When it is claimed, however, that the conceptual goal of the SP is reached with an expression of the Greek theory of "the good man" in Luke 6:45 (630), consonant with the SPs tailoring to Luke's Hellenic audience (versus the SM's to Matthew's Jewish-Christian constituency), we protest, as we often do over B.'s finessed details: Wait a minute! Matthew has the same words about "the good man" in Matt 12:34^35, where he obviously transferred the conclusion of the treeand-fruits mashal. Does that not indicate that Matthew knew the same text as Luke used, and that he was topically rearranging Q material in transposing "the good man," the very policy he followed to create the much larger SM based on the matrix of Q's SP (cf. 532)? Such is the common opinion that B. has deserted. I expect most of us will continue to cling to it, charging the double tradition's irreducible disparities to the different Q recensions the two evangelists used.


Our previous studies presented significant increases in plasma concentrations of Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Interleukin-8 (IL-8) and Tumor Necrosis Factor-alpha (TNF-α) as early as before the twenty-fourth hour after the clinical manifestation of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation (PAF). The early changes in pro-inflammatory cytokines give serious reasons to suppose that inflammatory process participates directly in the disease initiating mechanisms. In this sense, it is quite appropriate to seek in these changes a predictive value for PAF manifestation. IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-α were studied in 51 patients (26 men, 25 women; mean age 59.84±1.60 years) with PAF (time of the occurrence<48 hours) and 52 controls (26 men, 26 women; mean age 59.50±1.46 years) matched by gender, age and comorbidities. In the present study we used a logistic regression model with a single explanatory variable and a multivariable logistic model to determine the prognostic value of the indicators. The logistic regression model with a single explanatory variable showed that IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-α were statistically significant indicators of the clinical manifestations of PAF (p<0.001; p=0.045; p=0.014, respectively). With the increase in their values, the probability of developing the disease also increased(Bi=0.33 >0; Bi=0.34 >0; Bi=0.44 >0, respectively). The multivariate logistic model confirmed the results (p=0.017; p=0.049; p=0.012, respectively). Plasma concentrations of IL-6, IL-8 and TNF-α provide prognostic information about the clinical manifestation of PAF. They could be used in the overall clinical risk assessment, which in turn would affect the prophylactic and therapeutic approach to the disease.


This study investigates the performance of the free cash flow portfolio in the period of 2001-2011 in Poland. Firstly, a portfolio of large firms with positive free cash flows, low free cash flow multiples, and low financial leverages was selected. Then it was compared to other firms listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The results were observed in different time periods and exposed to different models. Both buy-and-hold (BHARs) and cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) were estimated. Mean and median buy-and-hold abnormal returns for the free cash flow portfolio were in most of the years much above the averages for other companies. This was also observed for the whole sample period. The difference between the free cash flow portfolio and other companies was significant in economic and statistical terms during market downturns. It may seem plausible that the free cash flow portfolio outperforms other companies, especially during bear markets. However, the free cash flow anomaly was not always robust to different models and statistical tests and dependable in all the years of the sample period. Negative medians for BHARs and the unfavorable comparison of mean CARs between the free and non-free cash flow portfolio were found. This makes the possibility of earning above-average risk adjusted returns on investing in the free-cash-flow portfolio questionable.


tracheal tube at the end of surgery. Lubricated gastric tubes, sizes 10–14, were easily inserted through the gastric channel at firstattempt, in all 80 cases where this was performed. Intraoperative regurgitation occurred in two fasted patients who had no gastric tube inserted initially and the gastric fluid drained freely from the i-gel gastric channel. This was managed by head-down positioning without disrupting surgery and insertion of gastric tube through the gastric channel with effective drainage. Direct pharyngoscopy and suction did not reveal gastric fluid soiling. Neither patient had clinical evidence of aspiration at 48 h. It is recommended that if regurgitation occurs during anaesthesia, the patient should be positioned headdown or lateral, gastric tube drainage performed, the i-gel removed, the pharynx suctioned and the patient intubated [1]. In conclusion, the i-gel is very suitable for perioperative airway management, positive pressure ventilation, and weaning from ventilation. It is also useful as an intubation aid and has a potential role in airway management during resuscitation. It is very easy to use, highly reliable and associated with minimal morbidity. The gastric channel separates the oesophagus from the larynx and provides protection from aspiration. Further studies are required to compare the i-gel with other supraglottic devices.


The three-phase Power Electronic Load (PEL) simulation of the asynchronous motor operation can be the divided into AC sine wave drive mode, the inverter open-loop drive mode and the inverter closed-loop drive mode. The control strategy of these three kinds of working conditions is simple to complex, and has certain inheritance and progressive relations. In the AC sine wave drive condition, the discrete solution method of the motormathematical model is studied and a current tracking control strategy based on the deadbeat controller is proposed. In the inverter open-loop drive mode, a new method of PWM pulse voltage detection based on FPGA is proposed to improve the accuracy of the motor model. In the inverter closed-loop drive mode, a simulation method based on antielectromotive force is proposed to solve the coupling problem of two converters. Simulation and experiments verify the effectiveness of these methods.


The aim of this study was to investigate the possible association of three single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), C194T, G399A, and G280A, in the X-ray repair cross-complementing group 1 (XRCC1) gene with the risk of developing colon cancer in Saudi patients. Samples of 65 colon cancer patients, aged 45 to 80 years old, and 65 age-matched controls were genotyped. The results demonstrated that carriers of the variant A-allele of 280 had a higher risk for colon cancer than carriers of the normal (GG) genotype (OR=2.27; 95% CI 0.89-5.83; P=0.08), and carriers of the variant A-allele of 399 were found to have a lower risk for colon cancer than carriers of the normal (GG) genotype (OR=0.73; 95% CI 0.43-1.23; P=0.23). Additionally, the genotype combination showed that the individuals carrying XRCC1 280GA and 399GG genotypes had an elevated risk for colon cancer (OR=3.73; 95% CI 1.14-12.27; P=0.03), whereas subjects carrying the XRCC1 280GA and 399GA genotypes had a decrease risk for colon cancer (OR=0.44; 95% CI 0.04-4.63; P=0.63). These results suggest that the A-allele of 280 might be a risk factor and the A-allele of 399 a protective factor for colon cancer risk.


The present invention discloses an oil cooler for a permanent magnet synchronous traction motors, including the opening of the oil cooler housing and end cap on the cooling channel, the cooling oil inlet passage communicated with the outside through the supply conduit, and by a first oil outlet port communicates with the oil return pipe outside the housing and / or on the end cap defines a fuel injection port, and the injection port communicating cooling passage lumen permanent magnet synchronous traction motors, the housing further defines a second an oil outlet, the lumen through the second oil outlet port communicates with the outside oil return piping, cooling oil derived lumen. Thus, not only the above-described oil cooler housing and direct cooling of the end cap, simultaneously, through the cooling oil enters the injection port from the lumen, direct, effective cooling of the internal structure of the housing, thereby improving oil cooling the cooling efficiency of the device, improve the performance of the oil cooler. The present invention also discloses a permanent magnet comprising the above-described oil cooler synchronous traction motors.


Abstract It has been argued that Kant's practical philosophy cannot allow for degrees of responsibility for one's actions. However, it would be uncompromising to allow for only two possibilities: either full responsibility or none. Moreover, in the Metaphysics of Morals Kant himself claims that there can be degrees of responsibility, depending on the magnitude of the obstacles that have to be overcome when acting. I will show that this claim is consistent with Kant's theory as a whole and thereby make transparent how degrees of responsibility are possible for Kant. The solution is based on the distinction between two senses of responsibility: taking oneself to be an accountable person is an all-or-nothing affair, whereas praise- or blameworthiness for a particular action can still be a matter of degree.


A pulsed core jet is one consisting of a steady annular flow with a core, the mass flow of which is unsteady. The combined jet exhausts into a still environment. The velocity field and entrainment characteristics for such a jet have been measured for various mass flow ratios of pulsed-to-steady flow and several frequencies of pulsation. Results show the radial distribution of mean velocity to be similar to those of steady jets except very close to the nozzle, the decay of the centerline mean velocity to be less than that of steady jets, and the entrainment to be larger than that of steady jets but less than fully pulsed ones. No significant sensitivity to frequency of pulsation was observed, but the velocity field is strongly dependent on the ratio of core flow to annular flow.


Improved confidence intervals are given for the normal multiple correlation. These are based on Cornish–Fisher and "small sample" asymptotic expansions for the distribution, quantiles, and density of and for the multiple correlation for a sample from a normal population.


Ceramics in the system ZrB_2–Ta_5Si_3 were studied as candidates for the development of new ultra high-temperature ceramic materials. The ceramics were prepared by hot pressing at 1900–2200 °C in He. Mutual additions of ZrB_2 and Ta_5Si_3 even in small amounts had significant densifying effects due to chemical interactions and solid solubility between the components, which have not been reported in the literature. Materials containing between 8 and 30 vol% Ta_5Si_3 exhibited less oxidation than pure ZrB_2, which is the result of phase separation in surface borosilicate glass induced by Ta_2O_5. For higher concentrations, oxidation resistance substantially decreased with increasing Ta_5Si_3 content. The trend in the oxidation behavior of the materials showed significant dependence on the volume of oxidation products. Ceramics containing up to 10 mol% (30 vol%) Ta_5Si_3, which showed the highest oxidation resistance, also had the highest strength and hardness in the system, and are of interest for high-temperature structural applications in oxidizing environments.


