Several studies have probed perceptual performance at different times after a self-paced motor action and found frequency-specific modulations of perceptual performance phase-locked to the action. Such action-related modulation has been reported for various frequencies and modulation strengths. In an attempt to establish a basic effect at the population level, we had a relatively large number of participants (n=50) perform a self-paced button press followed by a detection task at threshold, and we applied both fixed- and random-effects tests. The combined data of all trials and participants surprisingly did not show any significant action-related modulation. However, based on previous studies, we explored the possibility that such modulation depends on the participant's internal state. Indeed, when we split trials based on performance in neighboring trials, then trials in periods of low performance showed an action-related modulation at ≈17 Hz. When we split trials based on the performance in the preceding trial, we found that trials following a "miss" showed an action-related modulation at ≈17 Hz. Finally, when we split participants based on their false-alarm rate, we found that participants with no false alarms showed an action-related modulation at ≈17 Hz. All these effects were significant in random-effects tests, supporting an inference on the population. Together, these findings indicate that action-related modulations are not always detectable. However, the results suggest that specific internal states such as lower attentional engagement and/or higher decision criterion are characterized by a modulation in the beta-frequency range.


BaTi0 3 nanofibers were prepared by electrospinning. The morphology of synthesized BaTi0 3 nanofibers was investigated under different heat treatment conditions. The phase transformations in BaTi0 3 nanofibers were monitored using Raman spectroscopy. It has been found that the Curie temperature of BaTiO 3 nanofibers increased to 220°C, which is notably higher than the bulk BaTiO 3 ceramics.


Designed for early childhood students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, this text focuses on nurturing creativity in young children during a critical time of development. The book reasons on the importance of integrating the arts into all aspects of the early childhood program by showing how the creative arts enrich the curriculum and become a motivating tool for engaging young children to acquire knowledge, make connections to other subject areas, work harmoniously with others, and expand the possibilities for children who learn in different ways. Providing key information for including the essential elements of art, music, movement, drama, and play into the early childhood classroom, each chapter includes unique approaches to inspire children in their individual capacities for creativity. At the end of each chapter, there are creative, open-ended activities that instructors can use to involve early childhood students in active learning to demonstrate how the creative process works. With web site materials, children's books, unique examples of thematic units, projects, stories, music, and illustrations, this text provides all the resources for taking an innovative look at Creativity and the Arts with Young Children. Designed for early childhood students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, this text focuses on nurturing creativity in young children during a critical time of development. The book reasons on the importance of integrating the arts into all aspects of the early childhood program by showing how the creative arts enrich the curriculum and become a motivating tool for engaging young children to acquire knowledge, make connections to other subject areas, work harmoniously with others, and expand the possibilities for children who learn in different ways.


This paper disscusses the probabilistic model evolutionary algorithms which are a class of new algorithms proposed recently.After introducing the original and the principles of these classes of algorithms,the paper analyzes the complex computation caused by the complex models.Based on this,a new fast evolutionary algorithm based on probabilistic models is proposed.Also,a fast algorithm which uses the Bayes network model combined with the climbing-hill searching is realized.The experimental results show that the new algorithm has quick,reliable and accurate performance.


After the nuclear accidents of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl the world nuclear community made great efforts to increase research on nuclear reactors and to develop advanced nuclear power plants with much improved safety features. Following the successful construction and a most gratifying operation of the 10 MWth high-temperature gas-cooled test reactor (HTR-10), the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology (INET) of Tsinghua University has developed and designed an HTR demonstration plant, called the HTR-PM (high-temperature-reactor pebble-bed module). The design, having jointly been carried out with industry partners from China and in collaboration of experts worldwide, closely follows the design principles of the HTR-10. Due to intensive engineering and R&D efforts since 2001, the basic design of the HTR-PM has been finished while all main technical features have been fixed. A Preliminary Safety Analysis Report (PSAR) has been compiled. The HTR-PM plant will consist of two nuclear steam supply system (NSSS), so called modules, each one comprising of a single zone 250 MWth pebble-bed modular reactor and a steam generator. The two NSSS modules feed one steam turbine and generate an electric power of 210 MW. A pilot fuel production line will be built to fabricate 300,000 pebble fuel elements per year. This line is closely based on the technology of the HTR-10 fuel production line. The main goals of the project are two-fold. Firstly, the economic competitiveness of commercial HTRPM plants shall be demonstrated. Secondly, it shall be shown that HTR-PM plants do not need accident management procedures and will not require any need for offsite emergency measures. According to the current schedule of the project the completion date of the demonstration plant will be around 2013. The reactor site has been evaluated and approved; the procurement of long-lead components has already been started. After the successful operation of the demonstration plant, commercial HTR-PM plants are expected to These be built at the same site. turbine.


2D seismic reflection data and magnetism data, gravity data and electrical data together define the overall subsurface structure of the East Gobi basin (EGB), and reflect Jurassic-Cretaceous intracontinental rift evolution through deposition of at least five distinct stratigraphic sequences. Three major NE-SW trending fault zones divide the basin[. In the paper, through strata sequence description and sedimentary facies analysis, as well as zone appraisal for the oil and gas in the study area, we conclude that western step-fault zone of the block VI of EGB was most favorable pay, then the reverse faulted-nose structure in the east, while in the western slope and eastern fault zone, their hydrocarbon prospect need further proved.


This paper proposes a novel self-healing methodology for embedded RF Amplifiers (LNAs) in RF sub-systems. The proposed methodology is based on oscillation principles in which the Device-under-Test (DUT) itself generates the output test signature with the help of additional circuitry. The self-generated test signature from the DUT is analyzed by using onchip resources for testing the LNA and controlling its calibration knobs to compensate for multi-parameter variations in the LNA manufacturing process. Thus, the proposed methodology enables self-test and self-calibration of RF circuits without the need for external test stimulus. The proposed methodology is demonstrated through simulations as well as measurements performed on a RF LNA.


: A theoretical analysis of the conditions for reducing the temperature of grinding has been carried out and it has been shown that temperature of deep grinding is greater than under conventional multi-pass grinding with the same processing capacity. It is possible to reduce the temperature of deep grinding by increasing the cutting ability of the wheel and providing abundant heat removal from the cutting zone by using coolant, as well as reducing the speed of the wheel to reduce the friction intensity in the cutting zone. With a significant increase in the speed of the wheel (to values of 300 m/s), the main part of the heat released in the cutting zone is carried away with chips, and the grinding temperature decreases. This allows efficient use of deep grinding scheme. It is theoretically established that in this case the heating temperature of the chips is determined solely by the conditional cutting stress . Therefore, reducing it can reduce the temperature of grinding. The obtained results of theoretical studies were used to create a high-performance technological process of diamond electro-erosive grinding (diamond-spark grinding) of cutting multiblade carbide tools with elevated grinding depths (up to 0.6 mm) and a relatively low part speed (0.5 ... 1 m / min). This ensures the high quality of the surfaces to be treated (there are no burns, microcracks and other temperature defects).


There is a widespread idea among some historians and the greater public that the American population, including American Jews, remained indifferent to or willingly ignored the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Popularized by the 1968 book, While 6 Million Died, A Chronicle of American Apathy by journalist A.D. Morse, historical research on the United States during the Holocaust has documented the failures of the Roosevelt Administration, American civil society, and even American Jews, who have been framed as indifferent and divided. The title of Morse's book speaks for itself; its findings set forth the questions that historians continue to debate: at what point did the US government become aware of the Final Solution? Why did Congress refuse to alter the United States's restrictive and discriminatory immigration policies? Was the State Department driven by antisemitism? Why did the Roosevelt Administration wait until January 1944 to set up a rescue initiative? If Morse, and later Wyman set out to identify the guilty parties, others, such as Feingold, Breitman, Kraut and Lichtman, have sought to contextualize the American response to the Holocaust, and explain the barriers to rescue. The verdict is still out: most historians agree on the basic facts, but disagree on how to interpret them. As a result, this rich and useful domain of historical inquiry often lapses into a "glass half-full or half-empty?" debate.


Why is labor market segregation so persistent? This study analyzes one possible mechanism, workers' decisions to quit or stay on as a function of changes in the gender composition of supervisors during mergers and acquisitions. Swedish longitudinal employer-employee matched data for the period 1970-1990 shows that an increase in the share (or number) of female supervisors, within the same occupation and firm, makes both female and male workers more likely to quit. The reverse is not true. Female workers' relative aversion to female supervisors is significant only in occupations where the average female share is between 10% and 50%, while male aversion is monotonic. The effects varies with birth cohorts and life cycle, younger men are less averse than older across cohorts. Suggestive evidence indicates that these revealed preferences are partly driven by pecuniary effects among males and by social values among


Researchers at the University of Michigan have found that photodynamic therapy using topical 5-aminolevulinic acid (5-ALA) and pulsed-dye laser treatment produces statistically significant quantitative cutaneous molecular changes.


The increased emission of CO 2 has negative impacts on environment. Among the strategies, photocatalytic reduction is promising to convert the CO 2 into chemicals. In this report, CoO x nanoparticles are loaded in the channels of MIL-101(Cr), a kind of metal organic frameworks (MOF), to construct a novel CoO x /MIL-101(Cr) system to facilitate CO 2 photoreduction. Under the optimal conditions, the CoO x /MIL-101(Cr) has showed a significantly enhanced performance for photocatalytic CO 2 reduction compared with bare CoO x and MIL-101(Cr). Our findings provide a pathway for a rational design of efficient MOF system for the photocatalytic reduction of CO 2 .


Frequency of stuttering under three conditions was studied. Twelve young adult stutterers read a list of 50 sentences five consecutive times. In one condition, electric shock was administered conti...


