaluation items, the observable behaviors. These observable behaviors are carefully identified and validated as being central to successful performance on each specific event se t. The next level of item specificity is at the task (i.e., skill, or dimension) level. A skill or task level may encompass several lower level observable behaviors. The I/Es were trained to evaluate a task item based on relevant observable behavior evaluations. Finally, the I/Es are trained to use the evaluations for the observable behaviors and tasks to aid in the individual pilot evaluations. There is also a crew based evaluation that was designed to encompass all the lower level evaluation items (e.g., observable behaviors, tasks, and individual ratings). The LOE worksheet had the potential to simplify what could be a relatively complex evaluation process and provide the instructors with a tool for more reliable ratings. However, these benefits are conti ngent on the I/Es possessing an accurate understanding of the worksheet evaluation process and correctly using it on a regular basis. To the extent there are misunderstandings, errors, or biases affecting the I/Es' perception or practice of the evaluation process, there will be inconsistencies and potential inaccuracies in the pilot evaluations. Many errors and biases have been discovered in human decision-making and performance evaluations (e.g., Klein, Orasanu, Calderwood, and Zsambok, 1995; Schneider & Schmitt, 1992). These errors and biases may occur at different stages of the evaluation process. The evaluation process can be elaborated into two general processes or stages, a memory retrieval and a judgement process. The memory retrieval process for an evaluation task involves the recall of stored knowledge from past experience and training. It also involves the recall of past evaluation experiences that may be used to compare the current situation to. The judgement process, however, involves how the I/E uses the retrieved and observed information. The LOE worksheet is an example of an evaluation aid to the judgement process. Each of these processes are susceptible to their own type of errors and biases among the I/Es.


These reference guides contains rich and informative histories of particular media with concise explanations of technical terms often encountered by museum patrons.


To examine the relationship between step‐rate and energy expenditure during treadmill walking in persons with PD and then further develop a step‐rate cut‐point for moderate‐to‐vigorous physical activity (MVPA) for persons with PD.


Results: A higher viral richness at baseline was observed (p=0.023) in patients (n=9) when compared to their donors (n=8). When comparing all longitudinal samples from FMT responders (n=7) and non-responders (n=43), a lower richness (p=0.0005) was found for the responders. Comparing samples collected before FMT (baseline) from patients based on their outcome showed that responders (n=2) al-ready presented a trend towards a lower richness (p=0.056) compared to non-responders (n=7). no significant differences could be observed (p=0.286) in viral richness of donors and outcome of patients.


The neo-liberal orthodoxy promoting unfettered economic globalisation has faced unforeseen challenges with the eruption of economic crises across Asia, Latin America and Russia—from which some of the Asian countries are now making a remarkably quick recovery. The four countries hardest hid by the Asian crisis were Indonesia, Thailand, Korea, and Malaysia. The crisis initially reinforced the belief that globalisation undermines state capacity for national policies, and that the force of global capital will discipline any deviation from marked-led institutions. By the end of 1998, it was clear that the financial turnmoil in emerging markets reflected far deeper problems than those identified by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). While the IMF and the US Treasury were blaming Hong Kong government intervention into the stock market, Long Term Capital Management, a leading hedge fund with a portfolio worth $90 billion collapsed, requiring a $3.5 billion rescue arranged by the US Federal Reserve (see Dunbar, 2000). The advocacy of a borderless world, with market-driven frictionless adjustment, and institutional convergence was thus shaken by a series of crashes whose antecedents cannot be overcome simply by implementing IMF conditionality of even more prudent regulation with a more managed market liberalisation. These crises have thus fueled a new round of debate on the effects of globalisation in academic as well as policy circles.


Hydrocarbons are common contaminants in aquatic habitats, in particular in the Mediterranean sea, because of the number of refineries distributed along the coast and the intensive oil transportation by ship. One of the main challenges of bioremediation is to define effective protocols to overcome in situ the limiting factors of microbial degradation activity. Monitoring the effectiveness of bioremediation is very complex and time-consuming. The aim of our study was to validate bacterial bioreporters as innovative tools to evaluate in real time the efficiency of bio-treatment of oil-polluted samples. Three treatments ( Aeration; Biostimulation, and Bioaugmentation ) were carried out on artificially contaminated seawater with oil at microcosm scale. The treatments were monitored for 7 days by the use of an Escherichia coli-based alkane luciferase bioreporter (5150) and of an E. coli-based strain constitutively expressing luciferase (5463). Hydrocarbons were monitored by GC-FID analyses while in parallel, quantitative functional gene expression was carried out by real-time PCR with the aim to verify specific microbial consortium activity. The effectiveness of the treatments was estimated as follows: bioaugmentation>biostimulation> no-treatment. The results by the bioreporters were coherent with chemical analyses and Real-time PCR. During the early period of the experiment we observed a different response of the reporters to the oil input and treatments, after that phase, we were able to detect bioreporter induction at significantly reduced rates. Our analyses have also provided evidence for an inhibitory effect of high cell densities in the medium, in particular after 24h of the treatments. In conclusion, for monitoring the efficacy of bioremediation it is necessary to have a significant technical and methodological framework, which includes chemical, biological, engineering approaches. Bacterial bioreporters are versatile tools that can help to monitor the trend of the treatment, can substantially improve the systematic protocols, both in terms of time as well as economic aspects.