The Nanog and Oct‐4 genes are essential for maintaining pluripotency of embryonic stem (ES) cells and early embryos. We previously reported that DNA methylation and chromatin remodeling underlie the cell type‐specific mechanism of Oct‐4 gene expression. In the present study, we found that there is a tissue‐dependent and differentially methylated region (T‐DMR) in the Nanog up‐stream region. The T‐DMR is hypomethylated in ES cells, but is heavily methylated in trophoblast stem (TS) cells and NIH/3T3 cells, in which the Nanog gene is repressed. Furthermore, in vitro methylation of T‐DMR suppressed Nanog promoter activity in reporter assay. Chromatin immunoprecipitation assay revealed that histone H3 and H4 are highly acetylated, and H3 lysine (K) 4 is hypermethylated at the Nanog locus in ES cells. Conversely, histone deacetylation and H3‐K4 demethylation occurred in TS cells. Importantly, in TS cells, hypermethylation of H3‐K9 and ‐K27 is found only at the Nanog locus, not the Oct‐4 locus, indicating that the combination of histone modifications associated with the Nanog gene is distinct from that of the Oct‐4 gene. In conclusion, the Nanog gene is regulated by epigenetic mechanisms involving DNA methylation and histone modifications.


The orientational dynamics of several diatomic molecules of varying dipole moments adsorbed at different locations at the interface between water and carbon tetrachloride are studied using molecula...


Charge excitations under quantized magnetic field flow in one dimensional‐like strips along the edges of the sample. These excitations (quasiparticles) may behave independently (under weaker fields) or condense to an interacting chiral Luttinger liquid (under stronger fields). Adding a backscattering potential in the path of the quasiparticles, partitions them, hence inducing quantum shot noise that is proportional to their charge and is affected by their correlation. We summarize here our studies of the noise in edge states. At sufficiently low temperatures the correlations among the scattering events are strong, leading to highly non‐linear I –V characteristic and non‐classical shot noise. However, at finite temperatures and weak back scattering, quasiparticles backscatter independently, with noise proportional to e /3, e /5 and e /7 at filling factors 1/3, 2/5, and 3/7. Alternatively, at sufficiently strong backscattering induced bunching of e /3 quasiparticles takes place, with shot noise proportional to e. Diluting the impinging quasiparticles beam mimics an increased temperature, effectively weakening the correlation, rendering the quasiparticles scattering stochastic. Moreover, surprisingly, at finite temperatures (∼50 mK), highly dilute fractionally charged quasiparticle beams are found to traverse almost opaque barriers with no significant bunching. Bunching, however, takes place at lower temperatures. In the opposite case of very weak backscattering potential and at extremely low temperatures (∼9 mK), surprising bunching of quasiparticles takes place: e * = 2e /5 at filling factor 2/5 and e * close to 3e /7 at filling factor 3/7. Under the same conditions, as the temperature increases, (to 25–50 mK) bunching ceases and the scattered charge is again the familiar Laughlin's quasiparticles charge e/m. We show also the shot noise generated by an edge channel interferometer. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)


Objective:To investigate the diagnostic value of ultrasonography for superficial swollen lymph nodes.Methods:71 cases with 155 superficial swollen lymph nodes were reviewed based on the sonography and clinical data,and the diagnosis of all cases were confirmed by pathology diagnosis after biopsy or the result of followed-up for 3 months.Results:71 cases with 155 superficial swollen lymph nodes under observation,18 swollen lymph nodes were lymphnoditis,26 reactive hyperplasy lymph nodes,15 tuberculous lymphaden,8 lymphoma,45 metastatic lymph nodes.20 cases with 43 swollen lymph nodes were misdiagnosed,the accurate rate of ultra-sonography was about 72%.Conclusion:Ultrasonography is of great value in the diagnosis of superficial swollen lymph nodes.It also remains a valuable aid in the differential diagnosis of benign and malignant lymph nodes,but it has partial overlap,and the final diagnosis is still made by pathology diagnosis after biopsy.


Objective to establish the quantitative and qualitative methods for Xinyuansu capsule.Methods:Adopting TLC to make a qualitative identification of Radix Panax quinquefolium.L and Fructus Schisandra sphenanthera in Xinyuansu capsule.Using HPLC-ELSD to determine Xinyuansu's notoginsenoside R1,ginsenosides Rg1,Re,Rb1.The chromatography conditions were as follow:DiscoveryC18 column.The mobile phase were composed of acetonitrile/water(90/10) and water /acetic acid(100/0.1) at a flow rate of 1.0mL/min,at 30℃.Gradient elution.The optimum settings of the ELSD parameters:drift tube temperature was 105.6℃ and nitrogen carrier gas flow-rate was 3.0L/min.Results:Radix Panax quinquefolium and Fructus Schisandra sphenanthera were distinguished by TLC in Xinyuansu capsule.The linear range was 715~35.75μg/mL for notoginsenoside R1,1500~75μg/mL for ginsenoside Rg1,1514~75.7μg/mL for Re,2928~146.4μg/mL for Rb1.The average recoveries were 88.53%(RSD=2.68%) ,100.61%(RSD=1.95%) ,100.01%(RSD=2.03%) ,100.28%(RSD=2.40%) ,respectively.Conclusion:The method could be readily utilized as a quality control method for Xinyuansu capsule.


Self-potential (SP) surveys often involve many interconnected lines of data along available roads or trails, with the ultimate goal of producing a unique map of electric potentials at each station relative to a single reference point. Multiple survey lines can be tied together by collecting data along intersecting transects and enforcing Kirchhoff's voltage law, which requires that the total potential drop around any closed loop equals zero. In practice, however, there is often a nonzero loop-closure error caused by noisy data; traditional SP processing methods redistribute this error evenly over the measurements that form each loop. The task of distributing errors and tying lines together becomes nontrivial when many lines of data form multiple interconnected loops because the loop-closure errors are not independent, and a unique potential field cannot be determined by processing lines sequentially. We present a survey-consistent processing method that produces a unique potential field by minimizing the ...


The gas diffusion layer (GDL) with integrated microporous layer (MPL) plays a pivotal role in fuel cell water management and gas transport. A number of works have demonstrated that the cracks in the MPL serve as the preferential water transport paths and improve water management. However, these cracks are not engineered, but are randomly formed during the drying process. In this study, a laser perforation technique is applied to engineer holes with controlled size and pattern in the GDL, particularly in the MPL. The specific perforation pattern reported in this work is the square lattice distribution, which comprises 100 μm diameter holes spaced 1 mm apart, and which penetrate only the MPL. The effects of the perforation treatment on water transport and fuel cell water accumulation are investigated.


Solution-based nickel (Ni)-induced crystallization (S-MIC) of amorphous silicon (a-Si) films has been studied with a two-step annealing process. We especially introduced Ethyl cellulose (EC) into the Ni-salt solution, so the viscous Ni-salt solution can be uniformly spin-coated on the a-Si film prepared by plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). The annealing temperature can be first set from room temperature (RT) to 400°C and kept at 400°C for 2 h in nitrogen ambience. And then, it is increased from 500°C to 550°C and kept for several hours in the following annealing. The correlations among crystallization, the concentrations of Ni-salt solution and annealing conditions can be discussed. The experimental results show that with the help of the two-step annealing, the a-Si films can be crystallized at a low temperature of 500°C. The crystalline fraction gets up to 81.2% after annealing at 520°C for 2 h and the grain size of the polycrystalline Si film is approximately 0.2 μm. Energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) analysis shows that very little Ni metal atoms reside in the crystallized Si film for S-MIC.


After the LHC luminosity upgrade the number of readout channels in the ATLAS Inner Detector will be increased by one order of magnitude and delivering the power to the front-end electronics as well as cooling will become a critical system issue. Therefore a new solution for powering the readout electronics has to be worked out. Two main approaches for the power distribution are under development, the serial powering of a chain of modules and the parallel powering with a DCDC conversion stage on the detector. In both cases switchedcapacitor converters in the CMOS front-end chips will be used. In the paper we present the design study of a step-up charge pump and a step-down converter. In optimized designs power efficiency of 85 % for the step-up converter and 92 % for the step-down converter has been achieved.


Background: Benzodiazepines (BZDs) are one of the most widely abused substances by opioid dependent patients. Aim:
This research aims to identify patterns of BZD use in methadone maintained opioid dependent patients attending an addiction treatment clinic in Dublin, Ireland. Methods: Patients (n=78) testing positive for BZDs by urinalysis completed a face-to-face survey.

Results: Daily BZD use was reported by 70.1% (n=54) with 67.9% (n=53) consuming up to 5 tablets a day. A BZD prescription was provided for 50% (n=39) and 61.5% (n=48) used illicit BZDs. The primary BZD of use was Diazepam reported by 93.6% (n=73) of patients. Analysis showed source of BZDs is related to frequency of consumption [χ2(2)= 10.98, p < 0.01] and use of others drugs [χ2(2)= 6.97, p< 0.04].

Conclusion: Source of BZDs is associated with frequency of consumption and use of other drugs. Current patterns of BZD use is between 1 to 5 years which is considerably longer than recommended duration of BZD use.


Objective To evaluate the diagnostic means of gastric varices(GV) by transabdominal ultrasound(TAU). Methods 155 stomaches of the cirrhosis patients were examined with B mode, color Doppler flow imaging(CDFI) and pulse doppler(PD) to find GV .GV was graded according to the standard of category of our country. Results The meterials of ultrasonic diagnosed GV in 23 patients were collected . 3 patients with slight GV were missingly diagnosed compared with other methods. The diagnosed rate of GV by TAU was 87%(20/23). Conclusion The diagnostic means of GV by TAU can provide more evidence for clinical diagnosing GV,preventing varices bleeding and evaluating its therapeutic effect.The stomaches of the cirrhosis patients with portal hypertension should be examined by TAU routinely in basic level hospital. [


The very-high-energy gamma-ray source TeV J2032+4130, in the Cygnus region, was the first source discovered of a population of extended TeV sources without low-frequency counterparts. In its field there is a pulsar, namely PSR J2032+4127, which has been detected by Fermi in gamma-rays and in radio by the Green Bank Telescope (GBT). We report on an ongoing multiwavelength campaign to search for a pulsar wind nebula associated with PSR J2032+4127 through radio and X-ray observations. Moreover, we are conducting a multi-epoch very long baseline interferometr (VLBI) campaign with the European VLBI network (EVN) in order to measure the pulsar proper motion and to find its relation with the radio nebula and the TeV extended source. All these results together, combined with a theoretical modeling of the system, enable us to propose a conceivable physical scenario in which the extended radio, X-ray and TeV emissions are accounted for.