The electron-impact-induced mass spectra of substituted N-phenylphenoxyacetamides are discussed. The structure of the rearrangement ion at m/z 108 is investigated and compared with the molecular ion of anisole by metastable ion and corrected collisionally activated dissociation spectra.


This paper discusses the development of the Introduction to Digital Systems course at Grand Valley State University. As this course is a prerequisite for all engineering majors prior to secondary admission, the course focuses on the practical application of digital systems to solve engineering problems. During the laboratory portion of the course, students design, build, and test various types of digital systems. A unique feature of the course is its integration of digital system fundamentals, C programming, and microcontroller interfacing. Logically and sequentially thinking in both hardware and software are enforced throughout this course. For the Mechanical and Manufacturing disciplines, this provides a strong foundation for the types of digital system applications that will be encountered in the upper level courses and senior projects. For the Electrical and Computer disciplines, the depth of content is developed in subsequent courses. The rest of this paper expounds upon the motivation behind the course, course topics, lab activities, and integration of the course into the ECE and ME/MFG curriculum.


-Accelerometers are used to sense the acceleration of a moving body and convert it into electrical or mechanical energy so that it could be measured. This paper reports the design and simulation of single axis low g (±5g) comb drive accelerometer in Comsol multiphysics4.2a.with reference to the results obtained after analyzing commercially available free scale accelerometer with the help of I2C aardvark adapter and beagle analyzer. Accelerometer has a proof mass with movable electrodes extended from it. Structure has four folded beam to have spring effect and has an anchor to hold the entire structure. Any acceleration along the sensitive direction will induce inertial force on movable mass and deflect the beams. Hence the differential capacitance gap will change. By measuring this differential capacitance change, the experienced acceleration can be measured. Comsol Multiphysics 4.2a simulation is used to extract the device sensitivity. By gradually varying the design parameters in comsol simulation, the relationship between the device sensitivity and various design parameters is derived. From the analysis it is concluded that the device behavior strongly depends upon various design parameters. By adjusting design parameters, desired sensitivity can be obtained. Based on the simulation results, a set of optimized design parameters for the comb accelerometer is decided. The above-proposed MEMS comb accelerometer may be used for many applications, such as automobile airbag deployment and navigations, fabrication sequence of the comb accelerometer is also proposed. The device is to be fabricated using surface-micro machining process with sacrificial layer technique. Keywords--Accelerometer, Capacitive, MEMS


The invention relates to the field of pharmaceutical chemistry. It relates to a process for producing cephalosporins in which, for example, trimethylsilyl 7-trimethylsilyloxycarbonylaminodecephalosporanate is prepared by bubbling anhydrous carbon dioxide into an anhydrous solution of trimethylsilyl 6-trimethylsilylaminodecephalosporanate and is an intermediate compound. interesting to use in the production of cefadroxil and cephalexin by acylation in anhydrous medium with the appropriately chosen 2-phenylglycylchloride hydrochloride. Other cephalosporins are produced by acylation of 7-trimethylsilyloxycarbonylamino-ceph-3-em-4-carboxylic acids or their esters bearing various substituents at the 3-position. Cephalexins are antibacterial agents.


Let P be a probability distribution on q -dimensional space. The so-called Diaconis-Freedman effect means that for a fixed dimension d<<q , most d -dimensional projections of P look like a scale mixture of spherically symmetric Gaussian distributions. The present paper provides necessary and sufficient conditions for this phenomenon in a suitable asymptotic framework with increasing dimension q . It turns out, that the conditions formulated by Diaconis and Freedman (1984) are not only sufficient but necessary as well. Moreover, letting P ^ be the empirical distribution of n independent random vectors with distribution P , we investigate the behavior of the empirical process n √ (P ^ −P) under random projections, conditional on P ^ .


LPS from Rhizobium sin-1 (R. sin-1) can antagonize the production of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α) by E. coli LPS in human monocytic cells. Although these compounds provide interesting leads for the development of therapeutics for septic shock yet, the propensity of these compounds to undergo β-elimination to give biological inactive enone derivatives hampers detailed structure activity relationship studies. To address this problem, we have chemically synthesized in a convergent manner a R. sin-1 lipid A derivative in which the βhydroxy ester at C-3 of the proximal sugar unit has been replaced by an ether linked moiety. The antagonizing ability against E. coli lipid A and the stability of the synthetic compound has been tested and compared with narural R. sin-1 lipid A. Bacillus anthracis is a gram-positive, spore-forming bacterium that causes anthrax in humans and other mammals. The secondary cell wall of vegetative cells of Bacillus anthracis contains an unusual polysaccharide, which may represent an important target for vaccine and diagnostics development. The antigenic properties of this oligosaccharide have, however, not been studied. We have synthesized two trisaccharides and tested for their affinity toward the antibodies produced from a liveand irradiated spore vaccine and polysaccharide linked to the carrier protein KLH. Finally, to locate important antigenic components of the hexasaccharide we are synthesizing various oligosaccharide fragments. The oligosaccharides are synthesized with an aminopentyl spacer to facilitate conjugation to carrier proteins, which is required for immunization and ELISA. INDEX WORDS: Sepsis, Septic Shock, Anthrax, Bacillus anthracis, Rhizobium sin-1, Lipid A, Lipopolysaccharide, Vaccine, Diagnostic Tool, ELISA, Glycoconjugates, Antagonists, Agonists, Oligosaccharides, BSA, KLH, Toll like Receptors, Glycosylation, Imidate, Thioethyl, Gram Negative Bacteria, Gram Positive Bacteria, Aminopentyl Linker, Therapeutics. SYNTHESIS AND IMMUNOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF RHIZOBIUM SIN-1 LIPID A AND AN OLIGOSACCHARIDE DERIVED FROM THE CELL WALL OF BACILLUS


Large vessel vasculitides are known relapsing diseases. However, the rate of relapses has been seldom addressed and there are only few data on relapse predictors.We conducted the present study to investigate the prevalence of relapses in the first year after diagnosis and the overall relapse among patients with large vessel vasculitis. Furthermore, we aimed to identify if the systemic inflammatory response (SIR) is a possible predictor for relapse among patients with large cell vasculitis.The systemic inflammatory response (SIR) has been described as a potential clinical and serological score predicting the risk for relapses1. SIR estimates the systemic inflammatory activity at the time point of first diagnosis1. It was defined as follows: Temperature >38°C, weight loss >4kg, Haemoglobin <11 g/dl and erythrocyte sedimentation rate >85 mm/h. For each of the above-mentioned criteria one point was attributed, leading to a range from 0 to 4 points. Patients with 3 to 4 points were considered having a highly inflammatory response and patients with an SIR ≤ 2 were considered having a low inflammatory response and thus a lower risk for relapses. Relapses are defined as reappearance of disease-related symptoms requiring treatment adjustment. The study cohort included 75 patients with large cell vasculitis (Giant Cell Vasculitis, Takayasu Vasculitis, inflammatory non-infections Aortitis), longitudinally followed by the authors over a mean period of 5.2 ± 3.3 years (range 1-14 yr).The study-cohort includes 71 patients with a mean age at diagnosis of 63.5 (16 – 85) years. Almost three quarters (73%) of the patients were women. Most of the patients were suffering from GCA (73.2%), followed by Takayasu arteritis (16.9%) and inflammatory non-infections Aortitis (9.8%). 38 patients (53.5%) relapsed at least once during the follow up, and 17 patients had two or more relapses. The vast majority of relapses (86.8%) were observed within the first year following diagnosis. Most of the patients, 54 patients (76%), were considered having a low inflammatory response (SIR <=2). The relapse rate in this group was 59.2%. On the other hand, there were 17 patients having an SIR higher or equal to 3 points. The relapse rate in this group was 33%.In conclusion, the results of this preliminary study reveal that the relapse rate among patients with large vessel vasculitis high is. The SRI appears to be an inadequate predictor for relapse in this cohort.[1]Alba MA, García-Martínez A, Prieto-González S, et al. Relapses in patients with giant cell arteritis: prevalence, characteristics, and associated clinical findings in a longitudinally followed cohort of 106 patients.Medicine (Baltimore). 2014;93(5):194–201.Vasile-Mihai Coroian: None declared, Sebastian Saur: None declared, Ann-Christin Pecher: None declared, Theodoros Xenitidis: None declared, Jörg Henes Grant/research support from: Novartis, Roche-Chugai, Consultant of: Novartis, Roche, Celgene, Pfizer, Abbvie, Sanofi, Boehringer-Ingelheim,


While today largely confined to certain parts of the world, malaria fever [2-4] is a malady which, through time has blighted every single continent on this earth except Antarctica. By virtue of its historical universality malaria is therefore a prime candidate for proof of the germ-Terrain duality (G-T or G-D-T) theory. Malaria (called ague in ancient times) was known as far back as ancient Egypt, Rome and Greece. Some have even blamed it for the fall of the Roman Empire [5].