Soil forming process can influence soil stability, especially on a sloping area, which is currently related to landslides. This research aims to study mineral content in the soil as an indicator to evaluate soil stability in slope area. Soil texture analyzed with hydrometer and soil mineral analyzed with Kerr method. Soil parent rock comes from Tpbv (Tertiary Pliocene Baturape Volcanic) Formation that consists of lava, breccia, tuff, and conglomerate. Soil texture in A horizon dominated with silty clay loam and in B horizon with silty clay. Clay content in A horizon to B horizon increase ranges from 2-6%. Soils mineral have been weathering on the physical and chemical, which caused cracking on minerals lattice and formed clay minerals inside it. The presence of clay minerals between soil mineral particles can cause mutual repulsion force and cause friction particles that triggering the movement of particles in a small scale when soil saturated by water and triggers soil movement (landslide).


Gilman & Koelle (1960) have reported on the ability of various intermediates of glycolysis and the tricarboxylic acid cycle to support transfer of ions in the small intestine of the rat. In view of their results and the numerous reports in the literature (e.g. Curran, 1968) of the linked fluxes of ions and non-electrolytes in transport studies, it was decided to investigate the ability of various energy substrates to support the transport of the amino acid L-histidine. The present communication gives the results of this exploratory investigation and also the effect of semi-starvation on the transport system. The velocity of transport of L-histidine was studied across the small intestine of male Wistar rats (approx. 200g.) by using the everted-sac method, based on that described by Wilson & Wiseman (1954). The animals were allowed food and water ad libitum except when being semistarved, when no food was given for 5 consecutive days (free access to water was allowed during this time). Five sacs were prepared from the whole of the small intestine and were chosen at random based on a latin-square design. Four of these sacs were used to follow the transfer of histidine; the fifth sac was filled with the solvent system and acted as a reagent blank in the subsequent assay procedure. The mucosal and serosal solutions were initially at the same concentration (5mM) and were prepared with bicarbonate-buffered saline, pH7-2 (Krebs & Henseleit, 1932). The sacs were incubated for 45min. at 370 in 02+C02 (95:5). Except in the control series and in experiments with semistarved animals, when no added energy substrate was included, all incubation mixtures contained 0-5% D-glucose or the appropriate iso-osmotic concentration of the altemative energy substrate under study. The concentration of L-histidine in the samples was measured by a fluorimetric method similar to that described by Shore, Burkhalter & Cohn (1959) for the assay of histamine. The amount transported was calculated after correction for water movement as described by Parsons, Smyth & Taylor (1958). The results of these exploratory studies are given in Table 1. The velocities recorded in Table 1 are not necessarily initial velocities (no test being made of this point), and so one cannot draw any conclusions on the effect of the various substrates or semistarvation on the basic parameters of the histidinetransport system. However, a report on the ability of the various substrates or the nutritional state of the animal to support the transport of L-histidine is possible. All the substrates tested seem able to support the active transport of L-histidine, pyruvate being the least effective. It is noteworthy that both glucose and the ionized moieties can presumably approach the mitochondrial sites and so allow the cell to produce energy. This allows the transport to proceed for a longer period of time than in the control series, where presumably the endogenous energy supply is rate-limiting. The lower ability of pyruvate to support the transport activity might be due to the inability ofthis acid to approach the appropriate site in the cell or to the lack of catalytic amounts of one of the carboxylic acids, e.g. malate, required to give the continuous supply of oxaloacetate necessary to condense with the acetyl-CoA formed from pyruvate. It is known that transport activity varies along the length of the intestine (Barry, Matthews & Smyth, 1961), and information on the detailed mechanism of action is lost when various substrates are compared


Abstract Two new polyimide model compounds with molecular weights of ∼1000 g/mol have been synthesized. While the amino terminated compound, 4,4′-bis-N-[N′-(4-aminophenoxy-4′-phenyl)-pyromellitimido]diphenylether,O(PO)2, undergoes a branching or crosslinking side reaction, the corresponding anhydride terminated oligomer N,N′-bis[4(N-(3′,4′-bishydroxycarbonyl)phthal-imido)phenoxy-4′-phenyl]pyromellitimide dianhydride, P(OP)2, loses its anhydride functionality completely upon thermal treatment. In the case of O(PO)2, the formed C=N species can be detected with Raman spectroscopy rather than FT-IR spectroscopy because of its low molecular absorptivity in the infrared region. The formation of imine bonds caused by the attack of terminal amino groups on the imide carbonyl group is evident by the appearance of peaks at about 1665 cm-1 in the Raman spectra. The same behavior can be observed in bulky polyimides blended with an increasing amount of O(PO)2 upon curing.