The paper introduces the method of reforming electric machinery experiment by the hardware such as Mitsubishi PLC and Industrial Personal Computer.Industrial Personal Computer transmits control command to PLC by using Gx-Developer.According to the command,Mitsubishi PLC controller control the way of alternating current three-phase asynchronous motor's working and Y-△ star up.As a result,this method get a better apply in experiment teaching.


Introduction: The fact that there are over 250 methods of surgical correction of hypospadias described in the literature indicates that the "hypospadiologists" are still in search of the ideal technique for repair. Objectives: To evaluate the impact of penile anatomy on the surgical management of hypospadias. Results: Fourty four patients with different types of hypospadias 88.6% presented more than one year and 11.4% less .we found that 11.4% had glandular meatus,43.2% distal and 45.4% proximal ,also 43.2% had no chordee,45.4% had superficial and 11.4% deep chordee, meatal site after chordee correction24% distal , 60 % proximal and 16% penoscrotal.


Abstract : As U.S. Forces continue to operate in coalition environments, the need to incorporate Multilevel Security into the ATCCS becomes more apparent. While Army doctrine requires the ATCCS to be MLS to the B2 level, there iii currently no product or technology developed to fulfill this requirement, nor is there any implementation strategy devised to address this issue. This thesis proposes two strategies to implement MLS within the ATCCS: a target and near term implementation strategy. These two strategies are derived from the DoD joint MLS Technology Insertion Program Target Architecture and Implementation Strategy, which provides the vehicle for assessing the current and in development MLS products and capabilities.


We examined (1) differences in academic performance by structural and intermediary determinants of health, (2) associations between duration of college enrollment during the first year of the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and (3) their two-way interactions on academic performance using data from two cohorts of freshmen undergraduate students.Participants reported their demographic information, and their structural and intermediary determinants. The university reported academic performance at each semester. Mixed effects models tested repeated measures outcomes (i.e., grade point average (GPA) and courses where the grade received was D, F, Not passing, or Withdrawn (DFNW courses) and generalized linear models tested likelihood of graduation.More unfavorable structural and intermediary determinants were associated with an increased likelihood of receiving a DFNW grade (b = 0.33 and b = 0.40, p's < 0.05, respectively). Greater unfavorable intermediary determinants were associated with a lower GPA (b = –0.07, p = 0.159). There were significant interactions between intermediary determinants of health and enrollment duration during COVID-19 for the likelihood of DFNW grades (b = –0.89, p = 0.008) and graduation (b = 1.31, p = 0.025), such that Cohort 1 fared worse than Cohort 2.The findings indicate that for those with more unfavorable intermediary determinants, there may have been an initial "shock" of the pandemic that stabilized over time.


No difference was observed in the tumor-producing activity of the mammary tumor agent in cell-free supernatants of frozen and unfrozen transplanted mammary carcinoma, when tumors of the same passage were used as the source material.

There was no decrease in the activity of the agent derived from fresh tissue after the tumor had been transplanted for nine passages.

When extracts of frozen tumors of the first passage were used, no variation was seen either in the incidence of mammary cancer or the average cancer age in mice injected intraperitoneally or subcutaneously. The first tumor appeared at 193 days.

Tumors appeared at the injection site of the thawed tumor mince. Extracts of these tumors, and their transplants, gave fewer tumors in the test animals when injected subcutaneously than intraperitoneally.

From these studies, no evidence was obtained to suggest that the mammary tumor agent is activated by freezing.


We present a Bayesian rating system based on the method of paired comparisons. Our system is a flexible generalization of the well-known Glicko, and in particular can better accommodate games with significant elements of luck. Our system is currently in use in the online game Duelyst II, and in that setting outperforms Glicko2.


As an important component of civil procedure,remanding system plays the function of safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of the parties,maintaining procedural justice,supervising and controlling the court trial,but there are still numeral problems in the designing and operating of our civil remanding system.The guiding ideology in designing and operating of this system should be keep the balance of justice and efficiency,litigation and trial.Based on this,it is necessary to abolish the legal particular matter of "not clear" standard of the retrial,limit the remand for retrial completion time,endow right of choice of civil procedure,establish the remand for retrial supervisory and restricted mechanism.


Although hGH has been shown to suppress the release of TSH, its action on the metabolism of thyroid hormones remains unknown. We examined the effect of hGH on a loading dose of T3 in 11 hypopituitary children (3 to 18 years). Six patients were on oral L-thyroxine because of TSH deficiency. Before and after one month of hGH therapy (2U three times weekly), a single dose of T3 (50 to 100 ug) was administered orally; serum levels of T3 and T4 were measured at 0, 4, 6, 12, 18 and 24 hours. Both before and after hGH therapy, serum levels of T3 peaked at 4 hours and returned to normal by 24 hours. After hGH therapy, significantly higher levels of T3 were achieved at 0, 4, 6, 18 and 24 hours (p values from 0.003 to 0.03). In contrast, following T3 ingestion, serum levels of T4 decreased and reached a nadir at 18 hours. The decrease in serum levels of T4 were of similar magnitude whether the patients were or were not receiving replacement therapy with L-thyroxine. Therefore, these changes could not be explained by T3 induced suppression of thyroid gland. The decrease in serum levels of T4 was not influenced by hGH therapy. In conclusion, hGH causes an increase in the basal level of serum T3 and an augmentation of T3 levels following a loading dose of T3; mechanisms for these changes are not known. The decrease in serum levels of T4 following a T3 load, although not altered by hGH, is of special interest. This effect seems to be due to changes in extrathyroidal metabolism of T4.


Energy-efficient communications have become one fundamental aspect for today's cutting-edge wireless technologies due to its valuable impact on the environment. In this paper, we augment our earlier study for the user equipment's (UE) energy efficiency (EE) in the long-term evolution (LTE) downlink by looking at real-time heterogeneous traffic QoS requirements. In particular, we utilize the previously proposed cloud radio access network (C-RAN) and ray tracing (RT)-based scheduling model to optimize both of the EE and the packet delay jitter for real-time applications with fixed packet delay budget subject to other traffic types requirements. Using the utility-based scheduling approach, we formulate the resource allocation problem as a weighted sum binary integer programming (BIP) problem. Due to the inherent complexity of the problem formulation which hinders finding its solution directly, four heuristic algorithms are proposed to solve the optimization problem. Numerical simulations are conducted on three different traffic types each belonging to one of the popular QoS classes; best-effort class, rate, and delay-constrained classes. The obtained results demonstrate a substantial improvement in the system's performance achieved by our proposed schemes compared to other existing schemes.


The way of solving the problem of surface wear of products from cast iron due to development of technological processes of its strengthening treatment is offered in this article. Receiving the hardened skins is reached by purposeful formation of the set structural condition of metal by methods of surface impregnation, i.e., modifying. Results of researches on thermochemical treatment of cast irons of grades EN-GJL-250, EN-JS1060 are presented The micro-structural analysis showed that with rising the saturation temperature and increasing the process duration the layer depth cartbonitration increases. Studying the samples for wear resistance carried out on stand ММ 295 showed that for grade EN-GJL-250 it increased 2,2 times, and for grade EN-JS1060 – 3 times as compared to the initial (non-modified) state. Experimental-industrial tests of products of cast iron (model accessory, parts of homogenizing pumps) after carbonitration permitted to state 2-4 times of its surface.


This paper deals with teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP), focused on the professional training of prospective economists of various fields of activity: managers, accountants, sociologists, specialists in the sphere of economic security. The authors indicate that the most difficult aspect of foreign language for students is the lexical aspect, the problem of enriching the active vocabulary precisely, since being under permanent growing flow of information; the students who already possess basic knowledge are not always motivated to memorize and actively use new lexical units. They prefer using the constructions, words, concepts and terms which they have learned before. It concerns mostly idiomatic expressions and phrasal verbs, which differ in specific semantic characteristics and structure, as well as the complexity of their practical application. However, the use of such structures in speech ensures a successful improvement of a foreign language communicative competence and an integrative approach is proposed for the development and strengthening of motivation in the preparation of methodological textbooks and tasks. It is underlined that when preparing individual stages of the educational course, orientation to the professional use of a foreign language should be taken into account with the analysis of target situations and subsequent consideration of the compliance of tasks and applied forms of work with the needs of prospective economists in specific situations of their professional activities.


Objective To compare twice the characteristics and differences of 64 -slice CT coronary angiography (MECT),coronary angiography (CAG),myocardial perfusion imaging (MPI) respectively in suspected patients with coronary artery disease(CAD) before and after percutaneous intervention(PCI) prospectively. Methods MECT,CAG and MPI were performed respectively in 50 suspected senile patients with CAD before and after PCI. Degree and value of stenoses,positive and negative rate,characteristics of restenoses were studied. Results Middle stenoses of coronary artery was significantly more than mild and severe stenoses,but positive and negative rate of stenoses was almost equal between MECT and CAG. PCI operated one year later,stenoses or ischemia founded by MECT,CAG and MPI significantly decreased than that before operation in the same class except lower positive rate for MPI,especially in the position of mild or reversible ischemia.Restenoses was almost malacoplakia and mainly distributed in the position of PCI. Conclusion MECT provides a faster screening of suspected patients with CAD,a direct and accuracy judgment of plaque and restenoses.For the reversible ischemia suspected patients with CAD found by MECT or MPI,CAG and PCI is the final and favorable choice.