Background: Probiotics can be used to stimulate or regulate epithelial and immune cells of the intestinal mucosa and generate beneficial mucosal immunomodulatory effects. Beneficial effects of specific strains of probiotics have been established in the treatment and prevention of various intestinal disorders, including allergic diseases and diarrhea. However, the precise molecular mechanisms and the strain-dependent factors involved are poorly understood. Methodology/Principal Findings: In this study, we aimed to identify gene loci in the model probiotic organism Lactobacillus plantarum WCFS1 that modulate the immune response of host dendritic cells. The amounts of IL-10 and IL-12 secreted by dendritic cells (DCs) after stimulation with 42 individual L. plantarum strains were measured and correlated with the strain-specific genomic composition using comparative genome hybridisation and the Random Forest algorithm. This in silico ''gene-trait matching'' approach led to the identification of eight candidate genes in the L. plantarum genome that might modulate the DC cytokine response to L. plantarum. Six of these genes were involved in bacteriocin production or secretion, one encoded a bile salt hydrolase and one encoded a transcription regulator of which the exact function is unknown. Subsequently, gene deletions mutants were constructed in L. plantarum WCFS1 and compared to the wild-type strain in DC stimulation assays. All three bacteriocin mutants as well as the transcription regulator (lp_2991) had the predicted effect on cytokine production confirming their immunomodulatory effect on the DC response to L. plantarum. Transcriptome analysis and qPCR data showed that transcript level of gtcA3, which is predicted to be involved in glycosylation of cell wall teichoic acids, was substantially increased in the lp_2991 deletion mutant (44 and 29 fold respectively). Conclusion: Comparative genome hybridization led to the identification of gene loci in L. plantarum WCFS1 that modulate the immune response of DCs. Citation: Meijerink M, van Hemert S, Taverne N, Wels M, de Vos P, et al. (2010) Identification of Genetic Loci in Lactobacillus plantarum That Modulate the Immune Response of Dendritic Cells Using Comparative Genome Hybridization. PLoS ONE 5(5): e10632. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0010632 Editor: Michael Otto, National Institutes of Health, United States of America Received February 12, 2010; Accepted April 19, 2010; Published May 13, 2010 Copyright: 2010 Meijerink et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: This work was supported by a project from the Top Institute Food and Nutrition, Wageningen, The Netherlands. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: email@example.com ¤ Current address: Winclove Bio Industries, Amsterdam, The Netherlands


The intuitionistic fuzzy set introduced by Atanassov has greater ability in depicting and handling uncertainty. Intuitionistic fuzzy measure is an important research area of intuitionistic fuzzy set theory. Distance measure and similarity measure are two complementary concepts quantifying the difference and closeness of intuitionistic fuzzy sets. This paper addresses the definition of an effective distance measure with concise form and specific meaning for Atanassov's intuitionistic fuzzy sets (AIFSs). A new distance measure for AIFSs is defined based on a distance measure of interval values and the transformation from AIFSs to interval valued fuzzy sets. The axiomatic properties of the new distance measure are mathematically investigated. Comparative analysis based in numerical examples indicates that the new distance measure is competent to quantify the difference between AIFSs. The application of the new distance measure is also discussed. A new method for multi-attribute decision making (MADM) is developed based on the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution method and the new distance measure. Numerical applications indicate that the developed MADM method can obtain reasonable preference orders. This shows that the new distance measure is effective and rational from both mathematical and practical points of view.


This article is devoted to the analysis of the competitiveness of economic systems (capitalism and socialism) in the years 1950-1989. The author assumed that competitiveness is the ability of the surveyed economies to build prosperity. Therefore, to compare the competitiveness of both socio-economic formations, the living standard of society – GDP per capita was used as a basic measure. The results of the analysis clearly indicated that capitalism (the system of the market economy) is more competitive than socialism (a system of planned economy). The study of competitiveness of economic systems requires a holistic approach and the application of research methods used in economics and economic history.


Objective:To investigate the expression and immunogenicity of E2 gene DNA of eastern equine encephalomyelitis virus.Methods:The E2 gene of eastern equine encephalomyelitis virus was amplified by RT_PCR and then cloned into eukaryotic expression vector pcDNA3.1. The recombinant was transfected into COS7 cells by lipofectin. Western blotting and immunofluorescence were used to identify the expression of the E2 gene. After Balb/c mice were vaccinated with pcDNA_E2,immunofluorescence was used to detect the antibody titers of immunized mice sera.Results:Western blotting test and immunofluorescence showed that E2 gene could be expressed in COS7 cells. pcDNA_E2 induced specific antibody against EEEV in immunized mice.Conclusion:The recombinant eukaryotic expression vector pcDNA_E2 was capable of stimulating specific humoral immunity against EEEV in Balb/c mice.


In reference to our recent paper in PNAS (1), Rodriguez (2) raises an interesting point regarding the functionality of nuclear export sequences on ubiquitin-specific protease 12 (Usp12). To address this concern, we provide details on the sequence and a possible explanation regarding the discrepancy in our experimental observations.

Garcia-Santisteban et al. (3) previously reported an in silico-based prediction approach to identify nuclear export signals (NESs), which they further validated experimentally using a nuclear export assay (4). This assay relies on transient transfection of an NES-defective form of Rev-GFP [pRev(1.4)GFP] into HeLa cells, which accumulates in the …

[↵][1]1Email: sanyal{at}hku.hk.

 [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1


A reduced, canonical, weighted generalized list (WGL) is presented in this paper. This representation can effective describe world-level polynomial function. The reduction rules of WGL were proposed, and the equivalence verification method of register transfer level (RTL) design based on WGL was implemented. Experimental results show that WGL is more effective than other existent model, when it is used for the equivalent verification of RTL design.


The work examines the conceptual and categorical nature of the apparatus of the theory of adaptive management of enterprises in the conditions of digitalization of the economy. The article aims at generalizing the theoretical foundations of adaptive management of an enterprise and developing an ecosystem model of adaptive management of development of economic sectors in the post-war period based on the mechanism of cross-sectoral interaction. The article presents the main approaches to the study of the concept of "adoption". Modern approaches to the management of industrial enterprises in the conditions of digital transformation, which have a cross-industry nature of the process of production of knowledge-intensive products, have been studied. A system of adaptive management of an industrial enterprise is proposed. The system of adaptive management of an industrial enterprise in a changing digital environment determines the order of interaction of many elements of the system, which allows making management decisions and coordinating the interaction of all elements to achieve the strategic goal of an enterprise operating in a constantly changing digital environment. An ecosystem model of cross-industry interaction has been developed and can be an effective mechanism for ensuring the strategic development of industrial enterprises producing high-tech products in the post-war period of Ukraine. For a successful transition to a governance model based on a mechanism of cross-industry cooperation, it is necessary to ensure the formation of an organizational structure of a digital platform of the cross-industry ecosystem that has the potential to scale up to other high-tech industries or facilitate their emergence.


Cement job quality has very important effect on normal production and life of oil-water wells. With the exploration and exploitation of oilfield deepening, application of the techniques for all kinds of super deep wells, horizontal wells, thick casing wells and ultra low density cement, etc., has put forward a new demand for the cement job quality evaluation technology. This paper introduces the existing situation of the cement job quality evaluation tools, the method of scale calibration as well as the processing and evaluation techniques of Liaohe wireline services. At the same time, the specific application examples are given and our understandings about the cementing quality are proposed.


Abstract Recent economic turmoil has revived interest in the quest for sustainable growth. Current economic thinking attaches growing importance to industrial development. The roots of such thinking can be traced back to traditional arguments about the beneficial role of manufacturing for economic growth through horizontal and vertical spillovers to other sectors. These spillovers are of particular importance at the regional level, as such externalities tend to be localized in nature. The objective of this paper is to explore the relationship between economic structure and regional growth in ten Western European EU member states in the post-crisis period. The analysis wishes to answer the question of whether regions with a higher concentration of manufacturing outperform their counterparts with more diverse economic structures. A spatial panel econometric technique is applied in order to distinguish between the intra-regional and inter-regional effects of economic structure, yielding recommendations for policy makers in the field of industrial policy.


Ḥudūd punishments were traditionally applied in courts of justice of Afghanistan and that is still, at least theoretically, the case. The Penal Code 1976 does not legislate on ḥudūd but instead provides that the code serves to regulate crimes and punishments in the taʿzīr category only. The overall effect of this is that most of the ḥudūd penalties are converted into prison sentences. It is further provided that no punishment may violate basic human dignity.


A thorough study of the perturbative and variational approaches is carried out for the surface acoustic wave reflection problem. We have shown that the perturbation treatment by Datta and Hunsinger and potentially powerful variational formulation by Chen and Haus [IEEE Trans. Sonics Ultrason. SU‐32, 395 (1985)] are mutually consistent. In their common region of validity, these two approaches yield nearly identical results for the reflection coefficients and velocity shifts due to metal finger and groove overlays. Term‐by‐term comparison of the mass‐ and stress‐loading effects, and also the electric shorting effect, is carried out to provide a coherent picture of the reflection phenomena. The on‐ and off‐resonance behavior of the reflection coefficient can be described correctly using either one of these theories, with proper inclusion of the overlay shape dependence. A new term for electric shorting is derived for groove overlays.


An analytical expression for the coupling of whispering gallery mode is derived by adding coupling and intrinsic loss terms. We found smaller negative frequency shift for higher order mode when nonlinear coefficient is smaller consistent with the reported experimental observations. This result opens up a range of new applications in nonlinear sensing and quantum optics.


ABSTRACT Introduction Despite the advances made in cancer treatment in the past decades, therapeutic efficacy is still quite challenging, partially due to the emergence of multidrug resistance (MDR). It is crucial to decipher the underlying mechanisms of resistance in order to develop new therapeutic strategies for cancer patients. Previous studies have shown that activation of nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) plays key roles in various cellular processes including proliferation, anti-apoptosis, metastasis, invasion, and chemoresistance. Areas covered In this review, we conduct an integrated analysis of the evidence suggesting the vital roles of the NF-κB signaling pathway in MDR during chemotherapy, immunotherapy, endocrine, and targeted therapy. A literature search was performed on NF-κB and drug resistance in PubMed up to February 2023. Expert opinion This review summarizes that the NF‐κB signaling pathway exhibits a crucial role in enhancing drug resistance in chemotherapy, immunotherapy, endocrine, and targeted therapy. The application of combination therapy with existing antineoplastic drugs and a safe NF-κB inhibitor could become a promising strategy in cancer treatment. A better understanding of the pathway and mechanisms of drug resistance may help exploit safer and more effective NF-κB-targeting agents for clinical use in the future.


SUMMARY Constipation is a common result of advanced disease and drug therapy. It occurs in as many as 50% of advanced cancer patients and 85% of patients taking high dose opioids. Potential causes are described. Prevention and early reversal are important. Nondrug and pharmacological methods of preventing and treating constipation are described. Evaluation instruments that have been used for this symptom are described. Some open research questions are listed. A management algorithm, evidence tables, and drug therapy tables which include drug costs are presented.


To provide a high-nickel plating bath which is weakly acidic and can stably form a plating film having a nickel content of 11 to 19% (preferably 12 to 18%) even at a current density of 3 A/dm or more. An acidic zinc-nickel alloy electroplating Solution which contains an amine compound represented by the formula HN R1-R2 wherein: R1 is (CH), NH, or (CH2): R2 is H, NH, or R3; R3 is an alkanol or alkoxyl group having 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 carbon atoms; L is 2, 3, 4, or 5: M is 2, 3, 4, or 5; and N is 3, 4, or 5.


Fetal growth restriction (FGR) is associated with an increased risk of adverse perinatal outcome. However, distinguishing this condition from small‐for‐gestational age (SGA) remains elusive. A set of criteria has been proposed recently for such a purpose, including the degree of smallness, Doppler parameters and growth velocity. The aim of this study was to establish whether the use of growth velocity adds value to Doppler assessment in predicting adverse perinatal outcome among SGA‐suspected fetuses.


The problem of initial thermal velocity and the space charge effect of electron guns in numerical simulations have been investigated deeply. In general, the current software can meet the engineering requirements. However, the electron's initial thermal velocity and the space charge effect lack sufficient consideration. The above two factors significantly limit the performances of electron guns. Moreover, the parameters of electron guns are approximated based on a limited number of electron trajectories. Thus, the statistical distribution of the beam electron resulting from its initial thermal velocity is not considered adequately in present software. This paper introduces the equivalent meridional projected trajectory equation and the curvilinear axis evolution theory of the current density of toroidal electron sub-beam, and subsequently the current and charge density distributions in electron guns can be derived through iteration calculation. Based upon, the virtual crossover of an electron gun is determined by its current density distribution. As well as, a relevant numerical algorithm is developed and the related program is modified based on the popular commercial software SOURCE. Tungsten cathode guns, LaB6 cathode guns, field mission guns and Pierce guns are simulated respectively by examples. The calculations prove that the modified software is effective and practical.


Let $\M$ be a semi-finite von Neumann algebra equipped with a faithful normal trace $\tau$. We study the subspace structures of non-commutative Lorentz spaces $L_{p,q}(\M, \tau)$, extending results of Carothers and Dilworth to the non-commutative settings. In particular, we show that, under natural conditions on indices, $\ell_p$ can not be embedded into $L_{p,q}(\M, \tau)$. As applications, we prove that for $0<p<\infty$ with $p \neq 2$ then $\ell_p$ cannot be strongly embedded into $L_p(\M,\tau)$. Thus providing a non-commutative extension of a result of Kalton for $0<p<1$ and a result of Rosenthal for $1\leq p <2$ on $L_p[0,1]$.


Robust data of ferritin are available as prognostic marker in bacterial infection and we have analyzed its usefulness in COVID-19 pneumonia in predicting severity of illness, response to treatment, and final outcome.

A prospective and observational study included 1000 COVID-19 cases confirmed with reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. All cases were assessed with lung involvement documented and categorized on high-resolution computed tomography (CT) thorax, oxygen saturation, inflammatory marker, ferritin at entry point, and follow-up during hospitalization. Age, gender, comorbidity, and use Bi-level positive airway pressure (BIPAP)/Non invasive ventilation (NIV) and outcome as with or without lung fibrosis as per CT severity were key observations. Statistical analysis is done using Chi-square test.

In a study of 1000 COVID-19 pneumonia cases, age (<50 and >50 years) and gender (male vs. female) have significant association with ferritin (P < 0.00001) and (P < 0.010), respectively. CT severity score at entry point with ferritin level has significant correlation in severity score (P < 0.00001). Ferritin level has significant association with the duration of illness (P < 0.00001). Comorbidities have significant association with ferritin level (P < 0.00001). Ferritin level has significant association with oxygen saturation (P < 0.00001). BIPAP/NIV during hospitalization has significant association with ferritin level (P < 0.00001). Timing of BIPAP/NIV requirement in critical care setting has significant association with ferritin level (P < 0.00001). Follow-up ferritin titer during hospitalization as compared to entry point normal and abnormal ferritin has significant association in post-COVID lung fibrosis, respectively (P < 0.00001).

Ferritin is easily available, and universally acceptable inflammatory marker in COVID-19 pandemic, documented very crucial role in predicting severity of illness and assessing response to treatment and follow-up ferritin titer during hospitalization, can be used as early predictor of post-COVID lung fibrosis.


One of Polanyi's principles established that society was capable of reciprocity and redistribution. One of the seven principles of the cooperative model is its concern for community, as well as the solvency of the specific cooperative. The relationship between a healthy community and healthy businesses (coop, mutual or private) is often described in social capital capacity of a civil society or happiness index of a regional economy [Zamagni, Helliwell]. A healthy community has basic elements of accessible services (transit, hospitals, education), access to credit (credit unions & mutual banks), affordable housing (market & mixed), living wage jobs (incomes above poverty) as explained in the Federal Reserve Board's community banking series [FRBSF Investing


The paper tests the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) theory in both its absolute and relative version for the Republic of South Africa (RSA), for the sample period from the second quarter of 1993 to the second quarter of 2003. The cointegration and error correction methodologies are employed in this paper as the data are found to be non-stationary. It clearly establishes that the changes in RSA rand/USA dollar are influenced by the long-term trends in the price differential between the RSA and the USA. It is also interesting to note that the effect of short-term interest rate differential is in the direction of appreciation of the South African rand. The proportionality and symmetry hypothesis of the strong version of the PPP is also supported.


Supplier selection is one of the critical processes in supply chain management which is associated with the flow of goods and services from the supplier of raw material to the last consumer. It is a multi-criteria problem which includes both qualitative and quantitative factors (criteria). Under many conditions the values of the criteria are often inaccurately defined for the decision makers. To reduce this problem, fuzzy multi-criteria decision making approach can be used. In this paper, a multi-criteria decisionmaking approach has been used for selecting supplier under uncertainty. The aim of this study is to develop a method to evaluate suppliers in supply chain based on technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution method (TOPSIS) to select the most efficient supplier. This paper presents a successful application of FUZZY TOPSIS to an actual supplier selection problem in Indian pharmaceutical industry


Learning Objectives: Preferences for life-supporting technology at the end of life are impacted by complex medical, cultural, and socioeconomic influences. African-American patients in the USA have lower prevalence of limitations on care than Caucasian patients, but less is known about other ethnicities and the extent of variability in care limitations between hospitals by ethnicity is unknown. Methods: Retrospective observational cohort study of care limitations (goals of care) and patient ethnicity (African American, Asian, Caucasian, Native American, Hispanic, Other/Unknown) using data from the eICU Collaborative Research Database. The database comprises hospitals involved in an intensive care telemonitoring program in the USA. Only the first available ICU admission was analyzed for each patient. Outcome was presence or absence of a care limitation and analysis was a mixed-effects logistic regression model adjusting for age, gender, severity of illness and ethnicity with clustering by hospital. Variability between hospitals was measured using the median odds ratio. Results: The analysis included 107,274 patients from 174 hospitals. Of these patients, 12,180 (11%) were African American, 1,584 (1%) were Asian, 83,639 (78%) were Caucasian, 4,240 (4%) were Hispanic, 682 (1%) were Native American and 4,949 (5%) were Other/ Unknown. Median age was 65 (IQR 53–76), median APACHE IV score was 50 (IQR 36–68) and ICU mortality rate was 6.4%. Care limitations were present in 13,931 (17%) Caucasian patients. In comparison, care limitations were present in 1,128 (9%) African American patients with adjusted odds ratio 0.69 (0.64–0.74), 507 (12%) Hispanic patients with adjusted odds ratio 0.78 (0.62–0.97), 205 (13%) Asian patients with adjusted odds ratio 0.82 (0.63–1.06), and 101 (15%) Native American patients with adjusted odds ratio 1.17 (0.84–1.63). Median odds ratio across hospitals was 1.51 implying variation between hospitals was similar in magnitude to the effect of ethnicity or gender but variability did not differ by ethnicity. Conclusions: Ethnicity was associated with differences in prevalence of care limitations among patients admitted to intensive care even after adjusting for severity, age, gender and hospital. No differences in variability across ethnicities suggest that explanations relate more to systemic factors than individual hospital practices. These findings provide rare data about care limitations across multiple ethnicities and will improve health equity by informing clinical and policy decisions.


Abstract I've been in love with the jumper since I was young and my changing experience with the garment inspired me to write about it. Increasingly, my interest in fashion is becoming twinned with my interest in the ways in which we can live more sustainable lives and own more sustainable wardrobes. Natural fibers, including wool, are just one way to do this. This article is a love letter to the garment, the material, and the social identities it represents.