Polypropylene laminated paper (PPLP) and liquid nitrogen (LN2) is widely used as insulation and coolant, respectively, in high-temperature superconducting (HTS) cable. Dielectric loss of PPLP plays an important role in the loss of HTS transmission system. In this paper, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) filter papers were chosen to take place of Kraft paper (KP) in composite insulation system. Two layers of PTFE filter paper and one layer of polypropylene (PP) film were processed into sandwich structure through hot-press method. Experimental results show that the dielectric loss can be cut to half by replacing KP with PTFE filter in AC HTS transmission system. The trap level of PTFE/PP composite insulation is shallower. The surface discharge voltage of PTFE/PP is higher than that of PPLP. PTFE/PP also has stronger ability of resisting partial discharge and shows higher partial discharge inception voltage than PPLP does. And the breakdown voltage of PTFE/PP composite insulation is higher than that of PPLP, which mainly due to the stronger resistance to discharge.


Preface: A social science perspective on childhood experience in India 1. Infancy and childhood in India: A review 2. Cultural continuity and change in Kakar's works: Some reflections 3. Culture, family structure, and psyche in Hindu India: The 'fit' and the 'inconsistencies' 4. Kakar's psychoanalytic interpretation of Indian childhood: The need to emphasize the father and multiple caregivers in the socialization equation 5. In defense of The Inner World 6. Psychoanalysis and Sociocultural Change in India: A Conversation with Sudhir Kakar


A gender aspect of phraselogical units represented with the opposition man/woman as well their semantic characteristics and place in the lingual pattern of the world in the Rumei and the Balkan Greek have been investigated.


Objective To understand the hygienic conditions of centralized air conditioner ventilating system in Zhongshan City.Methods The 22 shops and 23 hotels with central air condition system were randomly selected for the study,and every place with 3 return air vents,3 carrying air vents and Legionella in cooling tower water were sampled.Results The qualification rate of pipeline dust was 100%.The bacteria and fungus of pipeline dust was lower,and the qualification rate of shops was significantly lower than hotels(P0.01).The qualification rate of PM10 coming from carrying air vents was 100%.The qualification rate of PM10 in the air was 100%,and that of total bacteria were 98.6% and 90.9%.The detection rate of legionella in the cooling tower water was 98.2%.Conclusions The status of pollution of centralized air conditioner ventilating system in shops and hotels varies and effective monitoring of contamination conditions in this district be strengthened .


In this paper, electromagnetic bandgap structures are applied to a conventional coplanar waveguide. The EBG is obtained by etching a continuous sinusoidal perturbation pattern either on the central conductor strip or the both ground planes of the CPW. By doing so, a rejected frequency band appears. Since the frequency response of the device can be approximated by the Fourier Transform of the perturbation function, the application of a sinusoidal perturbation gives allows in principle a unique rejected band, without the presence of frequency harmonics. Full wave simulation results are presented for simple reflectors as well as for combination of several simultaneous perturbation functions, tailoring the desired frequency selective behavior.


A low band gap conjugated polymer (P1) containing benzodifuran (BDF) units was synthesized via Stille coupling polymerization. The polymer exhibited good solubility in common organic solvents (chloroform, chlorobenzene, dichlorobenzene, etc), excellent film forming properties and wide absorption range in visible region. Density function theory (DFT) studies showed P1 had planar molecular structure, which benefited the arrangement of molecular chain. The molecular weight of P1 was measured by gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and the thermal property was investigated with thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). A primary bulk heterojunction-typed polymer solar cell was fabricated with the blend of P1 and PC71BM as the photosensitive layer. The device based on structure of ITO/PEDOT: PSS/P1: PC71BM (1:1.5, weight ratio, with DIO as additive)/Ca/Al showed an open-circuit voltage (V-DC) of 0.80 V, a short circuit current of 5.66 mA/cm(2) (J(sc)), a fill factor (FF) of 65.14%, and a power conversion efficienct (PCE) of 2.96% under the illumination of AM 1.5,100 mW/cm(2). The result shows that the introduction of BDF groups can achieve a low bandgap polymer, and the polymer based on BDF groups has great potential in polymer solar cells.


Data warehouse is a set of incorporated databases deliberated to protract decision-making and problem solving, espousing highly condensed data. Data warehouse happens to be increasingly accepted subject for contemporary researchers with respect to contemporary proclivity of industry and organizational purview. The focal point of the proposed work stressed on delivering an improved and an innovative model based on the existing ETL Data Warehouse model mechanism with the intent of improving security measures, which at times have been found to be reasonably undemanding and posing peril to amassed information of utmost significance. A novel algorithm was engendered based on genetic coding, keeping in mind the diverse security provisions imposed on the modified model. The formulation of the novel algorithm proposed to ensure that there would be substantial diminution of access time, keeping in mind the apposite reclamation of all requisite data from the data vaults. The relevant appliance of the proposed model might be in its employment in an assortment of organisations where accumulation of secured data is of utmost significance. The assortment of organizations might include academic/educational organisations like schools, colleges, universities, etc., corporate bigwigs, medical treatment establishments like clinics, hospitals, nursing homes, etc., private establishments and so on and so forth.


ld d c( d d c +a+-1l r(a)+(/3) (1.3) The special case a = /3, c = d is important, for the resulting distribution function is the weight function for the ultraspherical polynomials, which contain the zonal spherical harmonics (or zonal functions) on the k-dimensional sphere. Recently there has been a renewal of interest in basic hypergeometric, or q-series, extensions of classical results. If 0 < q < 1, define


T his research examined the relationship between employee consciousness, as a dimension of the emerging theme of spiritual intelligence and employee performance in selected hotels in the South-South of Nigeria. The research focused on a total of 3 objectives addressing the relationship between consciousness and measures of performance such as contextual, task and adaptive performance. Data were obtained from 234 staff from 36, hotels using the questionnaire. Correlation analysis was carried out using the Spearman's Rank Order Correlation tool, and the test showed that consciousness significantly contributes toward outcomes of task, contextual and adaptive performance, hence, all null hypotheses were rejected. It was concluded that the application of consciousness through the deliberate and intentional approach toward work, allows for an improved level of mindfulness and focus on the employees' dealings with co-workers and customers, and their capacity to effectively manage themselves. It was recommended that management of the hotels, emphasize on the control and effective coordination of spirituality practices and group behaviour within the organization, adopting disciplinary measures against discrimination or harassment in line with ensuring a more harmonic and supportive workplace.


Background GLUFAST(R) tablet, containing Mitiglinide Calcium Hydrate, is on the market under the indication of"Type-2 diabetes mellitus". To improve the drug adherence in patients, we developed orally disintegrating tablet of Mitiglinide Calcium Hydrate. Bioequivalence of two formulations, each taken with or without water, was assessed in healthy adult male subjects. Methods The study was an open-label, 2-formulation, 2-treatment, 2-period crossover study in healthy volunteers. Bioequivalence was assessed using 90% confidence interval of the ratios of AUC0-5 and Cmax after dosing under fasting condition. Results A total of 60 subjects was enrolled and 56 subjects completed the study. When administered without water, the 90% confidence interval of AUC0-5 and Cmax were log(0.99)-log(1.03)and log(0.81)-log(1.01), respectively. When administered with water, the 90% confidence interval of AUC0-5 and Cmax were log(1.00)-log(1.03)and log(0.83)-log(1.01), respectively. All values were within the range of the equivalence judgment criteria of log (0.8)-log(1.25)specified in the guideline for bioequivalence studies. Conclusions The orally disintegrating tablet of Mitiglinide Calcium Hydrate which is new formulation is concluded to be bioequivalent with GLUFAST(R) tablet 10 mg.


Mobile phones incorporating camera modules and music players are rapidly becoming popular not only in Japan, but throughout the world. This growth has led to stronger demands for mobile phones equipped with additional functions that offer graphics, audio, and images of higher quality. To fully meet these demands, we have constructed a mobile multimedia platform (MMP) based on an ARM processor with common intellectual properties (IPs). We used this platform to develop three system-on-a-chips (SoCs): the MB86VOO, MB86V01, and MB86V02 (which incorporates audio/ speech processing functions for the mobile phone market). These SoCs provide all the high-resolution camera/video functions required for mobile phones on a single chip with low power consumption. This paper describes the design concepts of the MMP, the development of these SoC products, and the SoCs' low-power consumption technology.


Objective To investigate the mechanism of anti-hepatic fibrosis of Lingmao formula.Methods 55 BALB/c mice were divided into 4 groups,namely the normal group,the model group,the positive control group and the treatment group.The hepatic fibrosis model was established by tail vein injection of ConA(15 mg/kg),twice a week,for 10 weeks.The normal and the model groups were administered ddH2O with dose 10 ml/kg,and the positive control group were administered colchicine(0.2 mg/kg),and the treatment group were administered Lingmao formula(7.5 g/kg).Twenty-four hours after the last gastric perfusion,the mice were sacrificed.The serum and tissue samples were collected to detect histopathological changes and the expression levels of ALT,AST,ALB and DBIL in the serum,and the expression level of hydroxyproline(HYP)in the liver.The expression level of fibrosin(FBRS)was examined.Results (1)Compared with model group,ALB level was increased and DBIL level was decreased(P0.01),and HYP level was declined(P0.05)in Lingmao Formula group.(2)Compared with the model group,the degree of hepatic fibrosis and the content of collagen were decreased(P0.05,P0.01).(3)Compared with the normal group,the expression level of FBRS in the model group was increased significantly(P0.01),and compared with the model group,the expression level of FBRS in Lingmao formula group was decreased(P0.05).Conclusions The mechanism of anti-hepatic fibrosis of Lingmao formula is through decreasing the expression of FBRS.