: Introduction: Coronavirus disease 2019, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, has contributed to considerable morbidity and mortality in 2020. While respiratory symptoms are predominant in COVID-19, there have been reports of neurologic sequel including central nervous symptoms such as catatonia, which is a complex syndrome of bizarre motor behavior, impaired volition, and vegetative abnormalities. Here we present a case of catatonia as the first symptom in a patient with Covid-19, and his challenging treatment. Case: We describe a case of concurrent COVID-19 and catatonia in a 43-year old man without any prior psychiatric history, who was hospitalized with loss of consciousness. His symptoms of catatonia improved with the administration of ECT. Discussion: We highlight the importance of the consideration of catatonia as a possible cause of loss of consciousness in medically ill patients. we investigate the various possible mechanisms of Covid-19 involvement in the development of catatonia and the methods of dealing with a patient with Covid-19 and psychological symptoms admitted in the ICU. Conclusion: Not only catatonia can co-occur with COVID-19, but it may be the first and only Feature presented in the context of this infection, so it deserves special attention especially in unconscious patients. In medically-ill patients with Covid-19 and catatonia symptoms for which benzodiazepines can't be administered, ETC use can be considered as a low-complicated and rapid method. immune cell transmigration, post-infectious autoimmunity, effects of immunomodulatory treatments, hypoxic brain injury, and posttraumatic stress from a near suffocation event compounded by required social isolation (5).


[Objective]To evaluate the effect of cold on the non-specific immune response in Hoplobatrachus rugulosus. [Methord] The response of non-specific immune indexes including respiratory burst of spleen cells,gastric lysozyme activity and serum complement activity to the stimulation of heat-killed Escherichia coli were determined after being exposed at 22 ℃ and 10 ℃ for 10 d. [Result] The serum hemolysis activity of the frogs kept at 10 ℃ significantly decreased(P0.05) while respiratory burst of spleen cells and gastric lysozyme activity didn't vary obviously,compared with those at 22 ℃. The three non-specific immune responses to bacteria stimulation changed significantly(P0.05) after treated with E.coli at 22 ℃. [Conclusion] The non-specific immune response decreased after exposure to cold in Hoplobatrachus rugulosus.


Charles F. Williams is currently a lecturer in Criminal Justice Studies, Behavior & Social Sciences at Collin College and an Outside Consultant Homeland Security. He recently retired from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, where he was a supervisory Special Agent. In this paper, he looks at U.S. homegrown, transnational extremist groups acting at a national level, which he argues present a clear and present danger to local, county, state, federal and international policing cooperation. This essay offers a different viewpoint that posits that these groups are not under control in their current form. They are changing their 'modus operandi' (MO) while remaining engaged in all areas of criminality. The paper advocates gangs to be designated as terrorist organizations so that the provisions of the USA Patriot Act, intelligence agencies, and military intelligence can be deployed against them. It argues that informal, horizontal intelligence-sharing networks should be used to respond to these groups, as opposed to a vertical, stovepipe organized intelligence-sharing structure, and that the U.S. experience with gangs may be applicable to agencies in other countries that must confront rapidly changing transnational gangs.


Jonathan and Daniel Boyarin have suggested that any attempt to speak of genealogy in the sense of kinship as a mode of theorizing group identities tends to be overwhelmed or usurped by implications of racism. This reaction to the introduction of issues of genealogy is to be understood, they argue, as a legacy of Pauline Christianity in which spiritual kinship has come to trump any articulation of literal descent. This is the context within which one can comprehend the well meaning commentator who favours individualist voluntarist communities over anything that begins with the  esh. In the seemingly radical embrace of elective aYnities, an embrace whose motivations are good, Boyarin and Boyarin Ž nd a more conservative continuity insofar as, they suggest, the 'valorisation of any kind of elective and aVective connection between people over against the claims of physical kinship is deeply embedded in the Platonic value system Europe has largely inherited from Paul'. There has, however, been a Jewish counter-discourse to this legacy, one that has given supreme value to literal descent from Abraham. Exploring the implications of this counter discourse, their work attempts to respond to the trend within leftist and anti-racist philosophy to relegate any existing community to a world that we 'have lost or never existed'. In other words, they consider the possibility that it may be feasible to speak of one's genealogical positionality in relation to identity without speaking as if there were anything automatic or natural about the link between the two.


In this paper without tailoring to any presumed condition on communication channel or any restriction on adversary's resources we design a secrecy scheme with information leakage that decays at an exponential rate. The only requirement for such an exponentially secure system is existence of a common key source between legitimate users that is partially known by Eve. A key extractor based on a sampler and a Rényi extractor derives secret keys with the required entropy from this source. A general cipher uses this key to ensure the required equivocation for the plaintext and to establish the first layer of secrecy. Using privacy amplification on top of this cipher based on inverse universal2 hashing constitutes the second layer of secrecy for highly confidential message transmission with information leakage that is exponentially decreasing. We provide exponent analysis and optimization to minimize information leakage in terms of Eve's distinguishability based on L1 norm distance from uniformity. The required key rate is characterized for different source entropies in order to guarantee the secrecy that is demanded in terms of secrecy exponent for the second layer and Eve's error rate for the first layer.


Objective:To improve the synthetic route and synthesize the CCR5 antagonist,TAK-779.Methods:TAK-779 was synthesized via 15 steps from bromobenzene.This improved synthetic route is convenient,efficient and cost-effective.Result and Conclusion:The1H-NMR and MS data of the intermediates and the target compound were identical to that reported in literature.With this improved route the total yield of TAK-779 is 17.3%.


Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a group of organic pollutants normally found in the marine environment. In the long-term, the PAHs may cause adverse effects to the aquatic life and humans through the food chain. In this study, marine sediment samples were collected from 10 locations along the Straits of Malacca. The PAHs in sediment samples were Soxhlet-extracted into a 1:1 (v/v) mixture of hexane/dichloromethane (DCM). The extract was then passed through a silica/alumina column and eluted with a mixture of hexane-DCM (20:80), and the fraction was reduced in volume under nitrogen gas flow. For quantification of PAH concentrations, the concentrated extract was injected into a GC-MS system. The ΣPAHs in sediment from the Straits coastal area ranged between 209.8-611.0 ng/g dry weight. The origin sources of PAHs were identified by comparing the various PAH ratios, such as anthracene to anthracene plus phenanthrene, fluoranthene to fluoranthene plus pyrene, benz[a]anthracene to benz[a]anthracene plus chrysene, and Σ(Low Molecular Weight) to Σ(High Molecular Weight). Generally, it was implied that the major PAH pollution sources in the Straits of Malacca are that of fossil fuel combustion (pyrolytic).


This article identified national newspaper headlines that articulate the business strategy adaptation entering a new normal era. Many studies discuss profitable business strategies in the era of the economic crisis since the Covid-19 pandemic. However, very few have solved an adaptive business strategy without ignoring the safety risks of the danger of the coronavirus. To identify how business practices are adaptive strategies, a search for news sources in national newspapers has been carried out. After collecting data using keyword search, then proceed with descriptive analysis under a phenomenological approach. The analysis covered the themes of coding, revision, evaluation, writing conclusion, and proofreading. All steps were taken to ensure the main points of this finding have answered research questions with the principles of validity and reliability. As a result, 10 newspapers were talking about the preparation of business strategy adaptive entering a new normal era. It is hoped that the concern from various economic experts will be a sound academic contribution and insights as evidence of public interest in challenging times. Therefore, these findings will support the recovery of the current state of national economic status under the government policy to economic normalization as part of the response to the pandemic time.


Sistem Pengurusan Alat Komunikasi dan Elektronik (SPAKE) was developed to mitigate the Ministry of Defence Malaysia especially for Royal Signal Regiment in order to record, filter, process and search the data that have been stored in the Database Management System (DBMS). This system has mitigated the user where every job requirement forms, reports and information for certain data can be produced and printed via user computers. Before the system was developed, traditional method done by using lots of forms and reports resulted in less effective management because users need to use lots of storing files to store all the forms and reports. Furthermore, users have difficulties to search the past data. More than that, this manual method of course delays the job transferring between army units around Malaysia. Following the government's vision to achieve electronic government or e-Government which is one of the flagship application for vision 2020, Ministry of Defence Malaysia has take the brilliant initiative to realize this vision. This transformation of job management will bring deep effect for the department especially in reducing the human power, cost and time. Besides, this change will also drive the department management and administration to be more efficient and systematic.


Network Security plays a vital role in the field of Information Security. The number of attacks like Denial-OfService, Spoofing, Phishing, and Man-in-Middle violate the information security of the organisation. CIA TriangleConfidentiality, integrity & availability are the important aspects in the network security. Confidentiality deals with the amount of secrecy which is enforced to prevent unauthorized disclosure. Integrity is the accuracy and reliability of information, the information is not altered while transmission. Availability assures reliability and timely access of the data to authorised users. One more term, Non-repudiation is also an important term in which user cannot deny about sending the information. To achieve the security there are different devices and techniques available. Techniques include Encryption & Hashing techniques, Digital signatures, Hardening of Devices, regular internal and external Audits and the devices like firewalls, IDS, IPS , Honeypots helps to secure the network from various external attacks. The network security skills must be implemented to recognize different attacks and to build the network and security architecture. Internal and external security audits must be conducted regularly for risk assessment and risk management. There are various standards and Certifications exists. ISO 27001:2005 is a standard which helps to establish, implement, and control the information security management system. By achieving this certification organization can move towards continuous improvement in regards of security management. This paper summarizes the importance of network security, various attacks, the devices and techniques which will assist students in learning these important concepts and helps to manage the information security.