An amphoteric polymer, P(AM/DM/MA), is synthesized by copolymerization of acrylamide (AM), dimethyldiallylammonium chloride (DM), and maleic acid (MA) at the presence of initiator in aqueous solution and appropriate purification with yield ~92%. The terpolymer structure is identified by infrared spectroscopy and 1H NMR and the terpolymer composition determined from elemental analysis data is : 87.5 mol% of AM, 8.9 mol% of DM, and 3.6 mol% of acid (-COOH). The flocculating ability of the terpolymer for 3% aqueous celite suspensions is investigated through precipitate volume and light transmision measurements at different use levels and pH values. High light transmision of 97.5% is observed with terpolymer in amount of 8 mg/L and excellent flocculating ability is maintained with 8-300 mg of terpolymer per liter suspension added. The transmision is high at pH6.7 and low at pH 6.7-9.3(near isoelectric point). P(AM/DM/MA) is a well promising water treating agent.


Scholars often offer ideas for public administration focusing on the changing relationships between public and private sectors. These ideas have grown into discourses including the new public management and others. Scholars also tend to differ in their view of what public administration should be, fostering conflict. If one considers these discourses collectively through the lens of managing resources in a blurred environment, it can provide a space for meaningful discussions to emerge. One then might reshape a civic space that engages new public management, governance, and others collaboratively employing usufruct to focus this discussion given the emergence of postmodern conditions.


This paper describes an intermolecular benzene–pentafluorobenzene stacking-promoted anti-parallel arrangement of side-chain-free γ-, δ-, and e-dipeptides. Three diamides have been prepared from γ-, δ-, and e-amino acids with a benzene ring and a pentafluorobenzene ring attached to their C- and N-terminals, respectively. Their crystal structures showed that all the compounds formed intermolecular benzene–pentafluorobenzene stacking, which guided the molecules to arrange in a ruler-styled pattern and the aliphatic backbones to adopt extended sheet-like conformations. Shorter control compounds also gave rise to a similar intermolecular aromatic stacking, but the central aliphatic amide chains adopted different conformations.


Why do people take pictures? While substantial work has been done on the intentions of people producing photos in specific domains (e.g. Flickr users or mobile phone cameras) the general case - arbitrary users taking photos with arbitrary devices - has not yet been investigated in detail. In this short paper, we present an exploratory study on the intentions and goals of people taking digital photos. 40 different specific photo taking situations of 10 people where investigated. We classified the situations and reflected them into context of existing work to investigate the applicability and usefulness of classifications existing for specific domains. Our findings show that applicability of existing models for small domains is limited and they indicate the need of a generalized taxonomy. We further identify hypotheses and research questions for future work in this area.


The article presents an insight into the European Union Open Method of Co-ordination (OMC) in area of pension. The author's goal was to present the development and the effects of implementation the OMC. The introduction is followed by three topic paragraphs: 1. the OMC – step by step, 2. the evaluation of the OMC, and 3. the effects of OMC implementation. In the summary, the author highlights as except of advantages there are also disadvantages of the implementation of the OMC, and there are many doubts exist in the context of efficiency of performing that method in the future.


Two experimental treatments are used to study the effects of auction risk across five mechanisms. The first canonical, baseline treatment features only strategic risk and replicates the standard results that overbidding relative to the risk neutral Nash equilibrium is prevalent in all common auction mechanisms except for the English auction. We do not find evidence that bidders' measured risk preferences can explain these patterns of overbidding. To enhance salience, we introduce a second novel treatment with external risk . This treatment captures the risk, prevalent in online auctions, that winners will not receive a good of value. We find that dynamic auctions—including the English—are particularly susceptible to overbidding in this environment. We note that overbidding is somewhat diminished in later periods and that our results may thus have particular relevance for bidders who are not highly experienced or who have not directly experienced losses. We conclude with a brief discussion of research implications.


lected Stories, 274). Lest one get too carried away with postmodernist soundings of this story, Chesnutt anchors it in the social construction of race and difference. African Americans were written into the margin of such august national documents as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Chesnutt, who witnessed the Supreme Court's sanctioning of apartheid in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision, deftly uses satire and irony to remind readers that they may be disappointed if they make assessments based on appearance, whether of people or of books. Writing on the ''color line'' in his fiction, Chesnutt himself, light-skinned enough to pass, dissembled, used indirection, and wore the mask to articulate what it meant to be black and male at the turn of the twentieth century. Readers should not fall into the trap of separating Chesnutt the man, trapped in a claustrophobic social text, from Chesnutt the artist, whose short fiction has the feel of the modern voice, with its repetition and lack of closure. In reading Chesnutt as an American writer who happens to be black, Duncan overlooks another factor that contributes to Chesnutt's status as ''the absent man'' in African American letters. The architects of the 1960s black arts movement found what Houston Baker Jr. labels Chesnutt's ''integrationist poetics'' to be out of touch with their redefinition of blackness. Overall, Duncan's study of Chesnutt is a welcome addition to the short list of scholarly critical studies devoted to African American short fiction, providing us with an occasion to think about Chesnutt's place in American literature.


The secondary sources employed are less happily chosen. While he utilizes some very new work, J.I. Little spends much time criticizing the approach of studies such as the creakily ancient work of S.D. Clark from the late 1940s. In the past few years there has been more published in book and journal form on the religious history of this country than in the previous hundred years. It is an incredibly diverse field now, which could perhaps be better reflected here. Borderland Religion is organized in a rough chronological fashion around the hinge of the War of 1812, but focuses mostly on each denomination in its turn. These denominational studies are grouped broadly into the American on the one hand, and the British on the other. The Congregationalists, the Baptists, and the Millerite movement, as well as a number of those that were never fully established on this side of the border, find themselves in the American group. The Wesleyan (as opposed to the American) Methodists and the Church of England comprise the British group. The gist of his argument is a tale of attempts by these denominations to impose their singular ecclesiologies on the local population, and a concomitant story of resistance by these same people to being slotted into any one denomination. This impression may well be a result of the need to rely on mission records. Local people seemed to move easily among the various churches and church-run schools. The superior financial resources of the British-backed denominations, especially the Anglicans, enticed many from their American evangelical roots into these more settled and conservative bodies, producing a peculiar ecclesiastical polity of evangelical believers ensconced within the structure of the state church and its principal variant, Methodism. While this result indeed did add to the 'somewhat lumpy synthesis of American and British values' that came to characterize this country, it is less certain just how important religion was to the nascent cultural makeup of these people – and to what extent this conclusion can be extended to British North America as a whole. The familiar mantra must be recited here: More research is needed. EDWARD SMITH University of Guelph


Bird species that use similar resources are expected to use variant foraging approaches and segregate in order to minimize a possible competition among them. However, if they fail to attain this exclusion, competition results. We studied the diet composition and dietary overlap between two sympatric vulture species: Himalayan vulture (Gyps himalayensis) and Bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus), the two important avian scavengers of Hirpora Wildlife Sanctuary of Kashmir Himalaya. Analysis of pellets collected from feeding and roosting sites of these vulture species revealed a significant variation in their food consumption with Himalayan species consuming mostly larger dead mammalian species with higher frequency occurrence of 66.66% of Bubalus bubalus and bearded species the smaller dead mammalian ones with highest frequency occurrence of Ovis aries (83.82%). Diet spectrum of Himalayan vulture was more diverse (H'=1.97) than that of Bearded vulture (H'=1.64). The values of Berger-Parker index (Pimax) follows the reverse order of diversity with Pimax=36.2% for Himalayan vulture and Pimax =48.7% for Bearded vulture. There was very low dietary overlap between the two species (Ojk=0.466; C=0.457) which may favor their co-existence. The management of carrions of livestock and setting up of vulture restaurants is the need of the hour for the conservation of these scavenging birds which are facing high risk of extinction in Hirpora Wildlife Sanctuary.