Aim. The aim of this work is to consider the semantics and functioning of predicative prepositional-case forms of a noun as an updated way of formalizing the semantics of a state. Methodology. The article reveals the reasons, prerequisites


The self-energy of spin waves in classical ferromagnetic chains in the presence of a magnetic field is investigated by a non-perturbative Green function approach which includes the leading effects of magnon bound states. The latter are found to be essential for the elimination of unphysical divergences of the usual perturbative result for the spin wave damping. The qualitative differences with respect to the quantum case introduced by the assumption of classical statistics are discussed. The authors present qualitative results for the damping at several fields and temperatures and indicate how these predictions can be tested by computer simulation experiments.


We analyze the nested derivatives of a function $\mathfrak{D}^{n}[f]\,(x)$ asymptotically, as $n\rightarrow\infty,$ using a discrete version of the ray method. We give some examples showing the accuracy of our formulas.


We have simultaneously determined the carrier concentration, mobility, and thickness of 4H–SiC homoepilayers with carrier concentrations of 1017–1018 cm-3 from infrared reflectance measurements with the wave number range of 80–2000 cm-1. A modified classical dielectric function model was employed for the fitting analyses. We have prepared n-type epilayers on p-type and n-type substrates for comparison with the values of the carrier concentration and mobility estimated from infrared reflectance measurements with those obtained from Hall-effect measurements and C–V measurements. Through these comparisons, we have confirmed the validity of the values estimated from infrared reflectance measurements.


THE NATIONAL QUESTION, seen most of all in disagreement about the competencies of the federation versus the republics, and compounded by the emergence of the aggressive Milosevic regime in Serbia, brought about the break-up of Yugoslavia. Economic forces certainly played their role; resentments about the Federal Fund for Less Developed Regions, disputes over stabilisation policy, tariffs and wages brought out intense rivalry among Yugoslav republics and their constituent nationalities. And Yugoslavia's macroeconomic instability and falling living standards in the 1980s made it clear that the existing political arrangements were inadequate for the tasks of economic management. Still, it seems fair to say that the ending of Yugoslavia was less a rational economic choice than the triumph of national and political passions. It remains useful to ask about the economic effects of separation. Given the continuation of war and diplomatic turmoil in the region, it may be too early to address this question fully. I limit the task by limiting the sample of countries to Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia.1 The other two ex-Yugoslav states, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Federal Yugoslavia, are excluded because of the war in the former and the comprehensive economic sanctions on the latter. Rather than attempt to decide whether the new states will be economically better off than ex-Yugoslavia, this article looks only at initial efforts to create a stable macroeconomic environment, in particular to bring inflation under control. The premise is quite rudimentary: inflation of 20% or more a month is incompatible with satisfactory economic performance.2 What are the keys to combating inflation? Monetarist theory would argue that an independent, inflation-fighting central bank is the crucial institution, and that a tight monetary stance is the most crucial policy measure. This article takes a broader view, inspired by post-Keynesian thought, arguing that the creation of economic institutions and economic policies to mediate distributional conflict is central. Stabilisationoriented monetary policy and institutions are only one element of macroeconomic stability in this view; a degree of political consensus over fiscal matters, and


Preface List of figures, tables and charts Part I. Theories and Methods: 1. Participation and democracy 2. The study of participation and its political context Part II. Patterns and Pathways: 3. Patterns of political participation 4. Individual resources 5. Group resources 6. Economic location 7. Personal factors 8. Political outlooks 9. Party and values 10. Who are the political activists Part III. Issues and Actions: 11. Agendas and political action 12. Do participants get what they want? The costs and benefits of participation 13. Learning from political participation Part IV. The Local Process: 14. The local political scene 15. Local participation 16. Local elites, activists and agendas 17. Participation and the making of the local agendas 18. The quality of local participation Part V. Conclusions: 19. Participation and democracy in Britain Appendices Bibliography.


Investigation into the appropriate storage period before sowing of cashew nut was conducted at Ibadan using jumbo (>16 g) and medium (6-8 g) - size nuts. Nuts stored at 0 (within 7 days of harvest), 1 - 12 month periods were sown at monthly interval into polythene pots containing 2 kg soil pot -1 at 2.5 cm depth in four replicates in the nursery for two sowing seasons. Data on days to seedling emergence and % emergence were monitored. Growth parameters of height (cm), stem girth (mm) and biomass (g) were taken at 12 weeks after sowing. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and ANOVA at 5% level of significance. Storage periods had significant effects on days to seedling emergence, percent emergence, seedling height and biomass. Days to emergence of nuts stored for 0, 1, 2, 7, 9 11, and 12 months were similar but significantly higher than other storage periods for both nut sizes. Percent emergence was higher in medium nut than in jumbo. Nut stored for 0, 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 11 months had similar % emergence significantly higher than other storage periods. Growth parameters and dry matter yield were higher for jumbo size. Cashew nuts retained viability and would emerge up to 11 months in storage. Jumbo size may be preferred to medium in terms of growth performance.


AIM\ To establish apoptosis models of hepatocytes in vivo and in vitro ,for further studying regulative effects of drugs on apoptosis hepatocytes METHODS\ (1) A model of hepatocyte apoptosis in vivo was established by injecting D GalN(700 mg·kg -1 )+LPS(1 μg·kg -1 ) intraperitoneally (2) Another model of hepatocyte apoptosis in vitro was established by primary hepatocytes coincubated with H 2O 2(0 05~0 4 mmol·L -1 ) In addition to the observation of the morphological changes, electrophoresis of extrated DNA and flow cytometry were used RESULTS (1)The elevation of TNF level and MDA content, the loss of Mn SOD activity, murine hepatocyte shrinkage, chromatin condensation and DNA fragmentation(DNA ladder) were induced at the end of 5 h after injection of D GalN+LPS in mice (2)The suppression of proliferation, the elevation of MDA content of hepatocytes from rats, chromatin condensation, DNA fragmentation and the increased apoptosis peaks were induced by H 2O 2(0 1 mmol·L -1 ,1 h) CONCLUSION The ideal models of hepatocytes apoptosis in vivo or in vitro may be separately established by D GalN+LPS or H 2O 2


The purpose of this article is to study the influence of the investment structure on achieving independence of the country's economy from oil resources. Based on data from 2001 to 2017, a statistical analysis of investments in the oil and non-oil sectors of the economy was carried out. The conditions of economic diversification to achieve the country's independence from oil revenues are considered. Priority directions for the development of the non-oil sector are identified that will ensure the sustainable development of the national economy.


Reinforced concrete slabs are designed based on the equilibrium or the yield line method. The equilibrium approach is recommended because the latter method gives an upper bound on strength which may require several interations before an acceptable solution is obtained. With the advent of digital computers, sophisticated numerical methods, such as the finite element method, are often used to obtain an equilibrium solution based on the theory of elasticity. An elasticity solution, in general, yields a set of three moments at any point, i.e., M sub x, M sub y, and M sub xy. Methods for designing flexural reinforcement in slabs analyzed elastically are presented.


It is possible to simulate a variety of classes of systems with a single model structure by describing the systems in terms of their information flows. The design and application of such a model is presented and discussed.


Tank element CGF is an indispensable part of military distributed interactive simulation system,its core is human behavior modeling and simulation.To achieve the goal of high resolution simulation and having community intelligence of tank company CGF,multi-agent architecture of tank company CGF is built,the HBR functions which is hold by all levels of agent are discussed,some models of important problem such as the models of multiple level regulation database,entire route programming,threat assessment of object are provided.With the method of coordinating among multi-agent based on the commanding relationship,the problem of HBR simulation of tank company CGF is solved.


We have been studying the indicators of the circulatory system (systolic pressure, diastolic pressure, cardiac rate, pulse pressure and cardiac output) of secondary school students of both sexes under conditions of study load in a form of hands-on training before and after lessons on different days of week in the beginning and in the end of the semester. Age of participants was between 18 and 20. While analyzing of the results we found sexual and circaseptal peculiarities of response of the circulatory system to the study load. We discovered that during the week after study load there is a decrease of arterial pressure, especially in girls, and furthermore these changes are more expressed in the first part of the week. These results are evidence of tiredness' developments and of lowering of adaptive process of students which need to take into account when drawing up the class schedules and planning the study load.


Utilization of plant growth promoting rhizo-bacteria (PGPR) potentially elevates crop productivity. Concurrently, our study was focused on isolating efficient PGPR strains from the rhizosphere of rice plants. This in order to assess its properties under both laboratory and glass house conditions accordingly. Five (5) bacterial isolates were screened out based on sets of qualitative tests. Among the bacterial isolates, UPMRB9 were selected due to higher production of plant growth promoting traits:-1) nitrogen fixation, 2) phosphate and potassium solubilization, 3) indole-3 acetic acid production as well, 4) siderophore and hydrolyzing enzyme production. The isolates were later identified based on 16S rRNA sequence by which known to be Bacillus tequilensis. Subsequently, this potential isolates were inoculated to rice seedlings under control environment (glasshouse conditions). The results amply that seedling biomass was 38.2% (BRR1 dhan67), 38.5% (Putra-1) and 33.9% (MR297) higher in compare to uninoculated control. Similar goes for seedling height at 22.5%, 20.2% and 20.0% higher whilst total chlorophyll content was 22.5%, 20.2%, 20.0% higher respectively. The relative increase of nitrogen for the rice variety BRRI dhan67, Putra-1 and MR297 were 34.38%, 99.65% and 52.22% accordingly; phosphorous was 442.7%, 104.9%, 140.7% accordingly and potassium was 41.5%, 45.8%, 153.7% accordingly. Therefore, the isolates of UPMRB9 could be considered as a potential bio-fertilizer source; yet further evaluations are necessary particularly on its performances under field environment.


We give a method for obtaining states of massive particle representations of the two-parameter deformation of the Poincare algebra proposed in Refs. 1–3. We discuss four procedures to generate eigenstates of a complete set of commuting operators starting from the rest state. One result of this work is the fact that upon deforming to the quantum Poincare algebra, the rest state is split into an infinite number of states. Another result is that the energy spectrum of these states is discrete. Some curious residual degeneracy remains: there are states constructed by applying different operators to the rest state which nevertheless are indistinguishable by eigenvalues of all the observables in the algebra.


Summary Non-destructive methods to determine leaf areas are a several models for estimating the leaf area in persim useful tool in plant physiology and agronomy re- mon. A linear model having leaf length x width as the search. Determining the leaf area in persimmon independent variable (LA = 3.83 + 0.69LxW) provided (Diospyros kaki L.f.) involved measurements of leaf the most accurate estimate (R2=0.98, MSE=14, length and width. A two-year investigation was carried PRESS=32843) of leaf area in persimmon in 2006. Val out during 2006 (on twelve genotypes) to develop a idation of this model in 2007 on one other genotype model and in 2007 (on one cultivar) to validate this gave a close correlation and a high R2 indicating that model and to estimate the leaf area across persimmon leaf area may generally be accurately determined from genotypes and environments in Italy. Regression anal- leaf length and width measurements in persimmon, yses of leaf area versus leaf length and width revealed


authors and of the cost to both authors and critics of judging writing produced under different conditions according to literary nationalist standards. We need to reexamine the assumptions about literary value that enable Hawthorne's narrative investments in humiliation to be redeemed by his humility, the reduction in our field of vision that enables us to ignore the dead judge in the house of fiction. [268-69]


Thispaper investigates the impact of import of manufactured goods on non-oil manufacturing sector output in Nigeria over the period 1975-2012. The analysis starts with examining the stochastic characteristics of the time series using Augmented Dickey Fuller and Philip Perron test. The test revealed that all the series are non-stationary at level but stationary at first difference. Using Johansen's cointegration test it was established that there is long run relationship between the series. A negative error correction coefficient was also obtained from the Vector Error Correction model. The study was prompted due to the rampant increase in importation of manufactured goods which affects the development of Nigeria's manufacturing sector development in particular and the nation's development in general. The result shows there is negative relationship btw manufacturing productivity, Log of Import of Manufactured goods, Log of Manufacturing Capacity Utilization and Log of Government Expenditure to Manufacturing sector. The study therefore recommends that proper policy be adopted by government and policy makers in curtailing importation of manufactured goods thereby reviving Nigeria's manufacturing sector.


Genechip is a hot new biotechnique developed rapidly in recent years. Genechip adopt photolithography technology of microelectronic technology in IC to fabricate high - desity genechip about glass substrate, it can bind thousands of oligonucleotide probe with surface of solid support. Genechip possesses the features of high - throughout, parallel, minimization and automation.


Few scientific questions are as intriguing and at the same time as relevant as those about the origin of life on Earth. Even fewer present-day phenomena are as related to its answer as that of photosynthesis and its origin. Even though photosynthesis is more commonly perceived as pertaining to the realm of biology, actually quantum molecular physics is the discipline most suitable to explore the transformation of electromagnetic energy into stored chemical energy and how living organisms evolved in order to take advantage of this energy transformation mechanism. The research article by Valleau and Aspuru-Guzik reported in ACS Central Science is a testimony to the far-reaching lengths that both seemingly opposite scientific disciplines can go when working closely together to elucidate the influence that quantum phenomena exert over the evolution of an autotrophic organismspecifically, the evolution of the Fenna–Matthews–Olson (FMO) complex, a trimeric pigment–protein complex which lies between the antennae complexes and the reaction center of the photosystem II of sulfur green bacteria, and whose primary function is to serve as a molecular wire transporting the excitons generated during light harvesting by the pigments toward the reaction center where the cascade of redox chemical reactions take place. The excitation energy transfer dynamics are required to be fast or otherwise it is lost; it is now known that this transport occurs with quantum coherence; that is, very little energy is dissipated as heat or radiation, making it an almost 100% efficient process. But how exactly did the FMO complex evolve to exhibit this remarkable feature of quantum coherence? Or even more puzzling, how did quantum coherence lead the evolution of FMO?


tween the heart and the resisting arterial stopcocks; and the effect of this strain upon the arteries was, in this case, a fatal accident. We have seen that the larger cerebral arteries had atheromatous walls; they were thus rendered brittle. An arterial branch within the right hemisphere gave way; and then the strong ventricle drove the escaping blood into the brain-tissue with a rapidly fatal effect. We tried to find the seat of the arterial rupture by injecting water into the middle cerebral artery; but, before doing so, a number of vessels had been divided by slicing the brain, and the water escaped in all directions ; the broken artery, therefore, could not be found. The insensibility of the left eye, and the complete relaxation of the arm and leg on the same side, are explained by the large clot in the right hemisphere. The convulsions were probably caused by the irritation of the brain while the tissues were being torn by the escaping blood. From the time wlhen the cerebral artery gave way, this poor woman's condition was holpeless. When she first came to the hospital, the cause of the coma coulld not be so certainly known as it now is. Brought in, as she wvas, by her companions from a public-house, it was probable enough that to alcoholic intoxication her insensible condition miglht, in part at least, be attributed. It was, therefore, right to pump out of the stomach the alcohol which it still contained. That being done, she was placed in bed, and the symptoms took their inevitably -fatal course. The case affords an example of w^hat we often meet with in practice-namely, the coexistence of some de(gree of alcoholic intoxi*cation w-ith sanguineous apoplexy. When the police meet with cases of this kind in the street, they sometimes make an incomplete, and therefore an erroneous, diagnosis. When a man in a state of more or less complete unconsciousness is found to exhale the odour of strong drink, he is generally believed to be simply drunk, and in a large proportion of cases the diagnosis is correct ; but it now and then happens that the drunkard is seized with apoplexy, and the result is an occasional death in a police-cell. In all cases of suspected apoplexy, look carefully for the signs of one-sided palsy or spasm in the eye, the face, and in the extremities ; and, in all doubtful cases of this kind, it is better to err on the safe side. It is better to allow a drunken man to recover his senses in the ward of a hospital, than to send an apoplectic patient to die in the prisoner's cell of a police-station.


The methods of dynamic testing of cars in laboratories for optimization research of cars in special controlled conditions at rolling stands were considered. The problems, which are solved with the help of rolling stands, include the fundamental research of the creep theory in the "wheel-rail" system; studying of derailment; modeling of curve passing; decreasing of noise and vibration in the "wheel-rail" system; optimization of braking and acceleration. In order to get reliable results, the rolling stock should be in operative condition. Testing stands RVTU are used to find the actual critical speed, including the roughness of the track. The appropriateness of rolling stand construction is proved, as it allows to carry out strength, static, dynamic, vibratory, fatigue and climate tests and to check the calculating methods of mathematical modeling of cars behaviour. The rolling stands will allow increasing the reliability of results and creating the competitive products of rail transport.


ABSTRACT Multitiered systems of support depend on screening technology to identify students at risk. The purpose of this study was to examine the use of a computer-adaptive test and latent class growth analysis (LCGA) to identify students at risk in reading with focus on the use of this methodology to characterize student performance in screening. Participants included 3,699 students in Grades 3–5. Three time points of administration (fall, winter, and spring) of the computer-adaptive reading measure were selected. LCGA results indicated 6–7 classes, depending on grade, informed by level and growth in student performance that significantly predicted failure on the statewide test administered at the end of the year. The lowest-performing classes had failure rates above 90% across all grades. The results indicate that identifying homogeneous groups of learners through LCGA may be valuable as an approach to determining students who need additional instruction. Practical implications and future directions are discussed.


The effect of the phase-change cooling mirror will depend on the fabrication. Compared to the different computing result through finite element method, the radialized shape is chosen to be the optimum design. For Si mirror, with 80mm in diameter and 12.5mm in depth, the optimum channel fabrication has the depth of 9.9mm and width of 0.4mm and the smallest thermal deformation is 0.37μm after 10s irradiation by a co-axial light whose diameter is 40mm and net absorbing power density is 7958kW/m~2.


In this paper we have found irreducible representations (irreps) of the algebra of partially transposed permutation operators on last subsystem. We give here direct method of irreps construction for an arbitrary number of subsystems n and local dimension d. Our method is inspired by representation theory of symmetric group S(n), theory of Brauer Algebras and Walled Brauer Algebras.


"Micromechatronic is the synergistic integration of microelectromechanical systems, electronic technologies and precision mechatronics with high added value."This field is the study of small mechanical devices and systems .they range in size from a few microns to a few millimeters. This field is called by a wide variety of names in different parts of the world: micro electro mechanical systems (MEMS), micromechanics, Microsystems technology (MST), micro machines .this field which encompasses all aspects of science and technology, is involved with things one smaller scale. Creative people from all technical disciplines have important contributions to make. A world now occupied by an explosive new technology known as MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical systems).


Ongoing efforts to combat anthropogenic climate change require a radical restructuring of power systems, grid development and the replacement of fossil powered plants by carbon neutral energy sources. Following the 2021 federal elections in Germany, political ambitions to comply with the Paris Climate Agreement have substantially increased in Germany. In the course of this, it is endeavored to further expedite the process of hard coal and lignite phase-out, ideally accomplishing the goal by 2030. It is further planned to accelerate the expansion of renewable energy sources, especially photovoltaics and wind power. In this work, a model of the European power system based on a data set of the German grid development plan for 2030 is developed. Detailed technical data of the large parts of the European grid on transmission and distribution level, generation structure and node level hourly renewable energy supply and load are incorporated. Resultant, a security constrained unit commitment economic dispatch model is derived that allows to approximate the European electricity market, redispatch and local curtailment. Results show, that the grid can in principle absorb higher shares of renewables than planned originally, and injections from German coal-fired plants can almost be eliminated. However, if not complemented by substantially high carbon prices, measures taken in Germany alone lead to carbon exports to foreign country.