Data centers are the homes for the many, many servers that corporations need these days in order to conduct their business efficiently. The environmental and cost pressures faced by these data centers are rapidly increasing in the face of natural resource constraints as a result of not only the exhaustion of domestic land in appealing areas, but also of rapid growth in developing countries such as India and China. Hardware virtualization contributes some solutions to this problem by offering the opportunity to consolidate multiple under-utilized servers into a single physical server, thereby reducing the physical and environmental footprint of data centers by reducing the physical space required to house them, and the energy inputs needed to power them. The issues: data center floor space and energy consumption Data center floor space Data centers are increasingly becoming larger structures in order to house more and more servers so that they may process the rapidly increasing amounts of data that corporations have to deal with in the modern business world. With larger structures come larger heating and cooling costs, and since data centers are usually low-density structures, larger environmental impacts are present due to the roads and utilities required to support buildings with such a large perimeter that are usually located on cheap and distant land. If the data center floor space requirement could be reduced, these environmental impacts would be lessened, as would the variable costs associated with operating a larger facility. The data center could also feasibly be located in more expensive spaces, potentially closer to environmentallypositive services such as mass transit, which would not be tenable if required to service a distant, lowdensity facility. These central locations would also be closer to large pools of high quality talent, making it easier to find staff to operate the facilities. Virtualization of server hardware for savings of energy and data center floor space 2 Reducing data center floor space would therefore have at least two benefits: reduced costs, and a smaller environmental footprint. The former has clear benefits, and the latter is increasingly becoming a corporate goodwill generator, as users of products and services develop an affinity for those that they see as being more environmentally-friendly and job candidates seek to work for environmentallysensitive companies. It is also a shield against the inevitable cost increases associated with operating low-density spaces that will arise as the infrastructure required to support them becomes more expensive due to increased resource competition from developing countries like India and China. Energy consumption Energy consumption is an emerging challenge in the field of data center management. A recent study by Koomey (2007) estimated that data centers account for 1.2% of total US energy consumption. While this may not sound like much, total US summer electricity demand in 2006 was 789,745 MW (Energy Information Administration, 2007), meaning that data centers represent 9,477 MW of US electricity demand. This is the equivalent of three large coal power generation stations (Ontario Power Generation, 2007), or 3,159 large wind turbines (Creative Environmental Networks, n.d.). At a time when environmental concerns such as pollution and CO2 emissions are becoming increasingly prominent social issues, reduction in power consumption can achieve significant corporate goodwill, be an attractive feature for environmentally-conscious employees, and help to provide brand distinction. With a significant increase in the prices of the natural resources used for power generation due to high demand in developing countries with large populations, such as India and China, it is reasonable to expect that the price of energy will continue to increase. Further, power that is not used to perform processing work is usually dissipated as heat, meaning that more efficient use of power will reduce the amount of heat emitted from systems in the data center. Since data centers must reliably maintain a low temperature, cooling infrastructure is required to remove heat from the data center, and this cooling Virtualization of server hardware for savings of energy and data center floor space 3 equipment uses significant amounts of power itself. Reduction in system power consumption therefore provides cost savings beyond the direct savings. For companies that depend on large data centers to power their operations – Google, for example – power is a very significant power expense (Harris, 2007). There are additional challenges related to data center power consumption. A high power requirement limits the site choices available for a company that is trying to decide where to locate a data center because the data center must be located at a site that can be supplied with sufficient power. Harris (2007) notes that Google must do extensive evaluation of the intricate details of the power supply cost imposed by the local power utilities when deciding where to locate its data centers. It frequently chooses to locate its data centers near cheap sources of electricity such as hydroelectric power in order to get preferential rates (Mills, 2007). However, this may not be the optimal location for a data center when other factors such as environmental impact and the location of high quality job candidates are considered. If the power consumption of data centers can be reduced, optimization of these other factors may be more flexible. A solution: hardware virtualization What is hardware virtualization? Hardware virtualization provides a means of running multiple, logically-isolated virtual systems within a single system. It allows the concurrent execution of more than one operating system, each inside its own virtual system such that it thinks it has exclusive access to the hardware, and is not aware of nor affected by any of the other virtual systems running on the same single system. With hardware virtualization you can, for example, run an off-the-shelf copy of Microsoft Windows Server 2003 concurrently with an off-the-shelf copy of Microsoft Windows Server 2000 concurrently with a downloaded, open source copy of Red Hat Linux. Each operating system will run inside its own isolated Virtualization of server hardware for savings of energy and data center floor space 4 virtual machine with a malfunction in one virtual machine being unable to bring down any of the other virtual machines. Hardware virtualization virtualizes the hardware resources of a "host" system within multiple virtual "guest" systems. Each of the guest systems functions like a genuine physical system – it goes through a bootstrap process, loads the operating system, loads device drivers for the devices on the system (which are virtualized copies of those on the host system, but the guest system is not aware of this), and then executes the operating system and applications as if they had dedicated access to the entire system. Virtual machine software provides these virtualized services to the virtual machines and allows tailoring of virtual system configuration to the needs of each guest operating system. The hardware resources of a single physical system are therefore shared amongst many virtual systems. A physical system with 8GB of memory, for example, may allocate 1GB of that memory to the host system (the system that runs the virtualization software), and 1GB of memory to each of 7 guest virtual machines running within the physical system. These virtual systems would then share access to the physical system's other resources: CPU time, hard disk storage, optical drives, network, and USB devices. The system administrator decides which virtual machines have access to which resources, and to what extent. In some cases, devices can be explicitly dedicated to a particular virtual machine. Hardware virtualization therefore allows the consolidation of many under-utilized servers onto a single server, whose capabilities would be more fully utilized, thereby making better use of an entity's hardware investment. VMware: a popular product for hardware virtualization VMware is the most popular of the currently-available hardware virtualization software products and comes in two key forms: one product runs atop an industrial operating system such as Microsoft's Windows Server products (VMware Inc, 2007b), and the other product hosts virtual Virtualization of server hardware for savings of energy and data center floor space 5 machines without the requirement of an underlying host operating system (VMware Inc, 2007a). They also offer an embedded product that resides within the system hardware and streamlines the operation of virtual machines on the host. Figure 1 A virtual machine arrangement showing different applications and operating systems running on the Host and two Guests To illustrate the concept, consider Figure 1. For demonstration purposes, this was created using VMware Workstation – a desktop product that uses the same virtualization concepts as exist in the server products. Figure 1 shows, on the left, a copy of Microsoft Word 2007 running on Microsoft Windows Vista (the physical Host system); in the middle, Microsoft Word 2000 running on Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional (a virtual Guest system); and, on the right, Microsoft Word XP running on Microsoft Windows XP Professional (another virtual Guest system). This demonstrates the concept of three different operating systems concurrently running three different versions of the same application running on a single physical system. The hard drives of the two Guest systems are contained within files Virtualization of server hardware for savings of energy and data center floor space 6 on the hard drive of the Host system, and each virtual system has different specifications according to the needs of the Guest application. While the above demonstration shows each G


Objective:To evaluate the impact on stress function in retroperitoneoscopic ureterolithotomy. Method:Fifty patients by ureterolithotomy were randomly divided into retroperitoneoscopic group(25cases)and traditional open surgery group(25cases).Five ml of blood from vein were withdrawn preoperatively,two hours after the surgery,24hours and 48hours postoperatively respectively,and were quantitative determined the content of heat shock protein(HSP)70and C-reactive protein(CRP)in human plasma by ELISA.Result:Preoperative HSP70and CRP in both groups of patients showed no significant difference(P0.05).The comparison of HSP70in the same group preoperatively and two hours postoperatively showed no significant difference(P 0.05).Moreover,there was no significant difference between two groups.CRP of both groups were significantly higher than preoperative.CRP of open surgery group was higher than retroperitoneoscopic group(P0.05). HSP70of both groups were significantly higher than preoperative 24hours postoperatively,which HSP70of open surgery group was higher than retroperitoneoscopic group(P0.05).HSP70began to decline 48hours postoperatively,which showed no significant difference compared with preoperative(P0.05).CRP of both groups was significantly higher than preoperative 24hours and 48hours postoperatively and CRP of open surgery group was higher than retroperitoneoscopic group(P0.05).Conclusion:Retroperitoneoscopic ureterolithotomy shows the less influence on stress function and reflects the minimally invasive advantages compared with open surgery.


Machine learning applications on resource-constrained devices such as microcontroller units often use models trained externally on more powerful devices. This approach, however, limits a later adaptation of the machine learning model in the device to changing data. Differently, on-device training allows the model to be updated for new datasets, but the training process needs to take into account the resource limitations of the device. This paper compares on-device training performance for a keyword spotting task using two popular microcontroller boards, Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense and Arduino Portenta H7, in terms of inference accuracy, training latency, and current consumption. We use feedforward neural networks having a single hidden layer for models. The inference accuracy has been significantly improved using the Portenta H7 board by employing more neurons fitted to its memory budget, compared to the Nano board. With a neural network having 25 neurons for a hidden layer, the 5.0 x inference and 4.2 x training speedups are achieved using the Arduino Portenta H7 board, compared to the Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense. While the memory of the Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense is capable to train a neural network for the keyword spotting task, the Arduino Portenta H7 gives new possibilities for exploring more complex models for more complex problems thanks to a larger memory budget and adapting a model to new data in lower latency.


An efficient capital market is an arena in which many participants, with similar investment objectives and access to the same information, actively compete. The stock market—with numerous profit-motivated professional and private investors continually searching for misvalued securities—certainly provides such a setting. Profit-motivated investors do have strikingly similar objectives. Each prefers a high rate of return to a low one, certainty to uncertainty, low risk to high risk, and so forth. Furthermore, securities law provides that both parties to a transaction must have access to the same material facts. The efficient market hypothesis asserts that it would be impossible consistently to outperform the market—which reflects the composite judgment of millions of participants—in an environment characterized by many competing investors, each with similar objectives and equal access to the same information. In the context of this hypothesis, " efficient " means that the market is capable of quickly digesting new information on the economy, an industry, or the value of an enterprise and accurately impounding it into securities prices. In such markets participants can expect to earn no more, nor less, than a fair return for the risks undertaken. In an efficient market, for example, news of an earnings increase would be quickly and accurately assessed by the combined actions of literally millions of investors and immediately reflected in the price of the stock. The purported result of this efficiency is that whether you buy the stock before, during, or after the earnings news, or whether another stock is purchased, only a fair market rate of return can be expected—commensurate with the risk of owning whatever security is bought. The efficient market hypothesis does not by any means deny the profitability of investing. It merely states that the rewards obtainable from investing in highly competitive markets will be fair, on the average, for the risks involved. Importantly, however, the three forms of the efficient market hypothesis hold that acting on publicly available information cannot improve one's performance beyond the market's assessment of a fair rate of return. The weak form of the efficient market hypothesis describes a market in which historical price data are efficiently digested and, therefore, are useless for predicting subsequent stock price changes. This is distinguished from a semistrong form under which all publicly available information is assumed to be fully discounted in current securities prices. Finally, the strong form describes a market in which not even those with …


Cytochrome P450 genes are a family of genes known to perform a wide variety of functions. Many of these genes in Drosophila melanogaster, including Cyp6a2, Cyp6gJ, and Cyp6a8, have been linked to development of pesticide resistance. The most resistant strains of D. melanogaster show over-expression of these genes compared to the susceptible strains. However, the molecular mechanisms by which these genes become over-expressed are not well understood. By creating transgenic flies containing a portion of the upstream DNA promoter region from Cyp6a8 and the luciferase enzyme reporter gene, the promoter activity for Cyp6a8 could be studied quantitatively. In the present study, larvae and adult flies of two different transgenic strains were treated with caffeine, extract of neem tree, and caffeine and neem together. Caffeine, as discovered in previous studies, induced transcription in both developmental stages of both strains. However, neem only induced promoter activity in the larvae. According to the study, larvae and adults were found to have somewhat different patterns of promoter activity, which could be caused by differences in developmental stages or simply by including male and female larvae in the study. The results of the synergistic treatments indicate that caffeine and neem induce by the same mechanism in larvae, but by a different mechanism in adults. While this is not entirely impossible, it necessitates further study to determine whether this difference in developmental expression is accurate. The activity of Cyp6a8 is undoubtedly affected by xenobiotics in the environment including caffeine and neem, and the mechanisms by which this occurs are slowly being identified.