Increasing amounts of evidence is showing that nitrification in the rhizosphere is very significant for the nitrogen nutrition of rice plants. A rhizobox with three compartments and subsequent soil-slicing after quick freezing was used to measure simultaneously the spatiotemporal variations of mineral nitrogen, nitrification and AOB in the rhizosphere soil of two rice cultivars Yangdao 6 (Indica) and Nongken 57 (Japonica) growing at the N level of 30 mg N kg -1. The results obtained can be listed as follows: the main nitrogen form was ammonium (NH+4-N) in flooded paddy soil and NH+4-N concentrations in bulk soil showed almost no changes with incubation time, but NH+4-N concentrations increased with the distance from root zone of both rice cultivars. The NH+4-N concentration of both Yangdao 6 and Nongken 57 in the zone 40 mm from the root at 51 days after sowing, for example, achieved 13.8 and 14.6 mg kg -1 soil, respectively. However, the nitrate (NO-3-N) concentration decreased significantly with the development of the incubation time, although the distribution of NO-3-N was even in the bulk soil. The average NO-3-N concentration for both cultivars was 0.05 mg kg -1 soil. When the two varieties were compared, the NH+4-N concentration was almost the same, while NO-3-N concentration was significantly different at every sampling time. The nitrification activities of both rice cultivars increased with incubation time. Maximal nitrification activities were found in rhizosphere soil, followed by those in the bulk soil and in the root zone in every sampling. In the rhizosphere the nitrification activities decreased with increased distance from the root. The maximal nitrification activity measured at 44, 51 and 58 days after sowing of Yangdao 6 and Nongken 57 rice cultivars was at a distance of 6 mm and 2 mm from root zone, respectively. The maximal nitrification activity values measured were 0.88 and 0.73 mg kg -1 h -1, respectively. The AOB in the root zone, rhizosphere (0~4 mm away from root zone) and bulk soil (4 mm away from root zone) for both rice cultivars increased during the growth periods. The AOB in the root zone was always the lowest, while that in the rhizosphere soil was the highest in both cultivars. In these experiments, the nitrification activities measured were significantly proportional to AOB (r=0.86, p0.01). The nitrate concentration, nitrification activities and AOB of Indica were always higher than those of Japonica rice.


Summary Bronchial lavage in intractable severe asthma, as mentivned by anglo-american autors, is employed in 16 cases since 1969. Theory and results are discussed. These new methode of therapy seems to be of great value. Endoscopy 3 (1971) 152-153


In this paper a subclass of line figures, which are finite unions of arcs, is considered. We call such a figure a form. To each form a numerical sequence related to the Euler characteristic of the underlying space of the form is attached. We prove that a form can be decomposed into simple ones. On the basis of this decomposition, to each form a matrix, as a way of arithmetization of the structure of the form, is attached. Finally, this leads to a semi-topological classification of forms. Then, invariant properties of this classification are taken as a basis for character recognition.


Although a number of other interesting contributions are included (on the vocation of the missionary Bartolome de las Casas, and suffering as a missiological theme), the bulk of the book is given over to reflections on missiology and China. All are original to this volume save two (an address by Ding Guanxun at the 1986 Nanjing Conference and a 1984 interview with Jonathan Chao and Ralph Covell). The book makes genuine efforts-and succeeds-in looking at China from Roman Catholic, as well as conciliar and evangelical Protestant, perspectives. Roman Malek's summary of the issues facing Roman Catholics regarding China is among the best that I have seen. Justus Freytag has a contribution on the experience of China for a renewed understanding of mission theology. Philip Wickeri also gives an extended presentation on the Amity Foundation and offers some reflections on what kind of theology the work of the Foundation entails. In addition to the longer articles, there are a number of briefer reports and testimonies. The report on different China study groups in Europe will be especially helpful for North American audiences. In addition, at least a dozen recent theological books on China are reviewed. For anyone interested in how the West is reacting to China these days, this volume gives a good overview of what is happening in Northern Europe, especially (but certainly not exclusively) in Protestant circles. It will be a valuable addition to a China watcher's library.


Abstract We consider the problem of deciding whether or not a given positive Borel measure μ on the n -dimensional torus T n is S-determinate, which means that μ is entirely determined by the subset of its Fourier coefficients {μ( k ), k  ∈  S }, where S is an arbitrary subset of Z n containing 0 and with the property that − k  ∈  S whenever k  ∈  S . We give necessary and sufficient conditions for S -determinacy and show that, when S is a finite set, the validity of this property can be verified algebraically by an algorithmic procedure involving trigonometric polynomials with spectrum in S vanishing on the support of μ and satisfying certain positivity properties.


where w(S) is the total weight of all edges between vertices in S and w(S, T ) is the weight of the edges between S and T . By definition, relatively few edges leave a sparse cut compared to the edges that are contained within the vertices of the cut. As such, sparse cuts can be used to effectively divide a graph into multiple parts. In this way, finding multiple sparse cuts is related to finding clusters in a set of data points. Since the classic sparse cut problem is NP-hard and has applications in data analysis and image processing, approximating the sparsest cut has been an area of active research. Spectral methods are theoretically appealing for generating graph cuts due to Cheeger's inequality, which bounds the conductance of a graph using the second smallest eigenvalue of the normalized Laplacian of a graph.


This article aims at describing the Balinese suffix -an and -in and their morphological processes. In general, an affix can function as an inflection or derivation. But, it is not the case with the Balinese suffixes -an and -in ; they can function, either as inflectional or derivational suffixes. As derivational suffixes - an and -in have various meanings and functions, depending on the types of root the suffix is being attached to. Suffixes –an and -in if they are attached to root which ends in consonant, the form does not change, and if it is being attached to root ends in vocal it as an allomorph -nan and -nin as in the words: gede (big) + -an becomes gedenan (bigger than) an jumu (start again) + -in becomes jumunin /being started again (Warna, et.al, 1983). The data of this article were gathered from three Balinese short stories` in Katemu ring Tampaksiring` (Sanggra, 2004). The research applied the qualitative-descriptive approach. The theory of Understanding Morphology (Haspelmath and Sims, 2010) is applied to give clear description of the word formation of suffixes -an and –in and the meanings occurred after  the suffix is being attached to the root.


A cellulase from Bacillus subtilis C-36 was isolated and purified,by means of ammonium sulfate precipitation,followed by chromatography on Sephadex G-75 and Sephadex G-100.Analysis shows that the purified cellulase is CMCase.SDS-PAGE shows its molecular weight is about 35kD.The optimum temperature is 65℃,and the optimum pH is pH 6.8.The cellulase can be inhibited by Zn 2+,Pb 2+,Fe 3+ and activated by Ba 2+,Fe 2+.Its Km for CMC-Na at 50℃ and pH 6.8 is 0.34g/L.


The publication deals with the Coleophoridae known for Jordan, a country of which very few species of this family are known. The study of undetermined specimens preserved in the NHMUK allowed the discovery of two new species, which are described in the publication: Coleophora iordanica Baldizzone, sp. nov. and C. ratamensis Baldizzone, sp. nov. Furthermore, on the basis of the examination of the male genitalia of the holotype of C. ghorella Amsel, 1955 it is hypothesized that it is probably a junior synonym of C. hospitiella Chrétien, 1915, but the conditions of the genital preparation made by Amsel do not allow to establish it with certainty.


In the Rede Lecture which he delivered in 1878 Clerk Maxwell wrote : ' The special educational value of this combined study of music and acoustics is that more than almost any other study it involves a continual appeal to what we must observe for ourselves.' It had been the defect of musical theory in the preceding century or more that it had continually failed to make this appeal. If, however, we go to earlier days still, to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, before Rameau (1683-1764) ' discovered ' the so-called chord of nature in the harmonic overtones of a musical note, we find a different story. True, we find the curious-minded speculating, as the Pythagoreans had done, about the fundamental nature of music ; but we do not find them laying down the law for composers, as the English neo-Pythagoreans attempted to do in the nineteenth century. From this point of view, as well as from that of the history of acoustics, some of the early papers in the Philosophical Transactions are as significant as they are interesting. Two of these papers appear, at first sight, to be primarily scientific. Their importance in the history of musical theory will emerge later in this paper.


Malawi is a socially conservative country with a complicated dependence on donors. The treatment of same-sex sexuality in the nation reflects these factors. Homosexuality in Malawi is disparagingly conflated with western decadence and the nation's debate on gay rights convolves homosexual acts, homosexual identities, urbanisation, westernisation and secularism. This article will combine observations from 11 months of living in rural Malawi and an analysis of the major Malawian newspapers between 18 May and 20 October 2012, a period where gay rights was a major news issue. It will explore why the arguments found in Malawian newspapers in favour of removing laws against same-sex sexual activity were unconvincing to rural Malawians and why both rural Malawians and the media perceived a conflict between homosexuality and a rurally embedded static Malawian culture. The article will argue that two factors of rural Malawians' understanding of homosexuality clash with donor concepts of gay rights: their understanding of homosexuality as an 'act' rather than an identity and rural Malawians' belief that homosexuality is an imposed western artifice. It will also demonstrate that these understandings are entrenched by the heavy-handed actions of donors and a gay rights discourse based on a homosexuality different to the one rural Malawians understand.