Light‐weight fire barrier materials for aircraft thermal/acoustical insulation blankets were investigated. The burn‐through test on blankets inserted with these fire‐blocking materials was performed using a small‐scale kerosene burner apparatus. The burner system generated a turbulent flame at 1000°–1100°C and a front heat‐flux at 160–180 kW/m2. The rear or back‐side heat flux of blankets and their corresponding burn‐through time were monitored by a computerized data acquisition system. The blankets with ceramic or polymeric fire barrier materials provided a significantly additional burn‐through time compared with the regular blankets. Blanket samples inserted with an alumino‐silicate‐based ceramic layer were not burned‐through after 6 min. For fire resistant polymeric‐based materials, the burn‐through time varied from 2 to 6 min. The burn‐through resistance was correlated with the stable structure of SiO2 at high temperature for the ceramic sheets and with the formation of a char layer for polymeric layers.Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


Objective To investigate the expression of HLA-DR and distribution of dendritic cells(DC) in endometrial carcinoma and to evaluate their influence on clinical staging and prognosis.Methods The 86 cases of patients with endometrial carcinomas were detected by immunohistochemical SP method for HLA-DR and S100 positive dendritic cells,and the predictive value in clinical stage and prognosis were analyzed.Results The positive rate of HLA-DR expression was 27.9%(24/86),which was decreased with the increase of clinical staging(P0.05),and was not significantly related with the prognosis(P0.05).There were 46.5%(40/86) of the cases with a dense infiltrate(≥10/HPF) of S100 positive DC.There was significant difference on the density of DC infiltrating among the patients with different clinical stages and prognosis(all P0.05).The HLA-DR expression was closely correlated with DC infiltrate(r=0.522;P0.01). Conclusion The expression of HLA-DR and infiltrate of dendritic cells may reflect the anti-tumor immunity of patients with endometrial carcinoma and may be served as the predictive factors of clinical stage and prognosis.


The aim of this study is to examine preservice science teachers' skills of formulating hypotheses and identifying variables. The research has a phenomenological research design. The data was gathered qualitatively. In this study, preservice science teachers 1 Part of this study was presented as an oral presentation at the 10th National Science and Mathematics Education Congress organized by Nigde University, TURKEY Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 16, Issue 1, Article 4, p.2 (Jun., 2015) Bulent AYDOĞDU Examining preservice science teachers' skills of formulating hypotheses and identifying variables Copyright (C) 2015 HKIEd APFSLT. Volume 16, Issue 1, Article 4 (Jun., 2015). All Rights Reserved. were first given two scenarios (Scenario-1 & Scenario-2) containing two different research problems, which examined in detail preservice science teachers' skills of formulating a hypothesis and identifying variables. Then, pre-service science teachers were divided into three groups (those who formulate a hypothesis and identify variables correctly, partially correctly, and incorrectly). Three pre-service science teachers were selected from each group. They were asked to teach formulating a hypothesis and identifying variables based on two scenarios (Scenario-3 & Scenario-4) and observed for confirmation. The gathered data were analyzed using both descriptive (Scenario-1 & Scenario-2) and content analyses (Scenario-3 & Scenario-4). Two hundred and five (205) senior preservice science teachers, studying at the Department of Science Teacher Education at a state university in Turkey, participated in the study. At the end of the study, the results showed that preservice science teachers' skill at formulating a hypothesis and identifying dependent, independent and control variables accurately was low; their skill at identifying and controlling variables accurately was especially lower. The data from observations also indicated that pre-service science teachers had difficulty even in defining a hypothesis, formulating a hypothesis based on a problem, exemplifying ideal hypotheses, and defining, identifying and controlling variables. One of the most important reasons why preservice science teachers were not able to identify variables accurately was that they mistook one for variable another. Preservice science teachers accepted their mistakes and made various excuses for their poor performance.


Systemic Sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune condition characterized by cutaneous sclerosis and the potential for internal organ involvement.1 Given the multisystem nature of SSc, multiple disciplines are often involved in its management. However, while the skin is affected in more than 90% of patients,2 dermatologists are variably involved in the management of SSc, potentially first evaluating patients only late in the disease course, or at times not at all.


The involvement of beneficiaries of social or medical care services in the design, provision and evaluation of services is an accepted and used practice. A number of steadily growing studies show encouraging effects both for beneficiaries who have become care providers and for other beneficiaries. Moreover, some results suggest cost reductions and an increase in the degree of suitability of the services offered. The occupational status of peer workers varies from beneficiaries included in therapeutic programs, volunteering, to part-time or full-time employee, member of multidisciplinary intervention team (such as in Australia, Canada, Scotland, Norway). Starting from international experience and analysing national particularities, it is suggested that areas of social and / or medical care in Romania could benefit from the contribution of peer-workers.


We have made $^{53}\mathrm{Cr}$ NMR measurements on polycrystalline and single-crystalline film samples to study the local electronic state of a half-metallic ferromagnet ${\mathrm{CrO}}_{2}$ which has the rutile structure with one crystallographically equivalent Cr site. We observe two kinds of $^{53}\mathrm{Cr}$ NMR spectra in the ferromagnetic state of both the samples. An analysis on the hyperfine field shows the presence of two Cr sites with different orbital occupancies, suggesting that a local orbital order takes place with breaking the local symmetry in the rutile structure. This may be ascribed to the negative charge transfer between chromium and oxygen ions.


Subject to analysis were seed-borne fungi of serradella during a long term storage. The agents causing a significant reduction of seed-borne fungi were: the storage conditions and time (very low seed moisture, approx. 5.5%. no oxygen).


The calcium peroxide microparticles were synthesized and evaluated as an innovative oxidant to pretreat glyphosate wastewater. The CaO2 microparticles were 0.1-0.3 μm in diameter and the average CaO2 content was 80%. Experiments were performed to investigate the influence of m(CaO2 :CODCr), n(CaO2:FeSO4·7H2O), pH and contact time of solution on the removal efficiency of TP and CODCr. Under the optimal condition (m(CaO2 :CODCr) =1:1, n(CaO2:FeSO4·7H2O)=4:1, pH=3.0,contact time =30min), the removal efficiency of TP and CODCr reached 94.2% and 62.1% respectively. These results suggested that CaO2 microparticles may be used to develop a simple and efficient pretreatment method for glyphosate wastewater.


The reviewers recognise the importance of the issues that are related to the ditch network maintenance in forested peatlands and to the potential impacts of the maintenance on receiving lakes and rives in large areas in the boreal zone. In addition, the reviewers appreciate the long term measurements and earnest data collection efforts behind the 11-year dataset from a remote district in Scandinavia.


The clamping mechanism 12 is provided with a male portion 14 and female portion 16, the female part has a conical or kaemhyeong side that cooperates with the male part 14 by the relative rotation of the two parts. The male part 14 has an alignment protrusion (40) extending in front of the locking projections 36, and the locking projections (36) extending in a forward direction. The rear of the female part has an alignment bore extending forwardly from the locking bore, and the front end of the locking bore which extends in the forward direction. Locking bore has a bore portion inserted to be merged with the eccentric gripping bore portion. In the clamping position, the alignment projection 40 is in contact with the aligned bores, and the locking projection 36 is formed to fit in contact with the gripping bore portion extending along the grip angle range into the circumferential interference.


Several sufficient conditions are presented for a double or unique solution of the problem of motion and structure from two monocular images. It is shown that: five correspondences of points that do not lie on two lines in the image plane suffice to determine a pure rotation uniquely; six correspondences of points that do not lie on two lines in the image plane and do not correspond to space points lying on a specific quadric surface suffice to determine a motion with nonzero translation uniquely; each Maybank quadric can sustain at most two physically acceptable motion solutions and surface interpretations, provided that a sufficient number of correspondences are present; in the plane motion case, six correspondences of points that do not lie on a quadric curve in the image plane will only admit the true motion and structure and their duals as solutions. Several properties of the essential matrix T*R and the plane motion matrix R+TN/sup T/, both of which are frequently used in the motion and structure estimation problem, are listed.<<ETX>>


Body force models of fans and compressors are widely employed for predicting performance due to the reduction in computational cost associated with their use, particularly in nonuniform inflows. Such models are generally divided into a portion responsible for flow turning and another for loss generation. Recently, accurate, uncalibrated turning force models have been developed, but accurate loss generation models have typically required calibration against higher fidelity computations (especially when flow separation occurs). In this paper, a blade profile loss model is introduced which requires the trailing edge boundary layer momentum thicknesses. To estimate the momentum thickness for a given blade section, an artificial neural network is trained using over 400,000 combinations of blade section shape and flow conditions. A blade-to-blade flow field solver is used to generate the training data. The model obtained depends only on blade geometry information and the local flow conditions, making its implementation in a typical computational fluid dynamics framework straightforward. We show good agreement in the prediction of profile loss for 2D cascades both on and off design in the defined ranges for the neural network training.


We consider an inhomogeneous Erd\H{o}s-R\'enyi random graph $G_N$ with vertex set $[N] = \{1,\dots,N\}$ for which the pair of vertices $i,j \in [N]$, $i\neq j$, is connected by an edge with probability $r_N(\tfrac{i}{N},\tfrac{j}{N})$, independently of other pairs of vertices. Here, $r_N\colon\,[0,1]^2 \to (0,1)$ is a symmetric function that plays the role of a reference graphon. Let $\lambda_N$ be the maximal eigenvalue of the Laplacian matrix of $G_N$. We show that if $\lim_{N\to\infty} \|r_N-r\|_\infty = 0$ for some limiting graphon $r\colon\,[0,1]^2 \to (0,1)$, then $\lambda_N/N$ satisfies a downward LDP with rate $\binom{N}{2}$ and an upward LDP with rate $N$. We identify the associated rate functions $\psi_r$ and $\widehat{\psi}_r$, and derive their basic properties.


Commercial software development has increased markedly in the last several years, allowing school programs many choices in the purchase of educational software. Factors that can assist school personnel in the decision-making process will be presented. These include the instructional, content, and technical characteristics of the software package. The importance of previewing software and the use of software with students as a part of the evaluation process will also be discussed.


This study investigated the seasonality of behavioural oestrus in a captive koala population in south-east Queensland. A total of 33 sexually mature koalas were examined over a 4-year period (2009–12) to determine the possible influence of temperature, photoperiod and rainfall on the incidence of expression of behavioural oestrus without the confounding effect of lactation or limiting food resource availability. Although signs of behavioural oestrus were detected throughout the year, an obvious seasonality was apparent, with significantly fewer females displaying behavioural oestrus in late autumn and winter (May–August) than September to April (P   0.05). A better understanding of the seasonality of reproductive function in the female koala will facilitate the use of reproductive management-assisted breeding technology to enable improved genetic management in captive populations.


• Conflict of Interest (COI) and Financial Relationship Disclosures: – No COI/Financial Relationship to disclose The CGM TIME Trial: Timing of Initiation of Continuous Glucose Monitoring in Established Pediatric Diabetes • Multicentre study: – Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (Ottawa) – London Children's Hospital – McMaster Children's Hospital (Hamilton) – Sickkids (Toronto) – Markham-Stouffville Hospital


The industrial structure plays a key role in the development of regional economic strength,economic scale and competitiveness.In this paper,the current status and problems of the industrial structure of Anhui Province are analyzed.Based on the structural features of Anhui industry,the route choices for its industrial structure adjustment and the policy suggestions for its industrial structure upgrading are presented.


This paper considers the mean-square consensus problem for a nonlinear complex dynamical network system with Markovian switching topologies, topology uncertainties and time-varying delays. For the system, each node is a Lure system whose nonlinearity satisfies a sector condition, and more than one interconnections are considered in view of the fact that the subsystems of networks may be multiple interconnected. By using the linear matrix inequality method and the partial stability theory, sufficient conditions of the exponentially mean-square consensus are obtained for the nonlinear complex dynamical network Lure system in the Markovian switching topologies. Moreover, a novel static output controller has been designed to make the system achieve exponentially mean-square consensus successfully. Finally, a numerical example is presented to illustrate the efficiency and applicability of the proposed methods.


Covid-19 virus variants identified so far are due to viral genetic diversity, genetic evolution, and variable infectivity, suggesting that high infection rates and high mortality rates may be contributed by these mutations. And it has been reported that the targeting strategies for innate immunity should be less vulnerable to viral evolution, variant emergence and resistance. Therefore, the most effective solution to Covid-19 infection has been proposed to prevent and treat severe exacerbation of patients with moderate disease by enhancing human immune responses such as NK cell and T cell. In previous studies, we demonstrated for the first time that γ-PGA induced significant antitumor activity and antiviral activity by modulating NK cell-mediated cytotoxicity. Especially intranasal administration of γ-PGA was found to effectively induce protective innate and CTL immune responses against viruses and we found out that γ-PGA can be an effective treatment for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia 1 through phase 2b clinical trial. In this study, the possibility of γ-PGA as a Covid-19 immune modulating agent was confirmed by animal experiments infected with Covid-19 viruses. After oral administration of γ-PGA 300μg/mouse once a day for 5 days in a K18-hACE2 TG mouse model infected with SARS-CoV-2 (NCCP 43326; original strain) and SARS-CoV-2 (NCCP 43390; Delta variant), virus titer and clinical symptom improvement were confirmed. In the RjHan:AURA Syrian hamster model infected with SARS-CoV-2 (NCCP 49930; Delta variant), 350 or 550 μg/head of γ-PGA was administered orally for 10 days once a day. The virus for infection was administered at 5 × 104 TCID50, and the titer of virus and the improvement of pneumonia lesions were measured to confirm the effectiveness in terms of prevention or treatment. In the mouse model infected with original Covid-19 virus stain, the weight loss was significantly reduced and the survival rate was also improved by the administration of γ-PGA. And γ-PGA alleviated the pneumonic lesions and reduced the virus titer of lung tissue in mice infected with delta variant. In the delta-variant virus infected hamster model, γ-PGA showed statistically significant improvement of weight loss and lung inflammation during administration after infection. This is a promising result for possibility of Covid-19 therapeutics along with the efficacy results of mouse model, suggesting γ-PGA can be therapeutic candidate to modulate an innate immune response for Covid-19.
 Citation Format: Chan-Hee Yoo, Jae Chul Choi, Do Young Lee, Chun-Soo Lee, Young-Chul Park. Repurposing of poly-γ-glutamic acid, immunotherapeutic drug for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia 1, as covid-19 treatment [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2023; Part 1 (Regular and Invited Abstracts); 2023 Apr 14-19; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2023;83(7_Suppl):Abstract nr 794.


The largest, longest study conducted on depression treatments, called the STAR*D trial, found that after people tried four antidepressants over the course of five years, about 70% of them were free of depressive symptoms. That's a lot of trial and error to end at a place where 30% of patients don't experience remission at all. The STAR*D trial ended in 2014, and despite a clear hole in the market–and a clear patient need–a golden age of new depression treatments still hasn't arrived. The anesthetic ketamine could offer hope for people who don't have other depression treatment options. The most recent research on ketamine, as well as a statement from experts on its use published in April 2017, finds the drug works quickly, makes dramatic improvements in mood, and can work on people who haven't gotten better with other depression treatments.


The purpose of group supervision in nursing care is to understand nurses' experiences from real care settings and to structure these in a professional and personal context. An interventional and longitudinal method of research was chosen in this study of group supervision in nursing care. The overall aim of the present study was to examine and investigate how psychiatric nurses' professional competence changed over time as a result of group supervision in nursing care. The sample consisted of two groups (N=12) of nurses, who received clinical supervision over a period of two years. The study is composed of three interim studies. The aim of Interim study 1 was to describe how psychiatric nurses experienced group supervision in nursing care. A questionnaire was constructed to investigate if, and to what degree, the participants experienced safety, trust and learning during the supervision sessions. The questions asked focused on the concepts 'a feeling of friendship', 'allowing atmosphere', 'understanding' and 'competence'. Data was analysed using descriptive statistics, and the informants' comments were categorised. Dairy notes were presented as a background to the ratings, words and quotations. The supervision process was analysed based on theories on supervision, including Maslow's need theory. The results showed that the supervision climate was, to a high degree, characterised by safety, trust and learning regardless of when the rating was made. The theoretical basis of the interim study and the most common words and expressions appearing in the results were used to design a general model of supervision. The aim of Interim studies 2 and 3 was to investigate the influence of supervision in nursing care, after one and after two years of ongoing supervision as well as four years after completed supervision, on the psychiatric nurses' professional competence. Data consisted in answers provided during interviews with the informants. Data was analysed according to the phenomenographical method. Interim studies 2 and 3 resulted in four description categories: 'a feeling of job satisfaction', 'gaining knowledge and competence', 'gaining a sense of security in nursing situations' and 'a feeling of personal development'. In Interim study 3, an additional two description categories emerged: 'realising the value of supervision' and 'a sense of professional solidarity'. The findings gave valuable proof that group supervision in nursing care has a lasting influence on nurses' professional competence in the form of a distinct professional identity and an integrated nursing care perspective. Group supervision contributes to maintaining the participants' strength and energy to carry on working, which makes continuing supervision necessary.


The Institute for Healthcare Improvement has defined medication reconciliation as "a formal process of obtain ing a complete and accurate list of each patient's current home medications—including name, dosage, frequency and route— and comparing the physician's admission, transfer, and/or dis charge orders to that list. Discrepancies are brought to the attention of the prescriber and, if appropriate, changes are made to the orders." 1 The impetus behind this concept is to prevent adverse drug events. The Canadian Adverse Events Study reported an adverse event rate of 7.5% in Canadian hospitals, and 36% of the adverse events were deemed preventable. 2 Drug- and fluidrelated events together constituted the second most common type of adverse event. 2 Medication discrepancies can occur at any point in the medication use process, but the largest percentage of these discrepancies occur during the prescribing phase. 3-7 The presence of a pharmacist during patient care rounds and when prescriptions are written has been associated with a reduction in medication discrepancies at the ordering stage. 8-10


The purpose of the study was to verify the previously created methodology for designing electromechanical systems. This methodology is based on SysML language and artificial intelligence tools such as conceptual graphs and Bayesian networks, and involves the construction of an information design model that contains knowledge about the requirements for the system being designed and a knowledge base of available technical solutions. Further, such an information model is used for automatic logical inference of technical solutions according to the requirements specified by the designer. The proposed methods and tools for design automation make it possible to trace the requirements for electromechanical systems at all stages of design, and evaluate the robustness of technical solutions to changes in these requirements. For quick and efficient implementation of the proposed methodology in the practice of industrial design, it must be verified by evaluating the degree of efficiency, completeness, consistency and feasibility of the synthesized design solutions, the convenience of using artificial intelligence tools in the course of solving typical industrial equipment design problems. For this purpose, a configurable laboratory stand was built, which is a physical model of a simple workcell of an industrial manufacturing system. The stand performs the typical functions of a workpieces sorter, has a modular design, and can include the implementation of specified functional requirements by various technical means. Thus, it is possible to obtain different configurations of the sorting device having differences in the sequence of operations and technical properties. To automate the design of these configurations using the CoGui software tool, an information model was created that compares the possible system requirements for the stand with suitable variants of technical solutions. This model is used to automatically obtain descriptions of stand configurations. The performance and other properties of the resulting configurations were then tested on the operating equipment of the stand.